Winter Street Food In DC

I saw the Red Hook truck a few days ago - I still can't see standing in line in any weather to pay that much for a sandwich.


Food trucks fight a cold economy

By Tim Carman
Wednesday, December 22, 2010; E03

Back before our weather became a blunt instrument, battering us with its remorseless chill, the Red Hook Lobster Pound truck enjoyed a customer demand that had the depth and urgency of a Depression-era bread line. This month, however, the hungry masses that once huddled around this Maine seafood shack on wheels evaporated when a cold front dropped temperatures into a range better suited for antarctic mammals, not patrons of Washington street food.

Still, Red Hook's sales in December have not declined dramatically compared with sales in the warmer months, says Leland Morris, president of Red Hook's D.C. operations. He has a theory about that. "What I've noticed is strategy," Morris says. "The line comes in waves now. . . . People watch from their offices, and when they see the line shorten, they'll move down."

Morris offers the explanation with such nonchalance that it has the ring of truth. Two days later, as snow starts to blanket the District's streets for the first time this season, several customers outside the TaKorean taco truck on L Street NW confirm Morris's theory.

"I work right up there," says Daniel Mandell, pointing to an office building in the 2000 block of L Street. "I can see how long the line is. I waited until it was more reasonable."

It would appear the District's emerging food-truck market could use more persistent patrons like Mandell. If you discount Morris's happy accounting - and even the Red Hook president will admit, when pressed, that the cold has had a "slight impact" on sales - many of the mobile vendors are hurting this month. Operators of four trucks say their sales have dropped by 40 to 50 percent from peak numbers. "My guess is most of these trucks are going to be losing money in winter," says Justin Vitarello, founder of the Fojol Bros., whose own rolling empire is earning about 60 percent of its summer sales.

So why do these chuck wagons continue to roll during winter? Simple: They have bills to pay, such as commissary and vehicle storage fees, and people to keep employed. "The reason is to make a living," says Mike Lenard, owner of TaKorean, "and for the people who work for us to make a living."

It might not be clear from the streets, but mobile vendors such as Vitarello and Lenard serve a different kind of seasonal cuisine, the kind whose revenues fluctuate dramatically with the seasons. The businesses that occupy this unusual category typically have been ice cream parlors, frozen yogurt shops and the like, but with more four-wheel eateries roaming the streets, the group now includes food trucks, no matter what they serve. What's more, their seasonal economic disorder is complicated by something that often gets romanticized by the media: Many food truck operators have no experience in the hospitality business.

The D.C. Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs has long known that. One DCRA official, in fact, told me last week that, historically, almost nine of every 10 new street vendors have no business experience. They just have an idea - and ambition. That can be a problem when it comes to budgeting for, and surviving through, the lean seasons, when revenues shrink but expenses don't. Starting early next year, though, the DCRA will launch its Small Business Resource Center, a private-public partnership that will bring together local nonprofit and economic development groups to help new entrepreneurs map out their future and perhaps even get them through tough times.

Coming to grips with the limitations of mobile vending is enough to make the average food truck owner issue a small, bitter laugh. Why not? As the hired guns for bricks-and-mortar restaurants continue lobbying the D.C. Council for ways to neutralize what they say are the food trucks' "unfair advantages," these street operators continue to contend with elements that few restaurateurs ever face. Such as workplaces where the temperature is only a few degrees warmer than the air outside. Or customers who don't want to feel their faces turn numb just for the opportunity to buy lunch.

One of the recurring issues for truck operators during winter - aside from updating their menus with soups, chowders and other warming dishes - is the status of their ordering windows. Should they remain open, which allows the frigid air to whoosh into the vehicle, or should they be shut when no one's in line? It would seem like a no-brainer, right? Shut that sucker tight and stay warm. But operators say it's not that simple.

"If the window is closed, the message you're sending is that you're closed for business," says Kristi Whitfield, co-owner of Curbside Cupcakes. Only the most seasoned food truck customer or someone seriously hankering for a cupcake will dare approach a closed window, she says, a fact that can affect the bottom line.

For that reason, most truck workers keep the window ajar, which forces them to find other ways to seek and retain heat. Most operators adopt Whitfield's approach of dressing in layers. On a particularly frigid Saturday this month, Whitfield swears she sported six layers of clothing under her apron (although she admits her wardrobe was largely dictated by the fact that she also had to work the downtown outdoor holiday market). Those extra garments can have their drawbacks. Ask Fojol's Vitarello, who had to affix his trademark fake mustache over a ski mask.

Others, such as Stephan Boillon, the owner and chef of El Floridano, rely on the heat generated by griddles and steam tables to keep warm. Boillon's case might be the most extreme. Because he installed solar panels to run his kitchen, allowing him to turn off the truck's engine and save fuel costs, Boillon cannot rely on the vehicle's in-dash heater to provide extra comfort. It can get cold fast in his truck, but the owner has devised a solution: He shuts off the kitchen's exhaust fan for a couple of minutes. "It heats right up," he says.

Such improvisations could help these curbside restaurateurs survive the coming months. They might even help them thrive, if you consider Vitarello's story. Last winter, during Snowmageddon, the Fojol Bros. truck found a way to navigate the clogged streets between its Hyattsville commissary and Dupont Circle, where it was one of the few operations selling food to the snowbound. Vitarello hawked 120 meals during one lunch. "The winter can play to your advantage," he says.

Of course, what should not be lost in this discussion of food truck operators braving the cold is the fact that they are not the first street vendors to suffer through Washington's winter. They're just the ones who attract the attention of media-savvy foodies. Vendors such as Ethiopia Asreshegn were huddling against the elements long before the gourmet food trucks stormed into town. Asreshegn has been squatting at the corner of 12th and L streets NW for a dozen years now. She operates a hot dog cart, that clunky symbol of street food's past.

Inside her cart, Asreshegn has sealed herself off from the cold, her window shut tight. No one, I'd venture to guess, thinks she's closed for business. I ask her how much she has made today while sitting inside her frigid tin can, her skin buried underneath three sweaters, three pairs of pants and a puffy parka.

"$50," Asreshegn says. So why do you do it? Why not just stay home and stay warm? Her answer mirrors those of her motorized peers. "I don't have a choice," she says. "I have a family."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/17/AR2010121706633.html


http://takorean.com/

Indian Veg On K Street

I never tried Nirvana but wish I had.



Dosas to order at Nirvana Express in International Square

By Tom Sietsema
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 21, 2010; 12:16 PM

Vegetarians, and others of us who like to eat lower on the food chain on occasion, felt abandoned when the family-run Nirvana went dark on K Street NW this past summer. Where would we go for our dosa fix?

Not far, as it turns out. Four months before the Indian establishment closed, husband-and-wife owners Jawahar and Doler Shah quietly opened Nirvana Express, a small counter in the International Square food court serving lunch Mondays through Fridays.

There are no seats. Orders can be eaten at one of the dozens of nearby tables in the basement setting near the Farragut West Metro.

The abbreviations at Express continue with the selections. Unlike Nirvana, this kitchen doesn't serve anything as elaborate as banana peppers stuffed with a paste of coconut, coriander and mint. But the Express peddles those crepelike dosas, which you can watch being made to order on the griddle behind the counter. Spinach dotted with cubes of house-made cottage cheese is one of several agreeable ways to fill a floppy, hubcap-size envelope of cooked-till-crisp batter made from rice and bean flours. (You can get a dosa stuffed with falafel, but I find that the fritters taste flat.)

Two bucks buys you a samosa the size of a baseball; beneath its crisp shell is a comforting core of potatoes and peas. For $7, you can get a combination plate: your choice of a curry with basmati rice, the flatbread known as chapati and the yogurt dip raita. The last part of the deal tames the heat you might pick up in the zesty pumpkin and eggplant curries, two of the entrees I look forward to seeing on the rotating menu at this Indian outpost.

Carl Domingo, the former manager of Nirvana who holds the same job here, says that "we were doing well" at the now-closed restaurant.

But the Shahs were not, at least physically. Both are in India for a break, he says.

They plan to return to Washington next month, after which they hope to begin serving breakfast at their carryout and (yes!) open something bigger than Express but smaller than Nirvana, in either Dupont Circle or Capitol Hill.

1825 I St. NW. 202-223-0123. dcnirvana.com. Lunch combinations and dosa wraps, $5.50 to $8.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/21/AR2010122102787.html

Hannukah Donuts!!!!!

Another miracle of Hanukkah: Fried jelly doughnuts
Customers rush and gush over Md. kosher bakery's holiday treat

By Michelle Boorstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 11, 2009

In sitcom Boston, barflys have their Cheers. In Kemp Mill, the heart of the region's Orthodox Jewish community, the observant have the Kosher Pastry Oven.

A place where headgear is a baseball cap with "Nationals" in Hebrew lettering or a yarmulke knitted with American flags. Where there's a spare prayer book on the counter if you forget every word to a particular meal-related blessing. Where everyone knows your name.

And where, during the holiday of Hanukkah, which begins at sundown Friday, your sunny little strip mall cafe transforms into a mob scene. That's because the Kosher Pastry Oven has some of the region's best-known sufganiyot, a fried jelly doughnut that has migrated from Israel to America as a standard treat for the eight-day holiday.

Starting in a trickle earlier this week and building to a gush Friday, Jewish people have been coming to the Pastry Oven, where the subject of holiday food triggered debate about linguistics, religion and family.

"The story behind the sufganiyot is a military one," stockbroker Lew Sosnowik said Thursday morning to Joel Davis, his daily synagogue-and-breakfast partner, of Hanukkah's historic meaning.

"But the victory was a spiritual one!" insisted Davis, an accountant.

"Every story is dependent on the raconteur," Sosnowik added while a woman told a clerk that she was about to drive her order to her children in New York City. It's not unusual for sufganiyot from the Pastry Oven to be taken aboard planes bound for California or Florida.

In the back, order slips were being added to the dozens already taped to the fridge: for 100 sufganiyot, three dozen, 18 (a lucky number in the Jewish faith), 36 (double that), in Hebrew, English and Spanish for the different staff. Up front, at the counter, trays full of sufganiyot kept replacing empty ones. Discussion among customers bounced from the etymology of the word (biblical Hebrew?) to the Hanukkah food best-known to Americans: the latke, or potato pancake.

Both are not coincidentally dependent on oil, which is central to the miracle at the center of the Hanukkah story: a lamp used to rededicate the Temple in the 2nd century B.C. had only enough oil to burn for one day, yet it burned for eight.

As President Obama appeared on a television in the background, giving his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, customers debated: Can latkes be made in butter, instead of oil? Or does that change their meaning? ("It's not a latke," tsked Davis.) And what about the sufganiyot fillings: Are the caramel and cream varieties you can get easily in Israel or New York better than the classic jelly?

At the helm of the scene is owner Arie Eloul, a Moroccan Israeli pastry chef with an impish smile and knowledge of kashrut, or Jewish dietary law, so deep even those in the most Orthodox garb ask guidance from a guy who drives on the Sabbath (which you're not supposed to do) to synagogue (when he goes).

Eloul expects to sell 10,000 sufganiyot (at $1.25 apiece), and places including Shalom Kosher Market in Wheaton and KosherMart in Rockville are also doing brisk business.

Meanwhile, regulars popped in and out of the kitchen to say hello to Eloul and his wife, Shula. Despite a dinner menu that features $24 sea bass and homemade tiramisu, the vibe at the Pastry Oven is informal. Although the posted opening is 8 a.m., by 7:30 tables are already populated by regulars including Sosnowik and Davis, as well as writer Marla Fogelman of Silver Spring, the New York-bound woman who meets a group of other female writers there each week.

Holidays -- and holiday food -- of course mark the passage of time, and customers talked Thursday about rituals changed with spouses passed on, children scattered. Hanukkah celebrations that might once have been at home with family are now at synagogue dinners with friends.

For Jerry Sandberg the Pastry Oven's jelly sufganiyot are a fine, if limited, alternative to the variety he gets in Brooklyn, where he grew up and where his relatives still live. That said, he knows everyone at Eloul's and comes every other day during Hanukkah.

"The only down side here," he said Thursday, "is you've got to make sure you get here before they run out."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/10/AR2009121004167.html

You Are What You Eat: 93% of Americans Test positive For BPA

Just When You Thought It MIGHT Be Safe To Drink From Plastic....

Disputed chemical bisphenol-A found in paper receipts

By Lyndsey Layton
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 27, 2010; A13

As lawmakers and health experts wrestle over whether a controversial chemical, bisphenol-A, should be banned from food and beverage containers, a new analysis by an environmental group suggests Americans are being exposed to BPA through another, surprising route: paper receipts.

The Environmental Working Group found BPA on 40 percent of the receipts it collected from supermarkets, automated teller machines, gas stations and chain stores. In some cases, the total amount of BPA on the receipt was 1,000 times the amount found in the epoxy lining of a can of food, another controversial use of the chemical.

Sonya Lunder, a senior analyst with the environmental group, says BPA's prevalence on receipts could help explain why the chemical can be detected in the urine of an estimated 93 percent of Americans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"We've come across potentially major sources of BPA right here in our daily lives," Lunder said. "When you're carrying around a receipt in your wallet for months while you intend to return something, you could be shedding BPA into your home, into your environment. If you throw a receipt into a bag of food, and it's lying there against an apple, or you shove a receipt into your bag next to a baby pacifier, you could be getting all kinds of exposure and not realize it."

What remains unknown is how much of the chemical that may rub off onto the hands is absorbed through the skin or whether people then ingest BPA by handling food or touching their mouths.

Among those surveyed, receipts from Safeway supermarkets contained the highest concentration of BPA. A receipt taken from a store in the District contained 41 milligrams of the chemical. If the equivalent amount of BPA was ingested by a 155-pound adult, that would exceed EPA's decades-old safe exposure limit for BPA by 12 times.

Brian Dowling, a Safeway spokesman, said the company is researching the issue and consulting with its suppliers of receipt paper.

First synthesized in 1891 and developed in the 1930s as a synthetic form of estrogen, bisphenol-A has been widely used in commercial products including plastic bottles, compact discs and dental sealants. While it was regarded as safe for decades, recent research using sophisticated analytic techniques suggests that low doses of the compound can interfere with the endocrine system and cause a range of health effects, including reproductive problems and cancer.

Federal regulators have been focused on BPA and whether it leaches from containers into foods and beverages at levels that may cause health problems. Earlier this year, the Food and Drug Administration expressed "some concern" about BPA and joined several agencies in conducting $30 million in studies to try to answer questions about its safety. Lawmakers on the local, state and federal levels have moved to ban BPA from food and beverage containers made for infants and children.

The American Chemistry Council, which represents the chemical industry, said that while BPA can transfer from paper receipts to the skin, the level of absorption is low. "Available data suggests that BPA is not readily absorbed through the skin," a spokeswoman said. "Biomonitoring data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control shows that exposure to BPA from all sources, which would include typical exposure from receipts, is extremely low."

The Environmental Protection Agency, however, recognizing that paper coated in BPA may be a significant route of exposure, launched an effort this month to work with paper manufacturers, the chemical industry and environmental groups to encourage companies to find alternatives to BPA in receipts.

Appleton Papers, the nation's largest manufacturer of "thermal papers," the type often used for receipts, dropped BPA from its formulation in 2006 out of growing concerns about the safety of the chemical, said Kent Willetts, the company's vice president of strategic development. "We just realized we'd rather move away from it sooner than later," Willetts said.

The Environmental Working Group's report can be found

online at http://www.ewg.org/bpa-in-store-receipts.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/26/AR2010072605001.html

Good Hot Sauces

Jamaican Espresso

Fair Trade Cacoa Marketing - Rasta In Italy

From Italy, summer 2009, I bought this Cacao - Fair Trade, organic...... While the man on the box is not clearly Rasta, the implication is Rasta - the tam, red, gold and green (with shades).... I made hot chocolate with it - good stuff.




Packaged as Cacao, Amaro in Polvere, it is farmed according to principles of biological agriculture in the Dominican Republic and Bolivia (neither with large Rasta representation). It is sold by the Green Spirit label.