Toddling Toward Three: A Second Year Blogiversary Post

Surprise, surprise - two years and this blog is still alive and kicking. I can't rightfully say whether I expected this or not, but I am quite happy to still be pounding on the keyboard on a regular basis cranking out these blog posts

My posting pace that first year was rather surprising and highly unsustainable (over 150 posts that first year) - for someone whose bills get paid by other time-consuming sources, that just wasn't going to workout in the long run. This year, I aimed for a more sustainable two posts per week and hit that mark pretty much on the mark; as Goldilocks might say, that number was "just right."

I could get into really specific detail about the breakdown of these posts, but that would be highly boring so I won't. Suffice it to say, the posts are nicely broken up mainly among Columbus-based eateries, beer and brewery related posts and travels from both within and outside of Ohio. Mix in some music events, local attractions and festivals, and my continuing ice cream journeys, and it made for a pretty nice cornucopia of topics covered this year.

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.