"StreetFood" news and stories

Each Thursday, we round up a selection of scrumptious links from our friends over at YumSugar. Here's what they've got cooking this week:

• It's Christmas Eve -- if you haven't bought a present for your gourmand better half; well, we're here to save you with these last-minute ideas.
• Risking one's life by consuming food from dubiously hygienic vehicles was the big food deal of 2009.
• If you're too tuckered out to make a grilled cheese after the gift-buying crunch --and who isn't? -- cook up this oven-made version.
• A Christmas Dining Miracle -- brunch on a Friday!
• When holiday candies depart from traditional flavor and hue, do you skip the seasonal aisle?
• We won't tell if you cheat on your (gingerbread) man with gingersnap palmiers this Christmas.
• Chef Aarón Sanchez is developing a taco town.

A New York food cart. Photo: jasonlam/Flickr

Call it the Summer of the Street Vendor: Food trucks and carts are, it seems, this season's version of artisanal pickles or pastured meats. Whether you live in Los Angeles, Portland or New York, each day seems to spawn a new vendor -- and they're not selling your granddad's dirty-water dogs.

Words like "organic," "natural" and "handmade" are being slapped on everything from burritos to burgers, giving street meat an almost saintly aura and the occupation of street vendor a previously unheard of cachet. Street cart fever has spawned all sorts of coverage, from city-specific blogs to nationwide podcasts like VendrTV.

As with other low-profile aspects of the food industry that have suddenly found themselves ready for their close-ups, the sudden glamour of the street vendor trade obscures the everyday challenges -- some small, some overwhelming -- that come with selling food (no matter how pedigreed) from a big metal box on wheels.

Interviews with two vendors and a call to Slashfoodies to help us find great American street vendors after the jump.

When I was 22, I spent the summer in Indonesia. I was fresh out of college and looking for a little life experience before finding a job and getting down to the business of supporting myself and paying off those college loans. It wasn't an easy trip, but I've always been grateful to have had the experience of it. When I search back through my memories of that summer, one of the themes that surfaces first is food.

I particularly remember a fried chicken breast that a friend and I split early one morning. We had been on a bus all night and stopped in a tiny town for water, bus fuel and bathrooms. When we sleepily asked about food, we were taken to a three-sided tent, where an elderly woman fired up an oil-filled wok. Working quickly, she dropped a whole chicken breast (skin, bones and entire chest structure intact, nothing like the single plump chicken breasts we know here) into the the wok, moving it around occasionally with a handmade spider. When it was done, she wrapped it in a handful of banana leaves, we paid her the equivalent of $.85 and hurried back to the bus. It was delicious.

If you're the kind of traveler for whom the food is one of the most important parts of the journey, you should check out the World Hum's new feature on the Eight Best Cities for Street Food (congrats on your snazzy new look, World Hum!). Their contributing editor Terry Ward has compiled her street food memories from all over the globe, offering a collection of tempting and tasty tidbits that may just convince you that it's time to start planning another trip, just for a bite of the food she describes.

Source

Imagine that on your lunch break you purchase gourmet food from the window of a 1962 Airstream trailer. In Seattle, the chefs from Skillet are making this possible. Skillet goes to different street corners every day concocting meals depending on what's available locally and seasonally. They've become famous for their Kobe-style burger served on brioche with bacon jam, blue cheese and arugula. Besides tasting delicious, the food is also reasonably priced, between $6 and $10.

According to an article from Forbes, Skillet sells about 200 lunches daily. Chef Danny Sizemore states that he opened up Skillet, with his partner Joshua Henderson, in order to fill a void in Seattle: high-end street food. The Forbes article points out that the concept is not entirely unique. In Minneapolis, there's Chef Shack that sells bison burgers topped with homemade condiments. And, in Marfa, Texas, Food Shark offers homemade hummus and falafel with crisp romaine lettuce from a truck.

To find out where Skillet's Airstream trailer is going to be and what they're going to serve visit their site.