Podcast Contents
00:00 - 04:15 INTRO
04:20 - 11:55 REVIEW: Turkey Club & Family Brunch
12:10 - 13:25 LIVE: 10,000 Scoops Challenge
13:25 - 21:40 FOOD STUFF: Moose Tracks Ice Cream
21:50 - 38:00 INTERVIEW: Being Sober in F&B w/ Ned
38:10 - 41:25 TUBBY UPDATE: Get Your Mayonnaise-eatin’ Pants On, Asheville!
41:35 - 44:40 REVIEW: Eating Jamon in The S&W
44:45 - 51:50 MESSAGES FROM THE EATERS: New Segment!
52:00 - 55:06 OUTRO
ASHEVILLE & WNC FOOD TRUCKS GROUP: I’m a soon-to-be 57 year-old geezer, and I still use Facebook, but you know what, so do loads of other people. Back in the spring time I started a new Facebook group called Asheville & WNC Food Trucks, and just a few short months later there are close to 5,000 active members, and it’s one of the most lively and useful groups I’ve seen on Facebook since I got on the king daddy of all social media platforms over 15 years ago!
Dozens of food trucks, and thousands of food truck fans are using the group to post daily about everything from festivals and street fairs looking for food trucks, to the food trucks themselves posting menus & locations, as well as answering questions, and interacting with the food truck fans! Please join the group if you’d like to connect with your favorite food trucks, and learn about new food trucks! For example, did you know that both Huli Sue’s Hawaiian BBQ and Mehfil Indian restaurant both launched food trucks last week? Food trucks, Yo. That’s what’s up.
CITY BAKERY: I picked up one of my all-time favorite things ever for lunch the other: A classic turkey and bacon club sandwich from City Bakery downtown. It’s always prefect, and always hits the spot! I added a chocolate raspberry tart, and they threw in some chips. I’ve been eating at, and loving, City Bakery ever since I first moved to town in 2005. It’s one of my “home-away-from-home” places to dine in at, but today I got my lunch to go and ate it in my actual home. 🙂
I love a classic sandwich, and there’s none more classic than the turkey club, stacked with three slices of bread, turkey, bacon, LTO, mayo, cut into four triangles, and no turkey club would be complete without four curly cellophane toothpicks holding the triangles together. City Bakery does all that, and they do it just right, so, go on in on your own and try this iconic sandwich for yourself!
UKIAH: My family likes to get together for brunch at least once a month, and Ukiah Japanese Smokehouse is one place we can all agree on. In fact, we all love it, so we go there a lot! The last time we went, we shared a really nice avocado salad with house made feta cheese, baby herbs, lemon, ginger, and crispy leeks. It was super tasty and my mom and I agreed that we would be happy to have this salad as a light entrée. We also shared our collective favorite thing on the menu, the potato scallion pancake with grilled kimchi sauce. It’s fantastic. For myself, I ordered two sides, and combined them. I got Bruce’s Shishito pepper cheddar biscuit, with a side of Japanese sausage gravy, then put them together, and voilà! It was awesome.
I didn’t take pictures of all of the food that we ordered, but my brother-in-law‘s ramen was so beautiful that I resist. He got the spicy pork barbecue tan tan ramen bowl with bok choy, and the soft boiled egg. Tan tan is a type of ramen that includes sesame paste. Bro-in-law loved it! We sat outside, the weather was perfect, the service was awesome, as always, and my whole family had a really nice brunch. I’m sorry that I didn’t take a picture of the menu, but it is available online and the prices for these items ranged from $4 to $21.
10,000 SCOOPS: Today I was a very small part of a very big effort by the good folks at Moose Tracks Ice Cream to raise $10,000 for MANNA FoodBank in Pack Square. I got to hang out with my friend, City Council Member Kim Roney, along with officer Mike Lamb from APD, and other Asheville luminaries, and together we crushed their goal by handing out well over 10,000 free scoops of ice cream, and for each free scoop, Moose Tracks donated donated $1 to MANNA, so, yeah, WOW! That's awesome!
Thanks Moose Tracks, and everyone who showed up to scoop, and/or to get a free ice cream to support the cause! If you'd like to donate to MANNA, you can do so on their website http://www.mannafoodbank.org Thank you!
TUBBY UPDATE: Get your mayonnaise eatin’ pants on, Asheville! The Duke’s Mayonnaise mascot, Tubby, is coming town! August 3rd 9am - 11am in Pack Square! Meet Tubby, show Duke’s we love ‘em, get your picture took!
GOURMAND: I had an awesome jamon & emmental cheese sandwich and two pickled eggs from Gourmand inside the S&W Cafeteria building food court the other day. The pickled eggs were fancy AF and super-delish. Tangy, mustard-seedy, yum.
The sando was huge, and after eating it, I told my boss I was stuffed, and he said, “You just ate half a loaf of bread.” Yeah, Ooftah! Emmental is a soft, sharp Swiss cheese. The ham was high-end, salty, hammy goodness, and I enjoyed it all very much. My only thought for the sandwich… coulda used a little Duke’s!
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Episode 116: Scooping Moose Tracks & Eating Fancy Ham