nutmeg: Horse Tracks and Cow Trucks

(clearly this post is long overdue. It's been sitting, minimized on my desktop since mid March...what have I been doing? Pshh who knows, acclimating. Going up and down in life).

Today is my second favorite holiday. It is second to Thanksgiving. At Thanksgiving, I'm usually thankful there is a St. Patrick's Day.

It doesn't feel particularly like St. Patrick's Day in Los Angeles. I called up my entire family. Each off doing something St. Patrick would enjoy.

It was actually warmer for the Chicagoans than it was for the Angels today. So in a way it did feel like St. Patrick's Day here.

It's not so much a place with stone, pub-like places. More like mobile, taco-like places. Just as the industry progresses, so does the food. It moves. Literally. It's warm enough to have trucks serve up summertime goodness all year round.

There is a whole truck food culture.

Kind of like college, when you spill from the dirty bars to find the glorious hotdog stand waiting for you. You and ten other half barefoot, slobbering drunk idiots. And just like how that hotdog is the best thing you've ever tasted at that moment and it only cost you the spare two fifty you neglected to give for tip on that 1 dollar jello shot, this truck food is cheap. But gourmet. And loved by all. Not just drunk college kids.

Instead of paying rent for a restaurants in LA, these chefs roll onto the streets tweeting their whereabouts.

It rained here today. The trucks were few and far between. The lines waiting were nonexistent.

A far cry from the days at the South Side Irish Parade in Chicago, when rain or shine you cling to the mobile stands, the beer stands, the portable potties. Most likely you cling for stability. Sometimes to stop from spinning.

I headed to Santa Anita the next weekend for a food truck festival held at the horse tracks. All these trucks parked in one place.