being home for a wee bit more than a week now, it has become super clear that there are some LOVELY perks to living life in one single home, as opposed to a life spent driving mile after mile on the open road, living off of string cheese and diet coke, gazing at miles of strip malls and strip joints, food carts and food marts, cow pastures and cowboy races….

some of the most fabulous perks include:

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eating food out of my own fridge whenever i’m hungry

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shopping at our local farmers markets. and actually having said fridge to put all the yummy produce into.

gazing out longingly at our gorgeous mountains in the distance

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baking superfluous treats and treasures.

and perhaps most fun, spending precious minutes and hilarious hours with the fabulous friends that luckily pepper my life

but for all the fabulous pluses (and the wonderment of once again sleeping in MY VERY OWN BED!!!), life at home is super quiet. and the scenery does very little changing. and while i love having my precious car back, i miss the joy of steering a vehicle that didnt struggle with a power steering system that is 100,000 miles old. life at home is comfortable, if also constricting. safe, but unchallenging.

after nearly 21,000 miles on the road, there are minutes i long for the freedom of the highway and the adventure of the hidden bend in the path.

but one doesnt always need to leave home to forge new waters. and so a new adventure has already begun — perhaps even scarier than traversing the country eating yummy food and meeting amazing people. an adventure that unfolds in my very own apartment, gazing out my very own window, hoping to find the words to illuminate this crazy convoluted journey into some kind of a cohesive story…

how on EARTH do you write a book? how do you take those reams of empty paper and somehow fill them up with words that are funny and poignant, telling and crazy all at the same time? how do you quiet the inner critic that constantly screams ‘NO ONE CARES ABOUT ONE MORE CROISSANT!’?

i have no answers to any of these questions. none. whatsoever.

i just have lots more questions, really.

but i’m stoked about this new adventure. maybe even more than the last one. stoked to be scared. and to dive into the unknown with my eyes squeezed way tightly shut. and to my darnedest try to whip up one treat of a tale…

the goal is a finished manuscript by christmas. cross all your fingers. and maybe your toes, too. its going to be one heck of a ride

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Friends, i have been to a lot of food-oriented places on this summer-of-grand-adventures. And lots of people have also been AT many of these foody type places (remember the CRAZY line for the lobster rolls? The packed cooking class in santa fe? The unending wait for the cheese samples at the Oregon-based Tillamook factory???), but NOTHING compares to the number of people enjoying this gorgeous day at ben and jerry’s — i am NOT exaggerating when i tell you there were probably 1,000 people there during the brief two hours that i spent eating amazingly creamy ice cream and touring the back-of-the-house to see just where the crunchy mix-ins are whipped into the fabulous vanilla bases… with a $3 dollar tour of 50 people every ten minutes, i can only imagine how happy ben and jerry actually are these days…!

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And while the home-of-all-things-specialty-ice-cream is perched in a gorgeous location, and staffed by some of the friendliest people i have ever met, and covered with way fun ben and jerrys signage and trinkets, it really is just a big-ole-ben-and-jerrys-ice-cream-parlor-that-happens-to-also-have-a-wee-factory-attached. You go on a 10 minute tour. You walk through a gift shop packed to the gills with ben-and-jerrys t shirts and water bottles and ice cream bowls and tragic magnets. And then you go order your fave ben-and-jerrys ice cream treat and eat it outside with your family while smelling the amazingly fresh and sweet Vermont air. And then you are done. and for this, people come from AROUND THE WORLD to participate. Its incredible! Talk about food having a powerful magnetic draw!

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But at the end of the day, it seems to speak volumes — people are willing to travel far and wide to find food that is special…food that is creative and fun and different. Food that is socially conscious (ben and jerrys sources every gallon of their milk from a local Vermont small-farm dairy co-op and gives millions of dollars a year to fabulous non-profit organizations…). Food that is created with great love by people who are well compensated for their efforts (did you know that every person working at ben and jerrys gets to take home 3 PINTS of ice cream after every shift!!! That is reason enough for me to start packing the uhaul for a Vermont relocation!!!!). food that is the true American story —– two grade school buddies, always the slightly roly-poly boys who stuck together because they loved meatball subs more than dodge ball, tragically ‘failing’ at the traditional trajectory of life (jerry applied to nearly hundreds of med schools to be systematically denied by every single one!), who one day had the courage to sign up for a $5 correspondence course in ice cream making from penn state. Its been over 30 years now, and their wee ice cream stand now dominates the international ice cream market. Food created with passion and love, committed to causes that mean something to the people we love, always wins.

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Just ask the 1000 people licking their cones of cherry garcia in the Burlington countryside.

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passing the cambell estate (yes, yes, of the soup company family dynasty), and one of the many stewart estates (yeppers, that would be Martha and all her crazy dogs!), one is amazed at the striking visual  juxtaposition of life in this tucked away community — the mega rich summer folks hunkered down right next to generations-old lobstering families. In little coastal towns that dot the entire shoreline, stores sell ice cream to day-cruise-trippers and tar-dipped-lobster-traps to local lobstermen, ticky-tacky-tshirts to weeklong visitors and motor oil to fisherman. There is truly something for everyone.

If you love to boat, come to maine. If you love to fish, come to maine. If you love to play outside/hike/camp/read books while lounging in Adirondack chairs/stare off into space at the most gorgeous scenery/shop for french-canadian antiques/really do just about anything to escape from the crazy hustle of metropolitan life… then come to maine. As quickly as you possibly can. Honestly, you might not want to leave…

but most importantly, if you love lobster, come to maine.

In my wee mind, i had imagined maine to be simply TEEMING with lobsters. I even peeked over a gorgeously covered bridge to check the very edges of the coastline to see if the lobsters were just ever-so-quickly crawling up the rocky ledges and into the arms of the next desiring eater. Sadly, no such self-sacrificing lobsters were spotted. The truth is, lobsters are INCREDIBLY abundant in these frigid waters — you just have to know where to find ‘em.

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Enter the maine lobsterman. Tall (these boats are not small. Pipsqueaks like sisterlove and me need not apply for jobs aboard the vessels in these waters.). Normally quite burly (i’ve told you, its freaking COLD out here for like 80 percent of the year!). and extremely strong (a full lobster trap, or pot if you are speaking like a true local, can weigh up to 100 pounds…ones gotta have some fortitude to be able to haul that outta the depths of the ocean to claim his bounty!), these men (yep, like 98 percent or so of all lobster fisher-people are men still to this day…) know these rocky waters better than they know the roads that lead to Portland. They know where the rocks are the craggiest, and thus where the lobsters like to feed and hide. They know where the cannels are the deepest, and thus where the water is the coolest. And they know where their pots have been hauling in lobsters for centuries — measured to length (not too small, nor too big —- gotta protect both the babies and the fabulous big-ole-breeders) and sighted for eggs and brought to market for monies to feed their families and fuel their boats and protect their livelihoods.

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So after an incredible afternoon checking traps and measuring body length, it was time for a quick snack —- and the snack of choice in down-east maine is most certainly the lobster roll.  Like most things in this world, you ‘kinda’ get what you pay for. Clearly lobster is a luxury food item, and thus comes at a luxury price — one knows that going into this kind of eating treat. But what one does NOT expect is a line for a lobster roll to be nearly TWO HOURS long. Yes yes, you heard that right, 2 HOURS for a wee small hotdog bun, lightly toasted and filled with a small handful of shredded lettuce, topped with the delicate meat from a scrumptiously fresh maine lobster and finished with a schmear of mayo or a cup of decidedly-dripping melty butter. (A word to the wise, NEVER come to a local lobster stand that has just been featured as the cover story in the new york times the day before. I’m sure that lobster roll was simply amazing. I would have LOVED to sample their culinary wares. But two hours?!?! Are you KIDDING me?!?!? the wee precious stand just across the street did just fine, thank you very much. With the amazing-ness of fresh lobster, it’s just hard to go too far wrong…)

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It is so dang clear why the luxury-lobsters choose this desolate spot as their home of choice as well — with crystal clear waters, abundant food supply, and lobstermen who care so deeply about the sustainability of their fishing practice as a means to protect both the lobsters and the generations of lobster-lovers to come, maine simply proves deliciously ideal…

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But the food in ipswich, massachusetts is some of the yummiest tasting i have ever had.

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Clams. Full-bellied Ipswich clams. Pulled fresh from the bay just a few miles down the road and flash-fried-lightning-fast in the lightest of cornmeal batters (they say it’s the evaporated milk dunk that helps the super light batter stay stuck. Gotta give it to ‘em… these things are out of this world…). Served piping hot, like scald-the-roof-of-your-mouth-like-pizza-cheese hot, over a bed of salty onion rings. Tartar sauce for the weak. Eaten outside with the rest of the northern massachusetts beach-going population on a Saturday morning.

perfection.

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Blackberries. Grown on bushes as far as the eye can see on the back edge of a farm that has been in continual use since 1634 (one of the oldest continually-used farms in the COUNTRY!). picked at the deepest of purples and nearly the size of walnuts. Sweet and tart and still warm from the late july sun. when mixed into my absolute-most-favoritest-greek-yogurt i was left speechless.

Unreal.

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And blueberries. Never my favorite fruit, but for some reason up here even these little radiant gems tasted pretty darn good. Still kinda mushy inside, but i can only imagine them tucked into a platter of cornmeal pancakes and drenched with creamery butter and local maple syrup (think i’m hungry for breakfast right about now?!?). plucked off of row after row of mesh-covered-bird-proof bushes (these growers have gotten something right in the past 400 years!), these powder-covered beauties barely made it to the slightly dilapidated wooden ‘check out’ stand.

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I still have no clue why the food in ipswich tastes so freaking delicious. I have my suspicions that it has something to do with the time it sits in transit — the big zero. Pick blackberry, place in mouth. Time in transit – nothing. Gather clams, drive 4 miles to clam shack, fry and serve. Time in transit – barely 5 minutes.  In a country where the average carrot travels nearly 1800 miles (lord how long must that take!!!) to arrive on our dinner plates, its no wonder that taste is often sacrificed in travel translation.

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To have time to pick your own lunch is a total luxury, i get that. but on a gorgeously quiet saturday, overlooking the glistening massachusetts waterways, i can think of no better way to spend the morning…

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(seriously, if you have not traveled to the living history museum at plimoth plantation, it is TOTALLY worth your time — while they do their best to address the dynamic faced by both native american and european cultures living in such close proximity, the native wampanoag homesite is markedly smaller than that of the european settlers. Getting past the discrepancy of both size and information, the museum and the costumed interpreters do a wonderful job telling the ‘true’ story of life in the mid 1600’s on the shores of the atlantic in northern new england. Life was complicated and difficult, and they spare no energy in reminding us how different things really were back then. If i saw one more dirt covered bed i thought i might lose it…  Animals run free. Fires are burning year round. People are cooking and weaving and making barrels. Its super interactive and super informative — totally worth a day trip from your cape cod vacation )

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Some morsels learned from the day-trip-to-the-past:

1)      People brought olive oil to the new world on the mayflower! OLIVE OIL!!! Can you believe it?!!? i had NO CLUE our oil-of-choice-today was so popular some 400 years ago! To see a woman dressed to the nines in colonial garb frying up some pancakes in the most extra virgin of olive oils was amazing! (i guess i never realized how vital oil is for community success —- from the olive oils of the napa valley (and the Massachusetts colony!), to the whale oil of new Bedford, the corn oil of the southwest, and the refined oils used today in abundance, oil is such a crucial element to the success of peoples around our country…)

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2)      It took a REALLY long time for people to realize that kitchens DO NOT BELONG inside homes. I cant even tell you, but the kitchens in these colonists home were simply corners of their houses with fires in them. Literally. No fire places. No real chimneys. Nothing to protect the wee babies from toddling right into the fire-pits. Just a corner of the house sanctioned off to build a daily fire for warmth and light and cooking. Nothing could be more terrifying. It makes SO MUCH SENSE that lawmakers in the 1800’s finally put it on the books that it was illegal to have kitchens inside homes, and as such everyone began building separate kitchens behind their physical houses. (after living in a college dorm for 4 years, if i had to go outside at 3am to the sounds of alarms blaring for one more popcorn ‘fire’ i might have ended someone…. Perhaps we should go back to this kitchens-as-not-a-part-of-the-living-space after all…)

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3)      Its no wonder that the colonists and the native peoples were so thin — they worked super hard from sun up to sun down, and they originated the atkins diet! Protein everywhere! Truly the mainstay of their diets, most people living at plimoth ate tons of meat — oysters and fishes from the bay, deer and bear from the forests, wild birds and small mammals from the fields, beans and peas from the harvest. And while they did grow massive fields of domesticated corn, much of that growth went to feed the animals and/or make a thin breakfast-ish gruel. (As a meat-lover myself, perhaps i could have gotten used to the life-of-drudgery if only for a plate of the freshest sea oysters?! yeah right.)

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They say people don’t miss things they don’t know exist (hence i guess the lovely puritans certainly didn’t long for the glory of air conditioning!). but i cant imagine all the things the colonists must have surely missed from their days in Europe — friends and loved ones, community gatherings, access to endless produce growers, and the list goes on and on… and as for me, winding down the summer-of-culinary-adventure, i have totally missed those exact things as well. To travel across a sea, or across a nation, there are still moments when the pull from home is tantalizingly strong — even when you know the adventure is worth every moment.

I’m just super glad i didn’t have to do mine in a woolen hoop dress

and there are some cities known for 5-michelin-star-food.

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and then there is boston — tucked on the map for its 300-year-old love affair with colonial foods – most scrumptiously baked beans and creamy clam chowder. Recipes handed down from family to family, full of foods gathered from the bountiful bay or the generous grasslands surrounding the teensy city that was the original colonial footprint of boston proper. Cooked low and slow, these dishes fed the generations that would become the paul revere’s and the john adams’ and the local men and women who would call the new American their new home.

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to walk the streets of boston is truly a journey back in time (sisterlove and i nearly peed our pants when we popped out of the subway and spotted paul revere himself taking a quick ‘hidden’ smoke break behind the turnstyles). Every cobblestone road leads to a new stop on the journey towards American independence — from burying grounds of the revolutionary war, to churches vital in spreading pre-internet-pre-social-networking ‘viral’ messages, the streets of boston (unlike any other city, except perhaps colonial Williamsburg) tell stories — stories of people exhausted by tyranny, stories of people reved up for change, stories of people caught in a time and a place and with a cause at hand.

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And it wasn’t only English tyranny that pissed off the colonists — many were IRATE about food price gouging (some things never change, huh?!?!). for in colonial boston, the concept of ‘grocery store’ was totally foreign. If you grew produce, you loaded it up each morning on your cart and pedaled it door to door like any other traveling salesman. As the grower, you picked the neighborhoods you traveled to, you decided which types of produce you were going to bring, and you set the price for every single carrot. And often, depending on the perceived wealth of the neighborhood in which you were selling your wares, the prices would vary accordingly — more expensive houses equaled more expensive cabbages. By 1742, the vegetable-buyers of boston had had enough, and built Faneuil hall, boston’s first ‘grocery store’ (ok, ok, to be honest it was more like a daily, covered, designated-building farmers market, as each purveyor had their own stall from which to sell their veggies or meats or bakery products… but still….).

the people rejoiced — finally, competition in produce pricing!

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And yet remaining true to their revolutionary ways, the building wasn’t solely about buying and selling food. instead, it was seen as a place where community gathered. A place where men and women came daily, where they interacted with each other on friendly commercial terms, and where they sought nourishment — both physical and mental.  And so on the top floor, faneuil hall became the site for some of the greatest debates in american history – a location to discuss what mattered most deeply to the boston colonists – freedom.  With baskets laden full of clams and potatoes and rye bread, colonial Bostonians discussed the plans for independence. Over crocks of chowder and bowls of beans, Bostonians charted out maps and transitioned tactics to gain their own voices in the country that they had nearly given their lives for (my LORD so so so many people died of terrible diseases here in coastal new England in the 18^th century it’s a wonder there were even enough people left to put a revolution together…).

from the humble bowels of a grocery store came a brand new life.

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And still today, over steaming bread bowls overflowing with clam chowder, hocked from hundred of carts throughout the city, bostonians discuss the deeper meanings of life — like, will the socks win the pennant? is the drive out to the cape going to take 17 hours this Friday? and, can i really pah-k my cah-r in hah-vad yah-d?

Why, you may ask??

Whales.

And oil.

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beautiful whales. ginormous whales. Whales that lumber through the ocean, sucking up million of pounds of krill and singing their lonesome songs. By the mid 1700’s, the new bedfordians realized the hotbed of whales they were sitting on (given their fabulous deep water harbor and their proximity to the naturally occurring north to south whale migration patterns that ran down the Massachusetts coastline) — and saw the writing on the wall.

Whale oil + high demand for burning fuel = potential for tons of cash flow.

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And so they hunted. For hundreds of years, seamen boarded their ramshackle boats here, paying their last pennies for the right to hopefully bring home barrels of oil and pounds of blubber —- many made absolute fortunes, most lost everything when ships wrecked or storms took the plunder. Life chasing a 40 ton sperm whale was certainly not for the faint of heart, or fearer of adventure (herman melville penned moby dick here in new bedford – and as you walk the streets, you can feel the characters still alive and thriving in this beautifully preserved national park of a town…)

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I’m not going to lie – i struggle with the idea of hunting whales. i am overtaken with their intelligence and their grace and their sheer size and role in the food chain. i adore watching them breech and dive and swim effortlessly in their family groups. i abhor the idea of killing such beautiful creatures. And yet as a meat eater (my goodness you have seen me drool over so many scrumptious steaks and burgers and roasted chicken meals just in this wee cross-america journey), i realize that i am a player in this carnivorous lifestyle we as a people have created. Why does it somehow make sense in my teeny mind to kill and eat cattle but the idea of whales makes me irate and turns my stomach? Chickens are fine for slaughter but heaven forbid the right whale? Perhaps there is little logic in the patterns of the foods we consume on a daily basis? Perhaps we are simply creatures of habit and tradition – eating the foods of our forefathers, practicing the harvesting techniques of our grandparents, sharing the feasts that our peoples have enjoyed for hundreds of years…

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But it does make you wonder — am i ok with this food gathering practice? Maybe what is so disturbing about the new bedfordian (and really the current whaling industry that exists to this day) practices is how little of the whale they actually used, and how much of the life of this majestic creature went to waste. Blubber for oil was really the sole by product of the 40 ton life sacrificed. Rarely was the meat processed for commercial consumption. Rarely were the bones or the baleen or the bladder used at all.

Native peoples, harvesting whales at the same time in coastal Alaska, share stories of their experiences on whale hunts — whales were tracked simply by visual clues (at least we are all on an even playing field), brought in one at a time, and were honored with every inch of usable parts going to a viable home — meat was salted and stored for winter, skin was made into tents and boats, bones were used as building materials, tendons became twine, and baleen found their way woven into baskets. The whale was seen as a gift to the community, a gift meant to be honored and respected and valued. Yes, they killed whales. Probably hundreds and hundreds of whales over many hundreds of years. But the lives were not taken in vain, or lightly. The whale was seen as a part of the daily life cycle – a crucial element to the delicate balance created to keep us thriving on this planet for as long as we can…

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In a tucked-away dimly lit case, the new bedford whaling museum had a tiny 1700’s talisman hand-carved out of whale bone in the shape of a breeching sperm whale. When worn around a native seamans neck, the whale protected the hunter, realizing that the cycle of life was big and complicated — that sometimes we bring life into the world, and sometimes we take it out. But that we are part of a planet bigger than our crazy need for oil, be it whale or other kinds. and that sometimes the cost of this lifestyle is just too high. and that at the end of the day, the delicate dance is our destiny, too…

But after a series of horribly unfortunate events, including one passport being stolen in broad daylight whilst washing clothes at a NYC Laundromat, plans inevitably have changed and the winds of life have brought us gallivanting to cape cod…

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cape cod — known for its lifestyles-of-the-rich-and-famous air, its gorgeous coastline, and its scrumptious namesake libation – the cape codder (which also happens to be my most favorite drink-of-choice, the vodka cranberry). And while the traffic on 95 north was nothing short of atrocious, arriving at cape cod was like stepping back in time —- people are kind, they ride bikes, and they wave from front porch swings. All these transplanted new yorkers, who run from their snack carts to get just three more precious minutes in a the computer screen on Thursdays, take deep breaths here on Friday nights. A wee little spot of respite in the crazy busy new England corridor. Perhaps no anne of green gables, but PLENTY of spots for ‘vacation’ adventures….

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And so sisterlove and i have filled our days with seemingly endless culinary adventures (i’ve forced her to wake up every day at 8 am so as to not miss a minute of traipsing around these here unknown parts. While a true trooper, i know she is secretly plotting her well-timed revenge…) so if you are EVER planning a trip to the cape cod / martha’s vineyard area, here are some scrumptious hotspots NOT TO BE MISSED:

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1)      The lobster ice cream at ben and bills chocolate emporium in oak bluffs on marthas vineyard. Ok, i’m not going to lie, it kind of tastes like lobster death — cold and salty and really really buttery, the lobster is so frozen and hard and the ice cream is just kinda odd tasting — but you are in marthas vineyard for goodness sakes. And they serve LOBSTER ice cream!  Where else on this PLANET do you think you are gonna find this opportunity!?!?! Grab a scoop and a sense of adventure and just enjoy the craziness

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2)      Crab cakes overlooking the ruggedly fabulous coastline at faiths seafood shack and sushi bar on the cliffs at Aquinnah (yes, you know you are in marthas vineyard when there is a literal shack hand rolling sushi with lobster they just caught and steamed. But DANG its super tasty…). now, truth be told, I have been afraid of crab cakes ever since my day on the open crab waters with captain bill on his boat in smith island. I mean, there is just NO WAY any crab cake will ever taste as perfectly crabby, as sweetly fresh, as those little maryland monsters did…. But out here, at faiths, we snacked on a pretty close second —- TONS of meat, held together with little bits of roasted red peppers and a dollop of mayo. They tasted lovely, but the scenery is honestly what sells this place — amazing ocean views and even amazing-er sunsets at dusk…

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3)      Monday nights at lobster-on-the-lawn at st barnabas episcopal church in falmouth. I’m telling you, this is WORTH staying an extra night for Picture the entire wee town of Falmouth coming out to the vastly green church lawn, plopping down blankets and pulling out bocce games, forking over 15 bucks for a ginormous lobster roll/pickle in a bag/salty cape cod chips/icy soda/and a slice of lemon meringue pie all served in a brown paper lunch sack, and humming away to the tunes of the church organ piping away in the background. This, my friends, is true community on cape cod. Waiting until Monday, when all the tourists have gone home and local life has returned to its normal pace, falmouth locals catch up on the weekends gallivants, check in to see how big the grandkids have gotten, and gossip about husbands heart surgeries. There is zero air of pretention — no one flies in on private helicopters or pops hundred dollar bottles of wine, no one has secret service detail or white glove tableside service. In fact, there are very few tables. There are just families, who for generations have lived or summered in this little harbor town, eating lobster out of saran wrap and loving every minute of it.

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You could spend a lifetime on cape cod — in fact, many many do. And while it is known for its ‘touristy’ vibe, there are pockets of loveliness hidden in every corner – places where one can pop off the beaten path and find refuge from the masses, places where the sounds of the ocean drown out the sounds of the tourists, and places where creamy lobster is served to those who really know ‘everybodys name’ in small squares of crumpled plastic wrap.

Elementary school: jelly shoes that caused your feet to bleed (the lessons we teach our girl children about fashion at such a dang early age…), slap bracelets, scrunchies, the limited too

Middle school: horribly tragic looking oversized flannel mens shirts, writing on your chuck taylor sneakers with ball point pens (there must have been other trends in middle school. I just don’t think i was cool enough to know about them. Algebra and acne took up most of my time.)

High school: the Jennifer aniston haircut, those llbean tote bags with your initials embroidered on them (now this trend was HUGE for us at the northern-virginia-all-girls-school… i’m open to feedback that will couch this as a somewhat localized trend…)

And at the same time, running parallel to the pop culture trends in fashion and hair and boutique jewelry, there was a also a wee quiet foodie trending process occurring — trendy things like 1980’s fat free everything, whole grain pasta, diet sodas, atkins mania, organic growing, farmers markets, urban chickens…

Some trendy things should be buried whilst still alive and not resurrected no matter how strongly they pull. Polyester pants are a case in point. Mullets, fanny packs, and fat-free-cheese all fit easily into this category as well… But there are some trends that CHANGE YOUR LIFE. For me, this summer, those would be spanx (i cannot TELL YOU how fabulous these breath-takingly-tight-spandex-sucker-in-ers are after 90 days of eating your way around the country… a TREASURE TROVE!), and food carts.

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Now don’t get me wrong, i do truly enjoy sitting down in an actual-brick-and-mortar air-conditioned restaurant, having a server pour me a glass of ice water and write my order down on a wee steno pad, and being able to use the restroom whenever i so choose. Fabulous service plus fabulous services are a real treat, especially in the dead heat of summer in breeze-less manhattan. but sometimes restaurants get stale, and/or over-crowded, and/or somewhat boring in their menu selections. For those days when you are willing to brave the heat and the streets of midtown or the east village or red hook, food carts are TOTALLY the answer…

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Living in small-mountain-town-virginia, we don’t really have food served from carts (although i think i did see the first cart-like-spot just a few days before leaving town, but it only seemed to serve hot dogs – mere childs-play in the realm of food-cart-possibilities.) We have crepes served through a hole in the wall, but no carts. And yet carts are EVERYWHERE now — from coffee in Kalispell to pizza in Portland, people are bringing their extreme-and-creative culinary talents to the back half of wee airstream trailers and creating food dynasties. To date, i have snacked on  the following treats served from the back of a cart: crab-rangoon, banana crepes, chicken-on-a-stick, falafel, rotisserie-ed pork-loin, oatmeal ice cream, truffled pizza… and, as of yesterday, bbq pulled pork on a waffle and jamacian jerk chicken.

High quality cart-food is somewhat similar across the u.s. — really creative, really fast, limited in choices but abundant in flavors. Food is hot and cheap. Chefs are innovative and envelope-pushing — a luxury you have when your only overhead is an electric outlet and the monthly trailer payment. You will find creations being served out of the side of a cart wayyyyyyy before you could imagine them working on a michelin-rated dining room menu.

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But while the food is so similar, what amazes me is the striking difference in the community that surrounds the cart-grazing — you cross the country and everything changes. Take Portland. Carts are ubiquitous with the foodie scene — they are set up in pods of 10-to-12 divergently different flavor-serving carts around the city, are parked in permanent lots, and all surround a central ‘island’ of picnic tables. People come to their favorite carts every day. they order. They pay. And then they sit down at a table. Sometimes with friends, but often alone. And they linger. They chat with new acquaintances. They share stories and listen to conversations and make odd new friends. the carts are simply a tool for social gathering permission.

Then drive three thousand miles to new york. Carts are also amazingly yummy. And they are slowly-but-surely popping up all over the boroughs. But they are placed randomly on busy street corners where every 6 seconds you are nervous for you life as a taxi nearly pops the curb coming 80 miles an hour. People run to get in long lines, stand silently (or type voraciously on their i-phones) while waiting to order. Food is hurriedly (and horridly) packed into sytrofoam take-away containers and the masses quickly make their way back to their skyscraper office buildings. Now i didn’t follow anyone inside, but i’m willing to bet they are not running back to beautifully-decorated-light-filled-break-rooms to sit around for a 45 minute break to chat with friends about upcoming soccer games or last nights episode of so-you-think-you-can-dance. In new york, time is a luxury. people simply run. Everywhere. Food, even yummy creative innovative food from carts, is a means to an end. A quick path towards full-ness. It makes me sad to think about all that they are slowly missing out on…

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so in light of the food cart mania, i’m pushing a new trend — fast food slow. Fabulous fast food, served slowly and savored even more slowly — a tiny 30-minute break from the crazy world we have created of unattainable deadlines and insanely unreachable goals. A breather to fill us.

One smothered waffle at a time.

to brave the boiling heat to find the most scrumptious meatball in manhattan…

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(i adore new york city most of the time, but i get terrified when i leave manhattan, or even when i have to go off the grid in lower manhattan…. but today sisterlove and i fearlessly froliced in alphabet city and the lower east side which was full of streets-with-real-names-instead-of-alphabetic -symbols, but i was in no mood to actually cross a bridge-tunnel-ferry to traverse a brand-new-borough… i know, i know, i’m sure they have their fair share of scrumptious meatballs too, but today was just too dang hot for a journey towards the unknown…)

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Things to remember when setting out on a meatball manhunt:

-          Meatballs are often made of the less-than-choice parts of the cow/pig/turkey/tofurkey. Do not be afraid of ofal or feet or other parts ground up inside the succulent balls.

-          Meatballs do a whole meal make-eth. Trying to have four-to-five meatballs meals in one day runs incredibly close to being a protein overload.

-          Meatball restaurants, like their savory snacks within, are a tiny package with a big punch. Be ok waiting in line – the wait is TOTALLY worth the sweat dripping down the back of your silken summery dress.

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So the new york magazine put together a list of the eight best meatball places in the big city. strangely enough, most of them centered around the uber-trendy-kinda-hipster lower east side neighborhood…who would have EVER guessed that the oh-so-humble-meatballs was so happenin’ right now?!? And so from 10 to 5, sisterlove and i skedaddled from one winning joint to the next, savoring subs and scooping up singles and stopping only every-now-and-then to guzzle a diet coke or duck into a bodega to cool off in the arctic a/c blasts.

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Things that we so-dang-professionally-decided make meatballs truly amazing:

-          Tenderness is key. Don’t manhandle the meat to the point it’s compacted death.

-          Bathing the beauties in sauce is vital. Do not be afraid to smother the little gems with a spicy/salty/gooey glaze.

-          If you cover it in cheese, they will come.

-          One meatball is never enough. two are just a culinary tease. meatballs are made to be eaten by the foot-full —- on a sub roll, or tossed over braised greens, one must make the tummy-space for a good half-dozen of the spherical nuggets of goodness…

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At the end of the day, we had our fill of the slow-cooked-italian-wonders. With stops at four restaurants, and one tragically closed cart, our vote goes out to the new york magazine for being totally spot on — not a failure-of-taste-or-smell-or-yumminess in sight.

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But at the very end, it was the un-listed meatball that may have actually taken-the-cake — artfully presented with an old-school-pizzeria-kraft-grated-cheese-shaker on the top floor of a hole-in-the-wall midtown bar, the meatballs split with an old-lost-friend were the sleeper hit. No ny-times publicity. No shiny awards covering the walls. No pomp, or circumstance, or downtown pretention. Just fabulous ambiance, fabulous friends (both old and new!), and freaking-fabulously-tender meatballs served by the mound-ful…

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