mskerr

Yep, you summed it up right there: truly weird. Then again, it was a truly weird small town once you got to know it beneath the tourist experience. Long cold dark Maine winters do weird things to people!

I live less than a half-hour from the San joaquin valley in California, so old-school Mexican taco trucks are pretty common, since most of the population is Mexican. Basically, we don't have any of the trendy food trucks you'd find in Portland or Austin or wherever. And me and my partner are the only gringos I've seen patronizing the Mexican trucks. To most people they're still roach coaches. And yes, my town does get thru- traffic for Yosemite, although the last few years have been very quiet due to a landslide a few years back and the generally crappy economy. I've never seen a perro caliente - what's on it? Pollo asado sounds great, sure I can find it around here if I keep an eye out...

Either that, or my boss was the cheapest woman of all time. As in: if I threw out a plastic pirate sword from someone's cocktail while waitressing, my boss would find it the next day when she did her routine garbage inspection, pull it out, put it back in the bar to be reused, then leave me a voicemail saying I was not to throw out drink accessories. The main cook, who had probably 10+ years of experience was only getting $10 an hour, so as you can imagine, it was hard to negotiate when my cooking experience consisted of microwaving convenience food, and as the owner said, "if you're not handling the job well at $8 an hour, why should I pay you more?" But yes, I agree totally! But when you have no experience in restaurants at all, it's hard to play hard ball.

That explains some of the meals I've eaten at cafes/restaurants/etc!

No, this isn't Bourdain talking about Puebla, Mexico. In a little restaurant in one of those picturesque summer vacation towns in Maine, wealthy New Yorkers on vacation shelled out $20 for chicken breasts and fish fillets, and $32 for lobsters, cooked by a girl who literally did not know how to even boil an egg. To give you an idea of my ineptitude: Having been vegetarian/vegan and a ridiculously picky eater from a young age, I didn't know what animals common cuts of meat came from. (Do buffalo wings come from buffalo?) I had never even seen, let alone tasted, half of the seafood I cooked. Never had lobster, scallops, or swordfish. Didn't know what drawn butter was. Thought salting cooking water was a myth. Had never even had mustard or mayonnaise. My pasta recipe in college? Dump a can of diced tomatoes on some pasta, heat in the microwave, add way too much salt, and some turmeric (?!) for seasoning. And that's when I wasn't eating raw tofu, or a plain can of garbanzo beans. You can imagine the tempeh dishes. Not only was I a terrible cook, but for the most part, I come from a line of bad cooks. "Mom's cooking" meant boiled frozen raviolis. Grandma dressed her ceasar salad hours and hours ahead of time. I don't exactly have fuzzy memories of picking fresh fruit off the tree and pressing olive oil to serve with the spring lamb we just slaughtered. Even our iced-tea growing up came from an artificial powder, as if real iced tea is too cumbersome to make. And yet I was left alone and unsupervised in the restaurant kitchen on the regular cook's nights off, to cook upwards of 50-60 dinners per shift while also washing the dishes. For $8 an hour, vs. the $30-40 I often made per hour during my waitressing shifts there. I was given a bit of instruction, which went something like "get the pan hot. Add some oil. If you're not sure if something's cooked, cut it and check. Use the dead lobsters first. Always have a lemon ready." And this is far from Denny's that I'm talking about. Think $120 for two, with appetizer, drinks, and tip. The strangest part of it all was that the restaurant owner was an extreme control freak who, ironically, refused to walk into her own restaurant during operating hours because even the thought of going into her restaurant gave her panic attacks. She couldn't even come in to train me on my first day because she was on the floor of the emergency room hyperventilating! Throughout the season, I tried pleading with her to get a different relief cook, telling her I was not skilled enough for the job, that the job stressed me horribly and I absolutely hated it because I worried about serving people subpar food (I am a perfectionist to the bone), she told me I had to keep working my shifts because if she had to come in to cook while looking for my replacement, she would have panic attacks! So the chef (who had never actually worked in a restaurant) told me, an absolute novice, that I needed to get my stress under control and perform the job, but she herself can't handle even the thought of doing the job herself? Crazy stuff! Luckily for me, the regular cook was a great guy, and we became good mates. When I was waitressing and he was in the weeds, I'd always wash dishes, plate food, pour him drinks, whatever helped out. In return, he stopped by on most of his nights off to help me when I got really swamped in the kitchen. I almost made it to the end of the season, basically through throwing pans around, a constant stream of swearing, and cocktails, before walking out one night during a waitressing shift after having finally taken enough crap from the senior waiter there. (Ah what a great moment!) Oddly enough, I walked out of the restaurant to find my boss sitting in a car across the street in the dark! She was sending her partner into the restaurant to drop off much-needed napkins, while hiding , hoping no one would see her so she wouldn't have to come into the restaurant and see the absolute circus it was, which would land her in the ER. In retrospect though, after being thrust unexpectedly into the pro cooking world, I got an awesome line-cooking job, and I now want to work professionally as a cook and have since learned heaps about cooking and can whip up some pretty good meals. (At least, my husband is very happy with them, which was the point.) So in the end, I guess it was one of the best things that happened to me, although my blood pressure/liver will also never be the same!

Cheers, I will get in touch with you! I'm thinking about going to Portland in the spring (check out the cherry blossoms too?), and definitely want to hit: Nuevo Mexico Nong's Ziba's Pitas Schnitzelwich Noodle House Koi Fusion Aybla Grill Viking Soul Food The People's Pig Swamp Shack Reckon I'll take the train up to Seattle for a few days too. Interested in: Hallava Falafel Marination Mobile Maximus/Minimus Skillet Where Ya At ...and a few others... Anyone been to these trucks/ carts?

Exactly. So regional classes are out, but what about a good bread-baking class? I like the idea of volunteering as a prep cook. I used to do prep as part of a cooking job, including lots of onions, but I basically went at it haphazardly, having no job training or supervision. Do you think a restaurant would find it more of a hassle to oversee a volunteer than it's worth?

The Austin BYOB food trailer parks are awesome! I didn't eat at Odd Duck cuz I was traveling alone and didn't venture out much in the evening, but I did have lunch at Trey's in the same lot, complete with a 32 of High Life. The perfect way to eat a meal out. The Flying Carpet Moroccan Trailer was also great, and the owner "Big Abdu" was one of the friendliest people I've ever met. He told me all sorts of useful stuff about running a food truck and was just an all-around lovely guy. My next trip will hopefully be to Portland, I can't wait to check out the carts there when the rainy season's over. Any other Portland recommendations? Or Seattle?

I should add, I'm also really interested in wild food/ foraging classes - something I would love to know how to do, but don't exactly want to learn all on my own with a guidebook. Would be way more fun to learn with people! Or maybe join a group instead of taking a class?

Cheers for that, djyee100! I've heard about Ahwanee but didn't know they held classes. I never thought about assisting with classes, that is an awesome idea! I will definitely check out wineries too. I'm not particularly into wine, being a beer-drinking girl, but I know it's ridiculous to live in California without somehow taking advantage of the wine scene.

Hi all, Does anyone know of any edible cactus festivals? Are other kinds edible/ tasty besides the prickly pear?

Hey all, Excuse the onslaught of food truck topics! I've been researching food trucks, and it looks like the big cities like LA, Portland, Austin have everything you could ever want from a truck/trailer/cart, but I'm wondering about us folks in the smaller towns - are there trucks/trailers/carts in your town? What sort of variety? Do they get a lot of business? I'm living in a town of about 1800 by Yosemite in California. We have a cold-sandwich trailer (decent, but just the usual offerings), a Mexican seafood truck (which I've been hesitant to try just because we're not that close to the ocean and turnover looks pretty low), and taco truck which is pretty popular but sells unimpressive tacos. Aside from the popular/lackluster taco truck, business looks slooow. All around the San Joaquin Valley nearby, there's genuine taco trucks - no fusion, just good Mexican food for $5 or less. I love these trucks. They keep me from starving in a recession. Except one truck where they unloaded their burnt meat on me and apparently thought the gringa was too dumb to notice?

Hi all, I'm researching how to start a food truck, writing up menus, etc. Just wondering - what was the best meal you ate from a food truck/trailer/cart? And what would you like to see from a truck? As for me, I had the tastiest (lamb) burger of my life out of a trailer in New Zealand (which got this whole project started), but I'm equally partial to a no-frills carne asada taco or burrito from a genuine Mexican taco truck - and we're blessed with heaps of them in my area near the San Joaquin valley. $5 for a huge, delicious, filling burrito and $1 for Jarritos. I love California.

Cheers for all the replies! I live near Yosemite in California right now but am also sort of based in Santa Cruz, near San Francisco although I try to avoid the place if I can! Training on the job would be awesome, but with the recession, there's a helluva lot of people out there with more than 6 months line-cook experience on their resumes, especially in California. My kitchen experience was back in Maine, so unfortunately all the pro cooks I know are 3000 miles away. As far as classes go, I am potentially interested in three different things: (1) knife skills and general cooking technique, to save prep time and because I still bungle a lot of my attempts in the kitchen, (2) specific techniques like rustic bread baking or pasta-making, and (3) different cuisines, especially American regional ones like New Mexican, New Orleans, etc. I'm interested in starting a food truck that features American regional specialties but also has dishes from other countries (Italy, Lebanon, Morocco...) as specials (to keep it interesting as a cook, and because I love a lot of different food). Nothing too complicated though, especially to start! American regional classes are also a good excuse to travel around and see new states, which is my favorite thing to do when I can afford it. Can anyone recommend a really good knife skills or bread-baking class in the states? Or a good regional class, esp. in Texas, New Mexico, or Louisiana? I guess I'm aiming for classes that are more instructive than something purely for casual home cooks, but not necessarily CIA level. And I'd prefer to take a less-expensive class from a really solid, non-famous chef than an expensive class from a famous one, unless it was someone I was a huge fan of. But, if I don't find any classes that fit the bill, I'm quite happy to invest the $ instead on cookbooks and ingredients and I'll just get in the kitchen and try to work it out myself! When I was in college, I would look at classes and think they were going to be mind-blowing or something, only to think "I could've just read a couple of books for free" after they were over. For reference, some of the classes I've been looking up include Cooking Studio of Taos, Santa Fe School of Cooking, and Portland Culinary Workshop. The places I would most like to visit are: Santa Fe, Taos, and Hatch, NM, Austin and the Hill Country, San Antonio, New Orleans, Savannah, Charleston, western Montana, Portland, and Seattle. I'm pretty much up for anywhere in the western US though (I'm an east coast native, quite happy to be west of the mississippi). Cheers again for all the input! It's really helpful, especially since I am currently living a bit isolated in the mountains with no fellow cooks to talk to!

First post! I've been looking up cooking classes for a while now, mostly one-day or weekend classes on different cuisines (New Mexican, Moroccan, Italian...), bread baking classes, knife skill classes, fermentation, dutch oven camp cooking... For those of you who have taking recreational cooking classes (whether a 3-hour class or a weeklong workshop), do you think they are worth the $? I've worked a little bit as a line cook, and have been teaching myself about cooking, quite intensively, for the last two years. My goal is to start a food truck in a year or 2. I learn pretty quickly from reading, videos, lots of kitchen experiments, etc, and have definitely improved my skills over the last couple years without any classes or training. When I see weekend workshops that cost $700, or one-day classes that run over $100, I can't help but think I should just spend that $ instead on books, ingredients, some choice kitchen equipment. Then again, a good knife skills class could help me out heaps in the kitchen, and for baking I think it would be great to learn from an experienced baker... I should also note that I have just about no disposable income so I try to make the most of it. Any insight? Cheers!