Recipe Weekend/ Cookbook Review: new York a la Cart by Siobhan Wallace and Alexandra Penfold

Synopsis: Divided into neighborhood sections (Uptown, Midtown, Downtown, the Boroughs, etc.) New York a la Cart will spotlight the best of the Big Apple's cart cuisine, profiling 50 vendors and including their most popular recipes. There are terrific "only in New York" stories here: the IBM exec who quit his six-figure job to flip Belgian waffles, the banquet hall chef who followed his dreams from Bangladesh to 46th Street, the second generation souvlaki masters carrying on their family traditions, among many others. With full-color photos that capture the local color as well as the delicious food, New York a la Cart is a celebration of the food-cart scene — but most importantly, offers more than 60 recipes so that readers can make their favorite street food at home

Review: Subtitled Recipes and Stories from the Big Apple's Best Food Trucks, this book is a look into NYC food trucks, the people that run them, and their excellent food! The book shares the history of the NY food truck trend and then gives an interview with Sean basinski, who is the founder and director of the Street Vendor Project. The book is then divided into the different boroughs in NYC, and the trucks tat are famous in each: Downtown, Midtown, uptown, All Around Town, and Outer Boroughs. the index then gives you locations for all the trucks, wher eyoucan buy some of the ingredients and a recipe index. Each section on a food truck includes the owner's story, how the truck came about, what they are famous for, and recipes.

I was a little surprised to see how the majority of the truck included were Latin, somehow I had expected a more varied cultural offering. However the recipes are great and even include desserts, like home made ice cream! If you have someone who left NYC and misses the food trucks, this would be an great 'souvenoir' book for them. If you have someone interested in the whole food truck scene, they would love this book as well. The recipes go from simple to labor intensive, which makes sense, as food trucks are really mini restaurants on wheels.

I pulled a simple Carne Mechada (shredded beef) and a Tachucho (wrapped taco made from it) from Patacon Pisao to share with you today, as it is something that should be in everyone's cooking forte, and is really pretty simple to make.

Located in the Uptown section, they are the only Venezuelan food truck in NYC. Owner Lillian velasquez worked in a NYC Cafe and learned her way around a restaurant, before opening the food truck in 2006. It has been a staple in the Washington Heights area ever since. In fact they've done so wel, they started a restaurant in the Elmhurst area, as a way for those who can't get to Washington heights, to enjoy their food.

Enjoy!

About the Authors:

Siobhan Wallace and Alexandra Penfold write the blog BlondieandBrownie, which has received almost 1 million visitors since its launch in 2009. Their stories and photos from the blog are regularly picked up by Serious Eats, Eater, and Grub Street. Siobhan and Alexandra also serve as editors for MidtownLunch, a website focused on finding the best lunches in NYC for under $10. They have appeared on the Cooking Channel's Eat Street as food-truck experts, and (of course) live in New York City.

Disclosure / Disclaimer: I received this ebook, free of charge, from NetGalley, for review purposes on this blog. No other compensation, monetary or in kind, has been received or implied for this post. Nor was I told how to post about it.