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Long time no blog. This thing has turned into a pretty awesome spam magnet. To say I’ve been busy since the truck started back in April would be a gross understatement. Anyhoo. Here’s a new post!

It wasn’t a joke or a marketing gimmick when I said we’d be sourcing as locally as possible. Unfortunately there are a few things I will never be able to get from close by. Avocados and mangos are turning into the bane of my existence but they are too damn good to do away with. Now that the growing season is kicking into high gear we can get a few more things we need right here in the Commonwealth. Here’s the updated list of locally made/grown goodness that you will get when you order from the big green truck or “Mean Green” as she likes to be called.

Tempeh, Tofu- 21st Century Foods, Jamaica Plain

Tortillas, Chips- Tortilleria La Nina, Everett

Lettuce, Scallions, Cilantro, Cabbage- Allandale Farm, Brookline

Seitan- Made by me at our commissary in Malden

Something sweet from JP- Coming soon!

That is a question you may not hear as much as you used to. I have a feeling that once the truck is doing business it’s a question I will hear quite a bit though. This one is definitely not for you gluten free folks. Sorry.

Sometimes called wheat meat, seitan is high in protein, low in cholesterol and fat. Really high in protein. A 3 oz serving contains 20 grams. It is made from vital wheat gluten. This comes from washing the starch away from wheat dough until all you are left with is the insoluble protein gluten. Legend has it that it was discovered centuries ago by Buddhist Monks. If you’ve ever eaten mock chicken, duck or beef at a Chinese restuarant it was most likely seitan. Some vegetarians will even avoid it because the texture is too meaty. The name was coined by macrobiotic pioneer George Ohsawa in the 60’s. It has been a staple in many religious diets that advocate vegetarianism such as 7th Day Adventists and Mormons. I have a friend who was raised 7th Day Adventist and he kept telling me about this canned mock meat he was brought up with. He finally secured one of these cans for me from his still practicing mother and what do you think it was? That’s right. Your old pal seitan.

The wheat gluten on it’s own is devoid of much flavor. The method I use to make it relates most closely to the Japanese method I guess. A mixture of soy sauce, vegetable broth and garlic is added to the vital wheat gluten powder and then kneaded. Once it has rested I simmer it in a broth comprised of certain delightful things for about an hour. After it has cooled I then thinly slice it into strips that get marinated over night. Here is where the flavors mingle. The marinade, which I confess is still a work in progress, is loosely based on a cochinita pibil recipe. This is a Yucatan recipe for slow roasted pork traditionally wrapped and cooked over hot stones in an underground fire pit. This is all done for tenderness sake. Since seitan’s texture is determined by how much you knead and how long you simmer this part of the recipe would be pointless. Instead I’m taking inspiration from the marinade ingredients. Good luck finding even two pibil recipes that are the same. As with most recipes that have been around for years and passed down from one generation to the next there are many variations. I basically took the elements that turn up most consistently across the many recipes I read and adapted them for the seitan. Key ingredients such as achiote paste (good luck finding that anywhere around here), orange juice, garlic, vinegar, cinnamon and cumin. It’s a fiery orange/red mixture but is not meant to be hot. In the test runs it has come out quite well. It still needs some tweaks here and there but the seitan will most likely appear on the menu in this form or close to it.

Since it’s not really cochinita pibil because it isn’t pork nor is it buried I can’t relate that name to it in any form. I’m having a hard time coming up with something as witty or punny as T Party Taco or Tempeh Tantrum. If anyone has any brilliant ideas as to what to call this other than “Seitan Taco” please let me know. It will earn you a free meal from the truck. And please, no “Hail Seitan”. Yes, it’s hilarious but has been done to death. Lets get creative people!

If you want to dive deeper into the history of seitan I found this blog during my research for this post. This person is apparently from Boston and knows a shit ton about seitan’s history. Enjoy.

http://polyglotveg.blogspot.com/2010/04/seitan.html

Hopefully I’ve pulled back the curtain a little bit on this wonderful plant based protein and made you excited to try the tacos. Til next time…Hail Seitan!

Okay. I intended to write this post some time ago but it turns out I suck at blogging. My web designer warned me about maintaining a blog and here I am, dropping the ball already. I’ll try to be more frequent with the posts from here on in. No promises though.

The next couple of entries will focus on ingredients that may not be too familiar to those who eat the meat. First up is tempeh. I am aware that I’m not unveiling some crazy new thing here. The vegans and vegetarians have known about this for ages and most who don’t partake have probably seen it in that little fake meat section that most supermarkets have now. It is hardly a “fake meat” though. It has been a staple in Indonesia for years and when done right can be quite delightful indeed. It’s basically a fermented soybean cake. I know. Sounds delicious, right? Here’s an excerpt from the website whfoods.com that may explain it better.

Tempeh is a wonderful, high protein, southeastern Asian treat. Not only does this collaged cake of fermented soybeans have a distinctive nutty taste but its nougatlike texture readily absorbs the different flavorings with which it is cooked. Tempeh is typically made by cooking and dehulling soybeans, inoculating them with a culturing agent (like Rhizopus oligosporus), and then incubating the innoculated product overnight until it forms a solid cake.

Full disclosure here. I was not a fan for a long time. Turns out I was doing it wrong. I would just toss it in a pan with some seasoning and it was never very impressive. It took a trip to Indonesia for that a-ha moment. I was taken to a vegetarian restaurant literally down a trail, on the side of a cliff in Bali (see pic). Staffed by one woman who prepared everything to order in her tiny kitchen. I existed on Nasi Goreng while there. Rice is a big deal in Indonesia and this is basically their fried rice. She prepared a version of that dish with tempeh and it was amazing. I don’t know exactly what kind of magic she performed on it but it was enough to make me change my tune on tempeh. Once I got home I started to incorporate it into my diet more. Tempeh, like tofu, is very good at taking on the flavor of whatever you marinate or cook it in. The version I will be serving on the truck is marinated in light beer, garlic, lime, cumin, oregano and a few other awesome things.

Because I am lazy and hate sitting behind a computer screen for too long I am just going to post a link to an article on whfoods.com that has way more info about the many health benefits etc. Trust me. Tempeh tastes great, is high in protein and you’re gonna love it.

Next up…What the hell is seitan!?

For more on tempeh- http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=126

Awhile back I posted on my Twitter something about doubling or tripling the time lines that people give you. Well, the timeline for truck completion is like sixthed or seventhed at this point. Some of this is my fault, some the builder’s fault. This most recent extension is definitely the builder’s though. It’s extremely frustrating and there’s nothing I can do but emphasize to him how badly I need my truck done. You can put money out without any coming in for only so long. On the bright side, if you’re going to miss a few months in this business, the winter months are the ones to miss. The sooner I can get out there and start honing my routine, the more I’ll be prepared for the start of Boston’s food truck season on April 1st though. I won’t make any grand statement about an opening since I’m working on my fourth or fifth launch date here, but hopefully I’ll be able to sneak out there soon. In the meantime, I’ll keep working on getting the logistics and details of setting up a business in order (NOT FUN) and making the recipes even more dialed in (FUN).

So if I see you around and you ask me if the truck is out there yet, please excuse the stress induced bags under my eyes, extra wrinkles and perhaps slightly pained expression on my face. Soon my friends…soon…

When one thinks about the craft of tofu making their mind probably wanders to the far away lands of China or Japan. At least mine does. How about the not so far away land of Jamaica Plain?

About a year ago I bought some tofu from City Feed in JP. To my great surprise the address on the package was right there in JP as well! I brought it to the test kitchen and discovered it was the best tofu to use in my T Party taco. I then embarked on a search for contact info. There is no website to be found. I happen to mention it to a friend who had a friend that worked there once. A couple days later he had a phone number for me. This was some old school hunting! I put the number aside while I worked on the one million other things you work on when starting a business. Now, getting closer to launch and wanting to nail down local sources I resume my tofu mission. I called the number that’s been sitting on my desk for months and a man with a heavy Italian accent answers. I explain who I am and what I’m up to and he invites me down.

Rudy has been working out of the Sam Adams Brewery complex since before Sam started brewing there. He told me about running his macrobiotic restaurant in Italy in the 70’s before moving here. The whole operation is impressive since I’ve never been to a tofu factory but of special note is the home made hot water system Rudy built. There wasn’t time for him to explain the technical details but the gist is this. His hot water supply is warmed by solar panels that are on the outside of the building. In addition to the solar panels, he rigged up a way to collect the excess heat coming off of the equipment. A complex array of pipes and huge tubs make up the system. Very impressive indeed. A local business owner perfecting ways to benefit the environment. Something I myself strive for.

I am extremely pleased to be working with Rudy. Once we’re up and running please come by and try out the local tofu from the not so far away land of JP. I think you’ll be pleased too.

I grew up mostly on a small farm. Up until I fled the nest we lived in a few different homes. All but one had enough land and outbuildings for my father to scratch his agricultural itch. It was never his occupation but something he enjoyed doing when not at work. This meant that we usually had at least one bull, three pigs, chickens and some horses from time to time. We ate a lot of beef, pork, eggs and horse. Just kidding. We rode the horse. I learned to never name the bulls or pigs because soon enough they would be cooling in a chest freezer in the garage wrapped up in white paper stamped with what section of the animal they were from. My point is, we ate A LOT of meat! Like most American families we usually had some combination of meat, veg and potato for dinner. I usually avoided the veg part. Once I moved out, even though I was cooking for a living, I ate like crap when it came to feeding myself. Meat lovers calzone from the local pizza hole, Hamburger Helper, corned beef hash from a can, Dinty Moore and the ever popular brick of ramen noodles. Now don’t get me wrong here. I fully understand that there is a more responsible way to eat when you’re a meat eater. There are plenty of things with dietary value. I was just young, lazy, broke and dumb.

Once I started to travel for a living it got worse. When you tour the US in a van you get very familiar with a number of roadside eateries. Denny’s, Taco Bell, Waffle House, Bickford’s, and if you had a good night at the merch booth you might treat yourself to a little Cracker Barrel. When I moved up to the tour bus it improved a bit. You are less on your own. Most times there is some form of catering at the venue. There is something called “after show food” though. This is take out that is ordered close to the show’s end so it’s sitting on your bus ready for you when you’re done working for the night. Two problems here. It is always late at night and 99 percent of the time it’s pizza. Usually the last pizza joint open is not the best quality and firing down a few slices right before bed is so wrong. This pattern went on for a few years.

At the age of 24 I was spending my second summer in a row on the Warped Tour. For those of you that don’t know, this is what they call punk rock summer camp. When you work on Warped Tour you spend the summer setting up shows in every parking lot, corn field and dust bowl across the US and Canada. Showers and hotels are few and far between as well as bathrooms not made of plastic that a truck dropped off that morning. There is good catering on the tour but you almost always had to stand in line for at least 30 minutes before getting served. Every day each bus would get a case of water and a 30 pack. The essentials for living. Add my horrible diet to nightly boozing and the disgusting smoking habit I had at the time and you have one unhealthy dude.

Warped Tour ended and I had a week or so to regroup before I headed to Europe for a month. I felt like garbage. The band I worked for at the time had some vegans in the bunch. I went out to eat with them occasionally and was quite surprised that the food was actually delicious! I made a deal with myself. For that month in Europe I would not drink, smoke or eat meat. Time for a cleanse of sorts. I owe a great deal to my tour mates from those days. Without their help it would have been very hard to navigate my way to vegetarianism. Especially in Europe. Lots of sweaty cheese and meat trays over there when you’re touring. Not big fans of refrigerators. Long story short, after a few months I eventually stopped smoking (this was my 20th or so attempt) cut down on the booze and never ate meat again.

It’s weird. I definitely don’t miss meat but we vegetarians love our “meat substitutes”. I’ve come across a lot of purists but most of us really go for veggie items modeled after some animal based item we grew familiar with while growing up. I don’t crave flesh but I do enjoy the comfort of a base protein. This is why we mold and season seitan, tempeh and tofu into amazing flavorful food. When I get questioned on this I attribute it to my upbringing. “Why don’t you just eat meat dude? If you’re gonna eat a burger it might as well be the real thing!” Well…no. I filled my meat quota years ago with that freezer in the garage and I like things similar but sans flesh because that’s what I was fed in my formative years. I think it’s ingrained in us unless you were raised vegetarian. I would love to say I’m perfectly happy with just vegetables in their pure form and grains and raw stuff and dirt and flowers and blah blah blah. I’ve got to respect that but it’s not the kind of vegetarian I am. It’s not the most healthy but it’s healthier. I didn’t go veg because of animal rights, global warming or any of the soapbox-y reasons out there although I do understand and embrace the importance of those bigger issues now that I’m older. I just wanted to feel less crappy and I do. Ten years later, I’ve gotten pretty good at this. You don’t have to spin your whole routine on it’s head. You can just eat vegetarian a couple times a week to feel less crappy. Then you get the side benefit of being able to righteously rant to your friends about how no blood was spilt for your meal and it’s better for the environment. Or maybe that’s a jerky quality only I have.

A while back I showed a friend of mine a picture of me from those Dinty Moore Waffle House beer drinkin smoking days. I was about 22 or so in the picture and he said I looked to be 42. Nowadays at 35 I probably look more like I should have back then. I know. It wasn’t just the quitting meat. You learn a lot about how to live better and smarter as you get older and I’ve applied these lessons but the vegetarianism sure as hell didn’t hurt. Thanks veggies!!

Oh yeah. My mother who got to prepare all those bulls and pigs we raised for dinner. She’s a vegetarian now too.

Welcome to the Taco Party website! Just went live today. It’s a little bit sparse right now but check back often. I’ll be posting more on individual menu items, how the truck construction is coming along and all sorts of other taco party related things. Please browse around, check out our Twitter and Facebook and thanks for checking us out.