Let me start by saying I am not a chef nor do I aspire to be one. I let the experts do the cooking and then enjoy with "unbridled enthusiasm" the fruits of their labor! This past Saturday was a most enjoyable morning!
Me and two friends went to the Cooks Confab in Little Italy - Street Food!
I love street food. If I were in Manhattan and had no food budget, I would eat the street food. I think it is one of the best ways to get close to a culture. Experience what people eat when pressed for money and time. This is where it happens, at street level.
Don't get me wrong, this street food event was unlike any I have ever been to before. These chefs are not messing around. This was not the street food of Mexico or Red Hook. This was only street food in that it was served on the street. I don't care. I loved it.
This event was a fundraiser for ARTS. Up until this, I have never heard of this non profit. But they are out to help kids and they did it with food. I like this a lot.
The deal was this, buy a ticket for fifteen bucks and for that we got 5 booth tickets. Great deal. We also bought a bunch more booth tickets for five bucks each. We wanted to try it all. This was the first year of the event and there were a lot of happy people there. Only a couple of suggestions - have water to buy and more vegetarian stuff to eat. There was only one booth (Waters) that had anything to drink. They had tangerine juice with mint. It was yummy but not nearly enough. One friend of mine is a vegetarian and there was only one booth that had anything vegetarian. All of the vendors were happy to make their dishes without meat for her but it felt like an afterthought.
We ate shredded beef tacos from Waters. These were the street variety, tiny little corn tortillas with peppers, limes, salsa, cilantro and onions to pile on as we liked. Yum. I love tiny little tacos.
The Farm House Cafe in University Heights was there with ham and cheese sammiches and pomme frittes. More yum. Nothing wrong with french fries and a nice sammich for breakfast!
Cafe Chloe was there with a nice little tray of a palmier, roasted chestnuts and drinking chocolate. OMG. Chestnuts and drinking chocolate are the perfect holiday treat. Please don't even bother calling this hot chocolate. If you have never had drinking chocolate stop what you are doing and get you some - NOW. It will change your life.
Since this was a fundraiser, I was really happy to see that it was very well attended. Lots of people there with lots of really happy faces eating really good food. We were all really happy that we had parked on Harbor Island and walked the 3 miles to Little Italy. Made us feel better about all of the calories we consumed. Another bonus is that we discovered that the Little Italy Farmers Market is one of the best in town. Live sea urchin at a farmers market? Get what I mean?
