Rolling into the New School Year One Food Truck at a Time
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| The Grilled Cheese Truck |
When we arrived, I was surprised to see that the
picnic itself was set up a bit different than the year previous. This year, the school had arranged to have
four Los Angeles area based food trucks on-hand for the festivities.
As we made our way across the blacktop over to the soccer fields to
place our blanket and chair, I eyed the long lines that snaked out from all the
food trucks like ants moving at a snail’s pace.
They had The Grilled Cheese Truck (Twitter
handle: @grlldcheesetruk); The Flat Iron Truck (flatirongrill@gmail.com);
The Roll’n Lobster Truck (Twitter handle: @RollnLobster); and our personal
favorite King Kone (Twitter handle: @kingkonela).
I asked Shane which one he wanted for dinner
and his reply…wait for it…ice cream.
As much as I would have been interested in the
Roll’n Lobster, I knew Shane would not go for it at all. Not being huge meat eaters, the Flat Iron
Truck would not have been a good choice for the two of us (although, my
disclaimer is that, if Jason had been with us, he certainly would have been on
that long ass line).
In a panic, I looked up and made a quick
assessment and arduous decision, it would have to be the Grilled Cheese Truck.
I said to Shane, “You must eat dinner honey;
so let’s both get grilled cheese.” He
said OK and ran off to play with his friends as I yelled at his back to check
in with me soon.
I looked at my phone and it was 6:38pm. I scanned the long, long line I was on and
settled down for the wait.
First, I got myself all caught up with Words
with Friends, then I checked out Facebook and then onto Twitter where I started
following the aforementioned food trucks.
By then, it was 6:55pm and it was almost my
turn. I scanned the crowd of children
running amok searching vainly for Shane who was nowhere to be seen. I decided that he would get a traditional
grilled cheese on wheat bread and then there was me.
Who was I kidding; the 8-year-old in me wanted
a yummy grilled cheese sandwich even more than my own son.
So, with only 3 minutes left, the pressure was
on…which grilled cheese sandwich would I order? I grilled myself down to two
choices: Havarti Melt and Caprese Melt.
The Havarti Melt is made with white wine braised chicken with artichoke
pesto on French bread while the Caprese Melt comes with fresh mozzarella, ripe
tomatoes, fresh basil and balsamic syrup on roasted garlic bread.
Yum and double yum: I was torn as they both
sounded so delish and, at the last minute, I went with the Caprese Melt.
I paid for our dinner and then walked toward
the lynch mob waiting to pick up their food.
I saw a guy, whom I knew, who had ordered his food about 20 minutes
before me and realized I was in for an even longer wait.
I headed over to our blanket and chair;
looking for Shane. His Sprite radar was
on and, as if he knew I had his treat for him, he materialized out of thin air. I had about a 30 second conversation with him
before he was off again.
I chatted with a few moms that I knew from school and then moved our blanket, the chair and said Sprite over to where our neighbors were sitting, but the inevitable lay ahead of me. I was going to have to make my way over to The Grilled Cheese Truck to actually pick up my sandwiches sooner or later.
It was chaos, but I stood my ground. I found the woman who had been directly in
front of me in line and decided to shadow her.
I was tired of being plugged in so I just sort of people watched when
another mom struck up a conversation with me.
We discussed what we had ordered, our children, the food trucks, fashion
and then suddenly her name was called and she was gone. Then I struck up a conversation with another
woman.
By this time, it was 7:30pm and I had been
waiting almost an hour for my sandwiches.
I hoped it would be a good as the wait was long. Other people in the mob were getting pretty
impatient and asking each other what time they ordered based off their
receipts. Then, there it was, the call
of pure decadent delight, “Tracy, order up.”
I quickly said my goodbyes and made my way up
to the window and, in my haste, almost dropped both sandwiches. Miraculously, the foodie gods were looking
down on me and I saved both.
Once again, as if he had a honing device,
Shane showed up by my side. We sat down
at our little campsite and both unceremoniously scarfed down our
sandwiches.
Shane said his traditional grilled cheese was
one of the best that he had ever had and the Caprese was literally melting in
my mouth.
The burst of fresh basil mixed with the sour
taste of the balsamic reduction married in such an orgasmic fusion that I was
speechless.
Hidden in our own little corner, without the
threat of being detected by Miss Manners, I ate that Caprese Melt like it was
my last meal. When it was all gone, I
found myself licking my fingers and perfectly sated.
These grilled cheese sandwiches were not just
good, but really good. Yet, before I had even had a chance to digest, Shane
warned me that there were only 15 minutes left until the end of the
picnic. He said he hadn’t even had his ice
cream from King Kone yet.
I immediately jumped up and found myself –
once again – on a long line. Two things
happened: one, the first woman that I
met while on line for the grilled cheese walked by and said I was a glutton for punishment (yes that was
true) and two, my neighbor waved me up to the front of the line and let me cut.
I could feel 20 pairs of eyes boring into me,
but I could not turn down such an invitation.
After waiting an hour to secure our grilled cheeses, I was ready to take
my chances with karma and a little retribution.
As we left the picnic, I couldn’t help but feel
a little regretful. As much as I enjoyed
my grilled cheese sandwich, I only needed to take one look at Shane and the
explosion of vanilla ice cream and rainbow jimmies smeared around his big smile
to know which had been his favorite truck and how fun it would have been to
have ice cream for dinner.
Keep on truckin’.
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