It Takes A Convoy: The Columbus Mobile Food Conference and Expo

One of the nicer finds since moving to the Columbus area has been seeing how vibrant the food truck scene here is. I saw this aspect as a strength of the San Francisco Bay Area, my former stomping grounds. This area has had a well-established scene dating back to the 1980s with the Oakland-based taco trucks, complemented later by the new wave of food trucks from the late 2000s onward inspired by the success of folks like Los Angeles-based Kogi BBQ, This has led to such ventures such as the very popular Off The Grid food truck venues which now ring the area.

From the latest info I was able to gather from Street Eats Columbus and The Metropreneur, the metro area has roughly 40 traditional taco trucks and roughly 100 food truck owners overall. I have had plenty of tasty experiences with many of these mobile food vendors, and have enjoyed their presence at many area festivals, events, and mobile-vendor-specific events like the weekly Columbus Commons Food Truck Food Court and the annual Columbus Food Truck Festival.

However, I admit that when I got the invite from Mike Gallicchio for a pass to the first ever Columbus Mobile Food Conference, I thought long and hard as to whether it would be worth it from my little corner of the food universe. As a local blogger who leans a lot toward the local food and beverage scene in my write-ups, my viewpoint is almost always from the end user (or is it that end-devourer) point of view rather than the process that got the food item to the end user stage. Upon closer inspection, the seminars offered seemed to be highly geared to either those already in the business or wanting to get in the business, nothing that would be in the cards for me outside of a hit-the-Powerball-now-I'm-bored-what-should-I-do-now lark. However, a talk with a colleague of mine convinced me essentially of the old adage of "nothing ventured, nothing gained", and I happily took the invite.

Columbus Coffee Chronicles (Vol. 1): Colin's Coffee

My recent experience on Columbus Food Adventures' Coffee Tour made me realize that with a couple of notable exceptions (Cafe Brioso and One Line Coffee), I've probably covered more out-of-the-area coffee houses than the locally-based ones on this blog. I figure this time is as good a time to catch up a bit with a mini-series of blog posts, and the first one ought to be my very first encounter with the city's coffee scene. As it turned out, it was also my first encounter with the city's music scene.

Back in the day, my pursuit of my running passion was just starting to mature. The combination of the love of this hobby that most people think of as punishment brought me into contact via the Internet with a group of fellow runners and friends from around the country. Aside from our online exchanges, we arranged meetups around the country for some in-person camaraderie, running, and good food and libations throughout. This included a meetup in Cincinnati, which hosts the well organized and festive Flying Pig Marathon every May.

Despite never having traveled within the Buckeye State's borders ever before, I was tasked with driving from Cincinnati to pick up my roommate for the weekend from the Columbus airport (the cost of flying into Cincy for him was cost-prohibitive; I was only able to do it myself by using frequent flyer miles.) As it turned out, the trip to pick him up was fairly easy enough (mostly Interstate routes) but my trip back would end up with an added destination.

One of our running colleagues bragged of an incredible musician in the Columbus area named Colin Gawel, whose band she would always go to see whenever they toured around her part of the country. She added that he owned a coffee store in the area, and that I should drop by and visit him. Moreover, she claimed Gawel had an incredible memory, and that he would recognize her should I drop her name to him.

Back in those days, I was not anywhere close to being a regular coffee drinker, but her story was too good not to check out.

Just Another Flight (of tasty) Beer: JAFB Wooster Brewery (Wooster, OH)

JAFB Wooster is Cleveland Browns territory for certain, but it also
is the home for some respectably tasty, award-winning beers

A recent trip pursuing one of our new favorite pastimes for my spouse and I (antique hunting) brought us to the US-30 corridor right where it intersects with I-71 towards Cleveland. The hunting proved to be pretty good as we dug up some fairly unique finds at decent prices, and these ventures into unexplored (for us, anyway) parts of the state finished up in Wooster, a town of roughly 25,000 people named after Revolutionary War general David Wooster.

We had thoughts of dropping by the town's lone brewery, JAFB Wooster, after our day's hunting was over provided we weren't too tuckered out. However, the shopkeeper of the last antique store erased any doubts in our mind, as she gave her thumbs up to going and was more than happy to give us driving directions to their taproom, located just to the east of the main downtown area.

One thing that stood out immediately to us was the unique name of this brewery, and it was one of our first inquiries after we ordered our beer. As we found out from one of the bartenders that day, it came from struggle that JAFB brewmaster Paul Fryman had in finding a name for his new enterprise. A colleague of Fryman, perhaps in a little bit of exasperation over the delay, stated that the venture was "just another f______ brewery" (you can probably guess what word that starts with "f" was used.) That phrase inspired the acronym that became the name of his brewery, which opened its taproom doors to the public in 2012.

Larking For A Good Cause: Guest DJ at CD102.5

Confirmation, notes, and other important info for a guest DJ stint

In many ways, radio has gone the way of other old-school media forms like television and newspaper. Once the only game in town for miles around, radio has run up against competing forms of media, especially with the rise of the internet. In addition, the way music has reached the listening public has diversified, sucking away the listeners and the corresponding advertisement dollars.

This has lead to consolidation within the radio market. Indeed, it is hard not to hear a radio station identification on the hour without entities like Clear Channel, Cumulus or Disney being mentioned. In California, some of the stations I grew up listening to or learning about (The Quake KQAK or Los Angeles' KROQ) are now part of corporate entities for the most part. Numerous mom and pop-styled operations also now broadcast over that very same Internet, due to its relatively lesser cost.

From listening to those stations, I became involved a couple decades or so ago (both as a deejay and the news division) with a completely independent format station back in college (I'm happy to say my former home forges onward more strongly than ever, with even more antenna wattage and an actual record label promoting local music to its name.) Numerous sessions in the listening room to prepare for shows were invaluable in expanding my knowledge of music styles I had been unfamiliar with prior such as reggae, folk and hardcore. Only a huge case of "broke-ass-college-student" syndrome kept my record collection modest, but I am happy with what I was able to get my hands on during those halcyon days.

Falafel of the Cultured: Pita Hut -N- Grille

The term "Drunk Food" is title given to certain munchies that bring a certain hallowed yet love/hate relationship with those who consume them. With cravings more often brought on by the consumption of certain intoxicating substances (which may or may not be legal depending on your age and jurisdiction), these food items, which generally are nowhere near haute cuisine, sound like great ideas at the time, or perhaps are traditions that are built up over many years. These items almost always taste wonderful at the time of consumption. And one prays before they go to sleep for the night that your digestive system won't hate you the morning afterward for having consumed said items.

The Mediterranean-styled street food offerings of Pita Hut -N- Grille seem to fall into that category by default: this quaint takeout-oriented shop is conveniently located to Clintonville institution Bob's Bar, which nattily calls itself the "Cultural Hub of the Midwest." For the casual passer-by, it would be easy to assume that the offerings here fall into that digestive-system-beware category as well.