Your favorite pro-bono food truck consultant will be part of a panel at an upcoming Institute of Culinary Education alumni event: Careers on the Move: Food Trucks, Pop-Ups and More. All the lessons we learned - from starting a small business to press to scarecrow theft - in two hours, split with dessert truckers, which is really a different animal. Isn't it? Better get yourself to ICE next Wednesday to find out.
Is the Montauk sunrise the first on the East Coast? It's the first in NY; we know that. Here's the sunrise over Lake Montauk, about three miles from the Point. You can catch a sunrise all year but this weekend is your last chance to have Greg's food, east end style (unless you're invited to next week's private events). Dinner Friday to Sunday. He has next to zero staff so it's mostly all prepped by him (braised pork belly; brined chicken for roasting), just like in the truck. And you know what that means: awesomeness. Happy Weekend.
Sara and four other judges tasted 18 bowls of Potato Seafood Chowder to choose an entrant worthy of the main Chowder Championship at the PEI Shellfish Festival.
The winner gets to stamp a little sticker all over their restaurant's menus and advertising declaring their chowder the best.
That means the award has the most value to PEI locals. Accordingly, perhaps, the top place always goes to one of them. So congratulations to Chef Aaron Ferril, The Selkirk (restaurant), Delta Prince Edward (hotel), Charlottetown, PEI. Your chowder was surely the best of the original 18.
Look closely (to where that fish is swimming) and you will see many many small white dots. They're bouys, marking the location of ropes or tubing or nets on which mussels or oysters are growing. You're looking at a farm in a bay in Prince Edward Island. It's gorgeous here.
But we're not a non-direct flight from home just to take in the scenery. In fact, the only scenery Greg has scene is the inside of a culinary school where today he's competing in the first round of the International PEI Shellfish Chef Challenge. Remember the mussels event? Coming up here was his prize. Yesterday at 3pm he was given the list of ingredients he's allowed to use, and this morning they're waiting for him. He has 40 minutes to wow the judges with one dish, which he created last night, in his head. If he's one of the top two, he'll be on stage at the PEI Shellfish Festival in a final heat.The weird thing is the shellfish he's using is not fresh. It's in cryovaced bags, and already cooked, and salted. They should have asked Sara where to get fresh fish in these parts; she's been driving all around, looking and eating. It's research, really, because she's one of the judges in the festival's PEI Potato Seafood Chowder Championship. Chowder she knows well. Here's another farm:
Pretty cool, huh? Canadian farmers (fisherman) lease acres of water from the government. The start-up cost for an average commercial-size mussel or oyster site is about C$150,000. There are thousands of farms, part of a half a billion dollar industry (country-wide; PEI is a province), yet they can't get fresh shellfish to the shellfish festival competition. Curious.
Stay tuned for updates and photos. And send good thoughts Greg's way. Thank you. Happy Friday.
Many things happening at Beach Street. Here's one: We're thinking Pop-Up Beach Street Sandwiches Restaurant in NYC. One night, maybe. Who wants on guest list?
Thanks to DZ for the amazing photo, not taken in NYC.
Sara's notatallsmart phone took this picture. Gorgeous, huh? Hard to abandon urban for rural. Last summer we attempted to merge the two, and though it was rewarding in many ways, and wonderful to be so well-considered by the Connecticut shoreline, New York City is the place for us. We already miss walking down to the water, and having Sara's parents as unpaid employees, but the opportunities in NYC are too great for us to ignore. Since moving back we’ve been busy with our individual and joint careers, lots of non-sandwich catering and cooking and eating and writing and working on a long term plan for Beach Street Sandwiches (permanent location). Nothing is finalized but the relationships we have here are compelling enough to keep us where the work and money and people are.
Three weeks ago we cleaned out the truck in preparation for summer. Now it seems we cleaned it out to try to sell it. Know anyone who wants a food truck in excellent condition? Training provided.
We thought it was the sub-zero temperatures, wind, and fatigue that made the tarp feel gigantic when we covered the truck and wrapped it for protection. Twice. But, as you can see, our tarp is about a square acre. That means unwieldy is an understatement. But it surely did the job. Devil Winter 2010-11 did no damage to the Beach Street Sandwiches truck. Thank you, mega-tarp, for a job well done.
Welcome back to Free Food Truck Consulting by Beach Street Sandwiches. Dear everyone sending email and calling: Wow. Doing what we can to respond and dispense our brilliant advice. Something all of you aspiring food truck (and cart) owners should consider: It's mid-April. The Friday of Memorial Day weekend is 42 days away. That's six weeks. If your food truck is ready to go, congratulations. If you're wavering between building new and buying used, Buy Used! Unless you're not in a rush to open.
"Imagine this is an informational session," a woman said to the frustrated person next to her. "You can't come in here expecting to accomplish anything."
She was talking about the NYC Licensing Center and she was right. Worth mentioning because of the number of people who come to BeachStreetSandwiches.com seeking "how to open a food truck in NYC" info. In fact, here's a link to the site's most visited post: How To Open a Food Truck in New York City.
As you can imagine, we eat sandwiches everywhere we go, because we love them and because we like to see what other people are doing. We had a feeling we'd be pleased at Il Cane Rosso. When sandwiches are made/created by chefs - Daniel Patterson (Coi) and Lauren Kiino (met DP doing a stage at Coi; was long time Chef de Cuisine at Delfina) - chances are high that 'feeling we'd be pleased' will be realized. It was. They were. We were. Chef-created sandwiches rock.
Pictured: Marin Sun Farms Slow Cooked Pork with chile-lime salsa, shaved fennel, and cilantro salad. And the Bay Bridge.
Does "Live!" imply "happening at this moment"? Because we want that title to mean "in motion" (has the characteristics of something living). So here it is... Chef Greg McCarty in motion...
You realize how unobservant you are when you finally start noticing things. Until we got into the vending business we paid scant attention to the arrivals and departures of New York City's trucks and carts. This is about 9:30am, Central Park South near 5th Avenue (Grand Army Plaza). The horses aren't even out yet (though the horse-protection-activists are). Notice the bag of ice. Upon seeing it Sara considered hugging these gentlemen and calling them brothers. Vendor civil wars (turf, primarily) be damned; we're all brethren.
'Cause you wonder where we are
And you wonder what we do
Are you somewhere feeling hungry,
or is someone feeding you?
Tell us how to win your heart
For we have some items that are new
But let us start by saying, we miss you too
...and we're doing private events...
Summer 2011: The BEACH STREET SANDWICHES truck is Closed. If you're looking for updates, changes, news, reincarnation possibilities, Twitter.com/BeachStSandwich is a great way to find us. We also update here: facebook.com/BeachStreetSandwiches.
If you're looking for food by Chef Greg McCarty, he's back in NYC. Stay tuned.
Thanks to all of our fans for wishing us back. Beach Street Sandwiches misses you too. We don't want you to go sandwichless without us so suggest you make your way to Deli Unlimited (1099 Boston Post Road, Guilford, CT, 203-453-2473). Some of our off-truck favorites are made there, and you can get gas too. Hee hee.
Vita Mix very pretty and the Vita Prep3 is sweet
and the fruit of Chef's labor is deliciousible to eat.
Thank you again to Vita Mix for the blender loan. Life is easier when you have the right equipment. Pictured: The making of Leek Puree. This is the one you want, says Vita Mix, and we could not agree more. As soon as we sort out 2010, we're going to start 2011 spending. Yea Section 179, one of the few stimulus incentives that actually applies to us, and helps us.
Yea! Your favorite Chef, Greg McCarty, just won best US Chef in a competition held in NYC at the International Restaurant Show. Know what that means? Besides what you already knew - that he is amazing, that everything he touches turns to deliciously edible gold? It means we're going to Prince Edward Island in September, sans truck, to the PEI Shellfish Festival.
So that's what we've been doing while the truck is closed. Plus sending out press releases with errors and typos (the brilliant writer gets very excited by the success of her incredible partner). Plus possibly finding a new wrap for the Breakfast All Day sandwich, and a 2-drink-holder-bag. Plus owning a Vita-Prep 3 for 24-hours courtesy of Vitamix. More about that to come. And videos! Thanks to KLT Productions. Stay tuned.
Still reading? How nice of you. It was Chef’s PEI Blue Mussels Stew, a dish made with miso and morels, that won Most Creative and Best Use of Mussels to confirm this top spot.