DERBY — For Lou Granato, owner of the new Dad’s Food Truck, it’s all about preparing homemade food with an unusual twist.

One could say he believes “variety is the spice of life.”

Granato, a city native who lives in Oxford, has worked as a caterer for 50 years.

On Thursday, he launched Dad’s Food Truck, parked alongside 253 Roosevelt Drive, on Galidari Street. Roosevelt Drive is Route 34.

The side of the truck reads: “American style with a touch of crazy.”

“I’ve been in the business all of my life,” said Granato as he made a visitor a “Thanksgiving Turkey” sandwich.

“I’ve catered (parties and weddings) in the Valley and Greater New Haven area. “I’m always trying to make something different,” Granato said.

He called the food truck a family business. He has been assisted by grandson Brandon Mercedes, 11, who put himself in charge of recipe development.

Brandon suggested he sell a bacon hot dog topped with barbecue sauce. Brandon’s brother, Ryan, 16, also had a hand in getting the business ready.

Their father, Rick Mercedes, helped with the menu and with building the truck, Granato said.

“It has been a lot of work,” he said.

Son Erik Granato has been involved with marketing the new venture.

Resident Ginny Stadt, who has worked for Granato in the catering business, was with him Thursday. She said there had been quite a few lunch customers their first day.

The menu includes hot dogs, bacon cheese dogs with tomato, cheese and bacon and topped with potato sticks, and shrimp dogs, which are hot dogs topped with lemon butter shrimp and chopped potato chips.

Granato also serves hamburgers, Greek grilled chicken sandwiches, an Italian combo topped with antipasto, Thanksgiving Turkey, which is akin to eating a holiday dinner on a roll, and double dip roast beef sandwichess.

Granato plans to serve typical breakfast fare, too. Hours are 7:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Saturday.

The truck will be parked from 4 to 7 p.m. Monday in the parking lot at The Edge Fitness Club, 600 New Haven Ave. for a Taste of the Towns event.

http://www.nhregister.com/articles/2013/05/17/news/valley/doc5196d68aa8c1b444890340.txt

That summer feeling. (Staff photo / December 27, 2012)

We are just about as far away from summertime as we can ever get, right about now. Winter has just begun, and by now some of us are longing for seaside dining, with the sound of our teeny tiny waves in the open air adding ambiance to our dinner of fried clam strips, lobster rolls and onion rings. While there isn’t much we can do to put ourselves in the midst of that scene (besides go on vacation), Madison’s High Tide Gourmet food truck can help put your tastebuds in heaven.

You may be familiar with this truck already, as it’s hard to forget. Emblazoned on the side is a righteous surfing lobster, along with its name in big yellow letters. They readily advertise their lobster roll before you even have a chance to see the other items on the menu. I was lucky enough to try a few things High Tide Gourmet has to offer, and let me tell you, this food is goooooood.

It was a windy, chilly December day when I ordered from the truck, so naturally I went straight for the New England clam chowder ($4) first. You get a healthy portion, but even that won’t be enough once you put spoon to mouth. The chowder is so flavorful, so perfectly balanced, that you’ll ask yourself if you ever want to eat anyone else’s recipe again. Chunks of potatoes, bits of clam, and just the right level of creaminess.

I next opted for the crab cake sandwich ($8), which is served on a roll and topped with lettuce, tomato and mango mayonnaisse. It was a nice “islandy” twist, the mango mayonnaisse. The tang of the mayo blended well with the flaky, bready mouthfeel of the biggest crab cake I’ve ever seen.

And of course, I splurged for the jumbo lobster roll ($14). I’ve always been on the fence about lobster rolls. Sometimes the sogginess of the whole operation kills my excitement for lobster meat. High Tide Gourmet’s lobster roll is hands down the best I’ve ever had. The jumbo plating comes with two identical lobster rolls, made with New England-style hot dog buns, heaps of juicy lobster meat, and just the right amount of butter. The butter ended up soaking into the buns, providing a nice little reminder with each bite. The lobster meat was plump and plentiful. It’s no wonder there are two lobster rolls here; finishing the first one only leads to a greater desire to gobble down the second.

I’m excited to pay the truck another visit and try some of the other menu offerings, which include rum guava BBQ pulled pork ($7), Thai peanut sea scallops ($9) and shrimp scampi (over rice or linguine, $9). Keep your eyes trained on @hightidegourmet on Twitter, search for them on Facebook, or call (203) 605-7020, to find out where they are.

http://www.ct.com/entertainment/restaurants/nm-nh53-thescoop-20121227,0,5809824.story

The Fryborg truck serves Chicken Pot Fries. That’s genius. (Staff photo / December 4, 2012)

The Elm City has not been immune to the food truck/cart explosion of the last couple years. We’re starting to see mobile gourmet eats parked a few feet from regular neighborhood staples like hot dogs, burritos and Chinese food to-go. A recent be-wheeled entry to the New Haven food scene is Jon Gibbons’ Fryborg. Yeah, like the Star Trek thing. Kind of. “I wanted a name somebody would remember,” Gibbons, says, adding that people ask him all the time if he’s a fan of the series. People have even told him they approve of his food truck, but really only stopped in because of the name. We think that once you experience Fryborg you’ll keep returning — again and again.

Gibbons, 35, who worked in local restaurants for a long time, including Mikro and Delaney’s, decided it was time to be his own boss, and that a food truck would be much more manageable than his own restaurant. After being blown away by the frites on a trip to Belgium nearly a decade ago, Gibbons decided to bring the tasty treat to his homeland. This makes two locations in New Haven serving up Belgian frites as a specialty, adding to the already well-frequented Rudy’s. “I certainly think that if there’s room for 9,000 places in New Haven that do pizza, there’s room for two who do french fries,” Gibbons says.

Fryborg’s frites are both crispy and moist, with a perfect balance of the crunchy bits and long, potato-y pieces. You have your choice of many dipping sauces, including a few kinds of ketchup (regular, spicy, curry, etc.), mustards, mayos, and other inventive varieties of condiments. Fryborg’s frites can also be had as a meal, with his specialty toppings added to the pile. On the day we visited, the Chicken Pot Fries were on special ($8), and boy were they delicious. Picture a mound of fries covered with chicken, carrots, celery, peas and two halved biscuits, to be eaten with a fork. You can also stab prongs into the BLT Fries (shredded lettuce, diced tomato, chopped bacon and mayo, $6.50), the Italian Fries (pesto mayo, tomato, Pecorino cheese, $6.50), and the Dutch Fries (curry ketchup, mayo, minced onion, $6).

But don’t ruin your appetite with just frites. Fryborg also grills up the best in comfort food that you can fit between two slices of bread. There is the Grade School Grilled Cheese ($6), and you know exactly what that means. “When I want a grilled cheese, I want buttered bread, American cheese, and gooey goodness. I want the kind of grilled cheese I used to have in the 4th grade,” Gibbons says. The pre-adolescent gluttony does not end there. You can have your dessert and eat it for lunch, too: Fryborg serves up grilled fluffernutters with bacon, and grilled Nutella sandwiches with either pumpkin or strawberry ($6.50). They are, without a doubt, the sweetest, most inner-child-satisfying sandwiches you’ll ever eat. We promise. “I’m trying to do something that’s pretty fun and neat,” Gibbons says. It’s working.

And while all of this sounds like it should be washed down your gullet with a nice, frosty beer, Gibbons had to choose another beverage in a glass bottle to serve as he’s not allowed to serve beer from the truck. In its place are sodas from Foxon Park, Avery’s in New Britain, and Hank’s in Philadelphia ($2). Gibbons drives to Philly to get Hank’s, as the company doesn’t currently distribute to this area. These sodas are all made with real sugar. “I don’t sell anything with high-fructose corn syrup,” says Gibbons. “I do get people that stop by just to get soda, which I think is pretty cool.”

“You gotta love this business to do it, and try to make it. And I do, so that’s why I try,” Gibbons says. “I’m having fun, and hopefully I can keep doing it for a little while.”

Fryborg is typically out on the streets during the weekday, and maybe an event or two here and there in the area on weekends. Keep up with the truck’s whereabouts at facebook.com/fryborgtruck or @FryborgTruck on Twitter.

http://www.ct.com/entertainment/restaurants/nm-nh50-thescoop-20121206,0,1746586.story

]]> http://www.mobilefoodnews.com/2012/12/new-haven-ct-new-havens-fryborg-food-truck-hits-every-spot/feed/ 0 http://www.mobilefoodnews.com/2012/06/new-haven-ct-food-trucks-draw-hungry-kids-for-free-summer-meals/ http://www.mobilefoodnews.com/2012/06/new-haven-ct-food-trucks-draw-hungry-kids-for-free-summer-meals/#comments Fri, 15 Jun 2012 12:36:14 +0000 MobileFoodNews.com http://www.mobilefoodnews.com/?p=26670 By Ted Burnham | MaineFarmsForTheFuture.com

New Haven Public Schools’ summer food truck will deliver an expected 40,000 free meals to kids in eligible neighborhoods during July and August.

For millions of American children, the end of the school year means the end of free and reduced-price lunches that fill the gap between their appetites and their families’ budgets. It’s not that meals aren’t available during the summer – they generally are, thanks to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Summer Food Service Program. But getting kids to show up for those meals is harder than you’d think.

Most summer meals are served at school cafeterias where kids participate in summer camps and other activities. But that’s just a small fraction of the 22 million eligible kids nationwide.

“To get the kids from the neighborhood to come out has always been a challenge,” Tim Cipriano, executive director of school food services for New Haven, Connecticut, tells The Salt. He says there’s often a stigma attached to both the free meal and the fact that kids have to go to the school during summer vacation to get it.

Cipriano’s solution? Bring the meal to them, and make it more fun than a trip to summer school. In other words: Roll out a food truck.

Now, kids of all stripes have been lured by the ice cream truck for decades, but the rising popularity of urban food trucks hawking everything from kimchee tacos to Mexican eggrolls has given school administrators a new idea.

“It’s kind of the cool thing to do, to go to the food truck,” Cipriano says. He piloted the idea last August with a “bare-bones” setup, filling a truck with coolers and ice packs and visiting designated sites in neighborhoods where lots of children qualify for free and reduced-price lunches. The brightly painted truck handed out 17,000 meals in just 20 days.

This year Cipriano plans to serve 40,000 meals during July and August. The truck’s now got a generator and electric refrigerators. He’s serving basic bagged lunches for now — usually a sandwich, a piece of fruit, a carton of milk. But soon he hopes to add more trucks to serve hot meals, or even offer a walk-in truck with a salad bar like the ones that are popular with students at New Haven school cafeterias.

But even last year’s stripped-down version was successful enough to inspire other school systems. In Fayette County, Indiana, school food service director Siobahn Carey read about Cipriano’s truck and knew it was the solution to her rural county’s woefully underattended summer meals program. “I showed the article to my boss and I was like, ‘We are doing this!’” she says.

In the past, students just couldn’t get to the schools where summer meals were offered. Even though about 65 percent of Fayette County’s 3,900 students rely on meal subsidies during the school year, summer sites would be closed down for lack of participation. “We have such high poverty, some of these people couldn’t afford the gas to bring their child in,” Carey says.

So this year, a food truck is replacing centralized sites. The lunch menu includes sandwiches, salads, and fresh fruit and vegetables. Carey says kids line up to meet the truck when it arrives in neighborhoods and trailer parks. In the first week, the truck served more than 700 meals.

And it’s not just struggling families that benefit. In any neighborhood where the majority of kids qualify for subsidies, summer meal programs can get USDA funding without requiring children to enroll or prove eligibility. Anybody under 18 can grab a free lunch, which makes visiting Fayette County’s food truck an activity the whole community can enjoy, Carey says.

“It doesn’t matter what your status is,” she says. “Just come out and have a meal.”

Even if food trucks aren’t used – yet – for the summer meals program in your area, you can find nearby meal sites by calling the National Hunger Hotline: 1-866-3-HUNGRY (1-877-8-HAMBRE for Spanish).

http://mainefarmsforthefuture.com/food-trucks-draw-hungry-kids-for-free-summer-meals

Yesterday, an NPR story highlighted a new initiative by school food services in New Haven, Connecticut, to combat hunger among children through the use of food trucks. An increasingly popular form of food service for hip, urban foodies, the food truck is now being used to provide hungry kids in New Haven with food during the summer months when school meals are unavailable. Many people don’t know that children growing up in low-income households depend on school meals for their daily food.

According to the story:

This year, Cipriano plans to serve 40,000 meals during July and August. The truck’s now got a generator and electric refrigerators. He’s serving basic bagged lunches for now — usually a sandwich, a piece of fruit, a carton of milk. But soon he hopes to add more trucks to serve hot meals, or even offer a walk-in truck with a salad bar like the ones that are popular with students at New Haven school cafeterias.

Cipriano’s idea is catching on. The story reports that Fayette County in Indiana is also planning to use a food truck in an effort to decentralize feeding sites so families with transportation problems can still have access to food in the summer.

Keeping children across the country nourished during the summer is a yearly struggle. Back in 2009, Bread for the World reported that “there are far fewer summer food sites than schools providing meals … the result is that about nine out of 10 children who receive free or reduced-price lunch do not receive meals from the Summer Food Program.”

Certainly, churches and congregations can help to ensure that children have access to nutritious meals when school is out by signing up to be a Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) sponsor or meal site. But many churches are already feeling the weight of feeding hungry people in their communities. (Read this testimonial from a local pastor.) So we also advocate asking Congress to continue to support programs such as SNAP and WIC, which would help families gain the ability to serve meals at home that their children would normally receive at school.

+Ask your member of Congress to support programs for poor and hungry people! 

Jeannie Choi is associate editor at Bread for the World. Follow her on Twitter @jeanniechoi.

http://blog.bread.org/2012/05/using-food-trucks-to-get-meals-to-hungry-kids.html

By Emily Foxhall | Yale Daily News

The New Haven Public Schools food truck provides free lunch and dinner. Photo by Emily Foxhall

In the summer, children usually look for the ice cream truck, but this August, it was a bright orange truck covered with pictures of fruits and vegetables that drew neighborhood kids.

The New Haven Public Schools food truck, the first of its kind in Conn., stopped at three school parking lots for 45 minutes each weekday to deliver free lunch and dinner to any child aged 18 and under. The truck was delivering around 600 free meals a day by the program’s end this week. Tim Cipriano, the NHPS head chef, said that they hope to expand the food truck program to include more vehicles and extend service through the school year.

Cipriano said the concept for a food truck as a supplement to the summer meals program began when Aisha Flynn, a New Haven Public School kitchen manager, shared the idea with him several years ago. Cipriano said he then brought the concept to United Way of New Haven, who purchased the truck earlier this summer in Hamden.

Dawn Barros, one of the three food truck operators, said kids often sprint to the vehicle as if it were an ice cream truck. Parents even honk their horns on the road to try to flag them down, she added.

On their last day Tuesday night, Barros and another food service employee arrived at their usual location in the Betsy Ross High School parking lot. Opening the back door to the truck, they began passing out the prepared bagged dinners: each filled with a sandwich, piece of fruit, cookie and juice. Barros said that the truck usually carries around 300 meals for each trip.

“It’s a lot of fun. The kids truly love us,” Barros said, adding, “They’re hungry … They see us and they run.”

Cipriano said he hopes to expand the food truck fleet to four, including one equipped with a walk-through salad bar and another with a kitchen. Cipriano said they also hope to serve weekend meals throughout the year.

And upgrades to the current truck are also in the works: it will be receiving a refrigeration system and a glass service window in the coming weeks.

The Summer Food Truck program is a partnership between New Haven Public Schools and United Way of Greater New Haven, which are both part of the Connecticut No Kid Hungry campaign that began this March.

“It really captivated our imagination because it seemed like a perfect way to make sure the kids got the food,” said Jennifer Heath, Executive Vice President for United Way of Greater New Haven. “We would love to see it stay on the road, to make sure kids get the food they need.”

The food truck service supplemented the already existing free summer lunch program under the USDA Summer Food Service Program. While free lunches were previously available at 37 selected locations in New Haven such as schools or community centers, this truck increased access by adding three sites.

The food truck has also been nominated for the Food Network’s Great Food Truck Race, which offers $10,000 in prize money.

http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2011/aug/31/new-food-truck/

New Haven Public Schools Central Kitchen unveiled a food truck that will provide free meals twice daily to children in underserved neighborhoods. Announcing the new program are, from left, NHPS executive director food services Tim Cipriano, Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman, New Haven's chief operating officer Will Clarke, United Way Executive Vice President Jennifer Heath and Shannon Robins of End Hunger CT! (Mara Lavitt/Register)

NEW HAVEN — The New Haven healthy food truck doesn’t need to toot its own horn this week; first lady Michelle Obama is taking care of that job.

A Register story about the partnership between the school district and United Way of Greater New Haven to create the food truck program was posted on the Facebook fan page set up for the first lady. The page, which is run by President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign, Obama for America, praises the food truck for giving children access to healthy, nutritious food.

“During the summer, making sure that children in underserved communities have access to fresh food can be difficult,” the post says. “Projects like this highlight the innovative ways that communities across the United States are working to improve childhood nutrition.”

While it could not be confirmed through the White House if Michelle Obama actually writes the comments or decides what goes up on the page, more than 6 million people are fans and more than 6,700 people have “liked” the food truck story. Schools Chief Operating Officer William Clark said, either way, it’s an honor to have New Haven’s healthy food initiatives highlighted in a national way.

“Obviously, if 6 million friends are on the page, it gets the message out that that doing these kinds of programs is possible and we can make a great impact, even in places like little New Haven,” Clark said.

He said Michelle Obama has been a strong advocate and actual partner on several healthy food initiatives the district is involved in. Executive Director of Food Services Timothy Cipriano met the first lady last June at the White House for launch of her “Chefs Move to Schools” program, which encourages chefs to adopt schools, promote healthful eating and educate kids about food and nutrition. Cipriano helped develop the strategy for that program, an initiative of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Cipriano, out of town this week, said in a statement he was honored by the acknowledgment.

“It’s gratifying and humbling to have the first lady of the United States shine a spotlight on our efforts to feed kids healthy and nutritious meals in New Haven,” he said.

The truck, donated by United Way, delivers two free meals a day to kids in underserved city neighborhoods. The truck is stocked with nutritious meals such as sandwiches and fruit that are prepared by Central Kitchen staff. The truck delivers up to 1,000 meals a day.

The truck bridges the gap between when the district’s summer meals program ended this week until school starts at the end of the month. It is also supported by the Connecticut No Kid Hungry Campaign, which aims to end hunger in Connecticut by 2015.

The food truck schedule is: 10:30 to 11:15 a.m. and 4 to 4:45 p.m. at Betsy Ross School, 150 Kimberly Ave.; 11:30 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. and 5 to 5:45 p.m. at Helene Grant School, 185 Goffe St.; and 12:30 to 1:15 p.m. and 6 to 6:45 p.m. at MicroSociety School, 311 Valley St.

Anyone younger than 18 is eligible; there is no paperwork or need for identification.

http://www.nhregister.com/articles/2011/08/05/news/new_haven/doc4e3b3d88588a0388683470.txt?viewmode=default