Food Trucking in Dallas

Austin has always been cool. To me at least. Austin has a lot going for it - nature, outdoorsy activities, unique shopping, and FOOD. In the past 10 years, Austin has been collecting and growing it's food truck scene, as have other large, 'cool' cities in the United States. Dallas is just now catching up. Within the last 6 months Dallas has adopted an ordinance allowing for mobile food units, aka Food Trucks. Go Dallas! It's about time.

Originally I heard about this news on Twitter. I came across a food truck reporting twitter feed, and the rest was history. Original Source: @BigDFoodTrucks
D Magazine is trying to catch up. End of story.

First Round
Il Cane Rosso "Food Truck" - Wood-oven grilled pizzas
I'm not sure who first tweeted about this "food truck," but it is definitely a "Portable Oven." It even says that on the Il Cane Rosso's Web site. So, that's was a letdown when we arrive on a weeknight to the Sigel's parking lot on Greenville. They were parked outside under the awning of the liquor and spirits store. We were told by the oven workers to go inside for a quick wine tasting, then peruse their menu before ordering. Once inside, the wine tasting folk told us they only had 4 dough balls left, and could only make that many more pizzas. With no wine in hand, we rushed back to the cash register to order a pizza quickly. Once we ordered, we started making conversation with the Pizza Maker and Manager. I said I was thrilled to come try the pizza and didn't know it existed before hearing about them on Twitter. The pizza maker asked if we wanted the dough recipe. We said sure. He said, "It's water, flour, salt and yeast," or something to that effect. I replied that's how pizza doughs are usually made, but I'd need the proportions in order to make it correctly. He said "yeah right" and went on making our pizza. Attitude much?
We went back inside to get away from Tacky the Pizza Maker, and looked over the selection of pear and raspberry liqueurs. I looked up after a while and the Oven Manager was holding up my pizza and shaking it towards us. No one came in to let us know it was ready. So after being told to go in, quickly pay, harassed about dough, etc., I was finished with Il Cane Rosso. Maybe I insulted them by saying I'd never heard of them, but that was no cause for rudeness. Plus, the pizza was overpriced and nothing fantastic.
Result:
Customer Service: 2
Taste of Pizza: 6
Price: 3

Stay tuned for the next Food Truck I try!

Tre Amici Closed

Nancy Nichols over at D announced that Tre Amici closed yesterday.




This is interesting to me because it was just last night that I was talking to Michelle about how I haven't heard anything good about this place. It just came as a super timely announcement, in my book.

Read more of Nancy's review here, on SideDish. http://sidedish.dmagazine.com/2010/06/08/tre-amici-in-dallas-is-closed/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dmagazine%2Fsidedish+%28SideDish%29

Friday

Today will be an awesome day.

Excitement!

May May Be A Fantastic Month

Happy May, everyone!

It's been almost a month since I last posted, but I'm here with tons of updates.

Apartment: Michael and I have officially moved into our apartment as of April 22nd, and I believe we have every box unpacked now. It's such a lovely apartment! We're really enjoying eating 'al fresco' for dinner on our patio by the lake. I've gotten to take my 'Berkshire' style, as I call it, of interior decorating to the next level, and I'm planning on sewing some extra accessories to tie everything together. When I get it all finished, I will certainly take photos!

Jamie: Since she's moving back to San Francisco in mid-May, Jamie came to visit us and Mom and Dad this past week. She stayed with us at the end of the week, and we had a blast! We went to a Texas Ranger's game on Monday night, met up for a bit on Wednesday, had dinner on Thursday night, cooked yummy delicious food and drank wine on Friday night, and went to the family reunion all day Saturday. And throw in shopping here and there. It was so much fun! I am sad she's moving back, but maybe now we can visit more often.

Family Reunion: All day this past Saturday we had the Grandma Brown family reunion at the Colin County Adventure Camp. It was great to see all of the family again. We had about 50 people attend, and ate some delicious food. The winners of the appetizer and dessert contest were Jamie with her Chicken Poppers (actually a renamed Pakistani dish) and Sherrie's Lemon Cake. I think food contests are the way to go for event participation.

Job: The job front for both Michael and I has or will be changing soon. Michael just accepted a position and started working for a new company in their HR department. He is now an HR Generalist at TGGT Holdings, LLC. He's really enjoying it so far, and is excited for the career advancement. My internship with D Magazine will be ending on the 28th of May, so I'll be free as a bird! I'm still working for HPB, too, so we shall see where I go from there. It's an exciting time!


I think that's everything! So much has been going on, and I'm excited for the month of May. I'll keep you updated.

D Magazine "Best Of" Poll (Yes, a plug.)

Attention all Dallasites! D is putting up their "Best of" polling for the next three months, and I'd like my friends and family to be some of the first votes! If you feel strongly about a restaurant (Craft!), bar (Old Monk!), sweets (Nothing Bundt Cakes!), or anything else, feel free to vote as much as you'd like. You can vote once daily.

Go here to make the magic happen.

Path to Success!

Today starts a new day. I'm getting back on the bandwagon, and trying to get my life in order. The other day I began a handwritten schedule of my week, and I've finally finished it. I've scheduled 55-60 hours of work, 3-5 hours of working out, 4-6 hours of study, and 3 hours of reading. I am planning on sticking to this schedule until the end of May, when my internship with D Magazine has ended. Then, I will reassess, and draw up a new schedule.

Do you feel this weather!? It's amazing! It's 65, the sun is shining, and there is a slight breeze in the air. I've opened my kitchen window (something I plan on doing more often once we move), and the cats have swarmed by it. It's their new hobby, evidently.

This Saturday I am hosting a Family Reunion planning meeting at our apartment. It might be the last time we have a group of people over before we move. Which brings me to another point: We're of course moving, but we have a place, date and plan now. We're moving April 16-19th to an apartment at Tonti Lakeside. It's snuggled between Walnut Hill Lane and Park Lane. I am really excited because not only will we be closer to both of my jobs, we will have a patio for cookouts/dinner parties, a bigger closet, the new Whole Foods around the corner, and Northpark Mall at our doorstep.

One other thing before I go. I didn't mention the debacle with the wedding cake at Rex & Jana's wedding from March 14. And yes, debacle is the totally correct word. As Martie was finishing the cake, she asked that Michael and I help put on the finishing touches. Which means I will be doing the finishing touches. I placed the cake topper on top, and finished with a circlet of roses around it. Little did I know there was a wooden dowel rod stuck right in the middle of the cake, causing the topper to not sit correctly on top. And it was ceramic. And heavy. You see where this is going. It toppled over, taking 1/3 of the top layer with it. We FREAKED, and just stood there for a second before I filled it with icing, and moved on. I added other decoration, trying to keep it together. Take a look at the finished product.

Also, it was a little warm in the room, causing the icing to melt a little. It was an amazing cake, though. Martie made all six layers: two French vanilla, two Italian cream, and two hummingbird. Very yummy.

Now, I'm off to have lunch and plan the dinner for Saturday night. I'm thinking roast chicken, roasted carrots, parsnips, onions and potatoes, and rosemary garlic ciabattas. Ugh, I'm hungry already!

I have my voice recorder

and I'm ready to go. Today is my first in-person interview with a CEO. Chills. I hope I do well. Today will be a looong day, but after that, I have my first weekend off for the new year. That's exciting. Well, the first weekend I don't have to go out of town (noting the one other weekend I had off from work). I am here, and going to be a hermit! :) A crafting/reading hermit.

Stuff on My Mind

 {All images were Googled and found through Images tab.}

America's Worst Driver Article

I've been working at D Magazine for several weeks now, and I'd like to share some of that work. I recently worked on a small journalistic-style piece for the website on the Travel Channel's new show America's Worst Driver.

Take a look at the story that was posted earlier this week:

http://frontburner.dmagazine.com/2010/02/09/americas-worst-driver-comes-to-dallas/#more-31991

It's nice to finally be doing something again. It's a great feeling!

The Update to End All Updates

So, here we are. We're at that point at which I said I was going to give an amazing update of my life thus far. Or at least of the last two weeks, or so. Firstly, Happy February.

Last Wednesday night (yes, we're talking January 23rd), Michael picked up my parents from Love Field and I met them for a lovely dinner at Gloria's on Greenville. I had eaten there for my birthday dinner and my mom wanted to go there after the retelling of the fabulous events that occurred there. I had a delicious fruit and grilled shrimp salad over mixed greens, and decided to mimic it later on in the week. Please see several paragraphs down to complete this story.

I will post about the 24th here in a few minutes. :)

Also, I am embarking on something familiar, yet new. I am planning on joining my first actual reading club, D Magazine's "Reading Room." (http://readingroom.dmagazine.com/) They're reading local writer Ben Fountain's Brief Encounters with Che Guevara this quarter. I'm a little behind, seeing as they've had two meetings and I don't have the book yet, but I'll catch up! I've been on Goodreads for a while, and I'm a part of a reading challenge there, but this is more of a challenge because I'm actually accountable! Wish me luck!

Thursday night I was so stressed out, the only thing I could think of to release some of it was to bake. Poof. Banana muffins. Not spoiled by crunchtastic walnuts. Just banana, cinnamon and vanilla. Check out this goodness.


Sunday night, after rescheduling because of the day from HELL (1/28/2010), our sweet neighbor, Ingrid, came over for dinner. We always plan in advance for our "Neighbor Dinner," and pick a cuisine we haven't made before. We've done Mexican, Italian, and American before, so this time we chose Asian. (Mainly because we wanted to use my new bamboo steamer! Man, I love that thing!) I made spicy pork dumplings (it's becoming a favorite!), a cilantro, peanut and cucumber salad, wilted cabbages, and a dipping sauce. Ingrid brought a yummy wine (what dinner would be complete without wine?!) and fried rice. Buttery fried rice. Mmmm. Anyway, we had a serious feast and a great time. I'm thinking Greek food next time?

To finish my story from earlier, I partially was successful in recreating my grilled shrimp salad from Gloria's Monday night for dinner.

Lastly, we are going to Austin this weekend to visit my sister and Qas. We're also getting to squeeze in a little camping! We're going to McKinney Falls to camp and hike. I'm so excited I might bust! I'll try to take a few pictures, or have someone take some with a real camera, seeing as I don't have one.
That's all I have for now! I'm off to get my car inspected (pesky yearly inspections...) and throw myself on an elliptical. Have a great Tuesday!

Good News!

(I'm not sure how many posts I've titled as "Good News," but I'm not worried about it...)

I'm finally making strides towards what I want in life. I've just accepted and started an editorial internship with D Magazine! I will be working with the assistant and managing editors of D Magazine, D Home, D CEO, and D Wedding to edit, interview, fact check and otherwise prepare articles for print. My first edited selection will publish in March, so be on the lookout!