Friday night Chris and I went to "Food Truck Friday" with our friends Jon, Laura, and Benjamin.  The event is sponsored by Sauce Magazine and takes place in Tower Grove Park every second Friday in the warmer months, and I finally had off teaching for the night!  Basically a bunch of food trucks come and park and you can create your own picnic.  We weren’t sure quite what to expect but we had heard it got busy very quickly the previous month so we went early.

You can see some food trucks here—Chris didn’t even know what a food truck was before going to the event.  Basically our conversation went like this:  Hey, honey, do you want to go to Food Truck Friday with our friends?  Sure, what’s that?  It’s an event where a lot of food trucks gather around in Tower Grove Park and you try a bunch of different food.  Okay, what’s a food truck?

Once we got to the right area of the park we decided our best bet was to lay down our blankets and then each person go to a different truck to collect food for the group.  I had been told by several people that Seoul Taco was amazing and the best, and they had a really long line, so I got in that line.  (I learned that while cruising—I see a line, I get in it!).  Chris and Jon headed off in search of other great options.

I ordered a bunch of tacos—if you couldn’t guess from the name, they serve Korean BBQ style tacos.  I ordered steak, pork, and tofu.

They were grilling the meat right there.  Easier than doing it yourself at a Korean BBQ restaurant! Anyway, though the line was long it moved quickly.  We were all texting back and forth about what people wanted to try and what to drink.  There were several local breweries that had set up shop as well.

Finally we all met back at the blankets with the food loot!

Tacos, the silver foil are different kinds of sausages sandwiches from the Sausage Syndicate, and those deep fried things are Jambalaya balls from Completely Sauced.  There was also a quinoa salad and a sweet potato falafel from Lulu’s. 

We didn’t find anything appropriate for this one so he just lay there being useless and we tried not to spill our food on him.

Jon ate the sausage sandwich very dramatically.

Ben refused to look at the camera.

I look very wrinkly in this picture.  Maybe it’s because I instagrammed it?

Anyway, after the first round, we decided to send Laura and Jon back for a bit more food.

Chris decided he needed to feed Ben and then Ben fell asleep.

Don’t say anything.  I know what you are thinking.

Sushi from the Chop Shop and a sandwich that is unpictured and I can’t remember where it was from—it was a bruschetta type sandwich with a balsamic glaze and was delicious!  From a google search it seems like it was from The Cheese Shack.

This was a fairly "green" event.  After we were done eating we piled up our "trash" and took it to one of the waste centers, where volunteers sorted it into recyclables, compostable materials and other things.  I was surprised by how little was actually trash!

Anyway, we had a great time trying various foods, and really enjoyed our dinner.  The weather was nice (in the shade) and since we got there before 5 pm, it was easy enough to try a bunch of different trucks.  If our schedules permitted, we all agreed we would definitely go back! 

Here’s some twitter handles for the various trucks I mentioned if you are interested:

Chop Shop
Follow this truck @ChopShopSTL

The Sausage Syndicate
Follow this truck @SyndicateSTL

Lulu’s Local Eatery
Follow this truck @LulusFoodTruck

Seoul Taco
Follow this truck @SeoulTaco

The Cheese Shack
Follow this truck @cheeseshack_stl

Completely Sauced
Follow this truck @saucedonwheels

Have you been to a food truck event before or eaten from a food truck?  Chris said he was picturing hot dog vendors and such so he was especially surprised at the quality and selection of food. 

That’s yesterday in a nutshell.  Chris and I are moving to a slightly bigger place in less than two weeks now, so it’s getting to be serious packing time.  Since we were both off work yesterday we decided to dedicate some serious time to packing.

The cat was, naturally, of no help at all.

I managed to pack up all of the books and music from the middle room.  We still have another medium sized bookcase to pack, but this was a big project.  I also packed up my desk, which was a disaster area.

Some of the carnage.  Lifting heavy boxes is a wonderfully functional use of my hard earned muscles.  Though Chris is a gentleman and usually won’t let me mess with them too much.  Also there’s that nagging shoulder injury that likes to hurt after awhile.

After our hard work, it was time for dinner.  Steak, corn, cole slaw, with leftover brownies for dessert.

Raw meat!

Meat that is less raw.  We split these steaks.

Brownies, with peanut butter chips in the batter AND on top.  YUMMY.  Though next time I need to add the chips on top earlier so they will melt a little. 

And movies.  It was a nice relaxing day with my family.  (I occasionally get confused when Facebook includes Chris as my family and then I remember that’s what being married means.  I’ll be more confused when Peter is included in that category, I think…or does it work that way? Either way I suppose I should stop saying I don’t have family in town, because I do.)

I’ll end with my favorite tweet from myself so far today.

Friday I won some sort of twitter contest for free tickets to Sauce Magazine’s Saucy Soiree.  Since Melissa and I already had dinner plans for Sunday night it made perfect sense to take her as my guest.  My tickets were thanks to @chevystlkeys on twitter.

Interesting fact about the Four Seasons.  Valet Parking is only $5. 

Anyway, we weren’t sure what to wear, so we naturally both ended up wearing black dresses.  They took our photo when we entered and the woman asked if we planned it.  Um, no.  We are just that awesome.  I’m pretty sure that a little black dress is always appropriate attire.  Especially if you are a musician.

I had planned to take a bunch of pictures, but I got a bit overwhelmed upon arrival and after that my hands were full.  Basically, we parked, got in line for the elevator, and went up to the 6th floor.  There we exchanged our passes for orange bracelets and got drink tickets.

I’d played weddings at the Four Seasons before but Melissa had never been.  The view is awesome—it overlooks the river. 

(Well, it really just overlooks a parking lot.  But there’s a river back there, really.)

The food and drink were inside the ballroom though. 

We got wine glasses and sampled some wines from local wineries, and then entered the main ballroom with TONS of tables from all kinds of restaurants giving out samples.  We didn’t know how to tackle the room, so we just started going around clockwise, taking a sample from one restaurant, trying it, then getting the next one.  There was a lot of balancing required, what with the wine glass, and then maybe needing a fork or spoon to eat the sample.  After we got about 1/4 to 1/3 of the way through we realized we were going to fail, because we were already super full.  So then we got more picky about our choices…but overall it was very good.

My favorites:  Niche had a delicious lemon artichoke tortellini (yummy!), Milagro had (I think) pork tacos, and Pi had the world’s most amazing pudding. Edited to add this tweet from Milagro:

(That is a tiny piece of pizza, a shot glass full of pudding with the world’s smallest spoon.  I believe it was the oatmeal stout chocolate pudding and it was to die for.)

Overall it was a great event—fun and delicious, plus the people watching in St Louis is always incredible.  I had already been many of the restaurants, and the samples I tried didn’t really change any of my opinions on which are my favorite restaurants, but it was a blast trying all the different foods, and I’d go back next year…at least if I got free tickets again :)  We didn’t use our drink tickets—I think the cover price would have been more worthwhile if we had, but the wine and beer samples were already included and that seemed like enough drinking for a Sunday night.

So that’s my recap.  Like I said, I kind of wish I’d taken more pictures, but I am not talented enough to hold a wine glass, a plate, and a camera.  I’ll work on it :)  I will also work on being a better writer in the future.

When you get a text message from your husband that says "Want to have steak for dinner" you say "YES."

Well, and then you say, oh, we need to have a vegetable too.  Because you are a little bit crazy like that.

I only ate one of those.  But I ate the whole thing.  With some cauliflower "mashed potatoes" on the side.  YUM.  That was last night.

This morning I met my friend Karen at Rooster.  She lives in Phoenix but plays in Grant Park for the summer (Chicago) so she was doing her twice annual "drive through St Louis."  It was great to see her for about 1 1/2 hours, but sad that it was only 1 1/2 hours.  She was at our wedding though, and I’ll definitely see her in October at Leslie’s wedding.  Chris and I, or just me, might make a short Chicago trip this summer.  We’ll see—lots of other stuff happening this summer (moving, Boulder, and oh, in September I am going to Paris for a week!) that has to take priority.

Very tired.

Aerial view (taken from a helicopter, of course.)

There’s a lot of talk on the interwebz about National Running Day.  I did go for a short run this morning, go me.  What a ridiculous "holiday", right?  Tomorrow on the other hand, tomorrow is truly a National Holiday!  (My birthday, FYI.  And my first day off work since May 13!!  I actually don’t have any big plans for it.  Chris has to work at night and earlier, so we will grab an early dinner, I’m thinking Pi, and then maybe meet some non-working friends while he’s playing the Opera?  I am tired and don’t feel like making plans in advance 🙂 )

Today we were invited to a “Meat Day” barbecue at our friend Kyle’s house.  Chris was coming back from the Indy 500 so I picked up a steak at the store for him and a “black and blue” burger for me.  I’m not a huge burger fan but I love these burgers from Schuck’s (our local grocery store)—they have blue cheese and green onions and other yummy stuff in them.  I also made the cake batter blondies but with coconut cake and I added extra coconut in the mix and on top.

My burger!

A cupcake for dessert, looked beautiful, but really had too much icing (often my complaint about cupcakes, I know I’m weird.)

Oh, it’s Will and Chris at the race.  They were wearing ripped shirts to try to fit in with the other folks at the race.  Also Chris’s beard is simply out of control.  I much prefer what he did today, though most of the folks at the BBQ disagreed.

I told him to look happy.  But how awesome is that facial hair?

Vanessa and I.  Man it was hot.  And can I say how excited I am to get a haircut tomorrow?

Okay, I’m tired, it feels like Sunday night, but tomorrow is already Tuesday.  It’s a busy, busy week.

Remember, Friday night, Chamber Project St Louis, Audience Choice Concert!  Come out to the Chapel at 8 pm.  The big question:  will I wear the polka dot dress again or will I wear something different?  Only way to find out is to attend (or I suppose read my blog…)