All Fired Up!

It’s approaching 7:20 on a Tuesday night, my night off. Not really possible being self employed. The term night off simply means nothing to cook for anyone tonight. Sweet, time to reflect on the moment. Today’s moment focuses on a new commercial kitchen space I’m considering renting, and it represents the next level of our business here. It already sounds good and I’m hoping it all works.
If it does, the next level can begin. Sure its only the first space I’ve seen, but its got everything we need to move this little operation forward, and I think my partner/friend, well really I’m the partner friend, I think we both think this is the one little nugget thats gonna propel us both in a favorable direction, at least for the next year. I sure hope so, I’m ready to do this.

This weekend proved to me that what I’m doing as a business model is correct. It feels right, more right than a lot of things I’ve tried have felt. Its a lot more tiring than I imagined, and I have seen my day of “working” all night parties, being the last man standing with a broom and a half empty beer close by. This is different. I feel like I’m connecting with people a bit, with them seeing their food being made. I know, its just “pizza” out on the streets, But people are seriously trippin when they see whats going in, the fascination with watching their pizza being pulled from the proofing bin, slapped around, tossed up and down, and stretched to fluffy perfection by hand. Ready to receive those wet, juicy organic tomatoes, the whole milk mozzarella, and the meats and organic veggies, damn. Then its tossed into a 950° wood burning pizza oven. If you are quiet, you can hear the dough squeal as it cooks! Like a little pig.

Pigs rule, by the way. All the best meats for pizza come from pigs as far as I know. Sure there are exceptions, like well, like, umm. Pepperoni, Sausage, salamis, hmm. ok maybe you can mix in a little beef here and there but for the most part, pork is where its at. It on our menus, hope you like it! Find us in your neighborhood

I’ve probably started a few posts like this by saying, I am blown away by the public response to our pizzas! Already a week into October, and things are moving right along here at FoF headquarters. We just finished up a weekend of gigs, a mix of public and private ones, and things are steady. Phone and email ringin off the hook! Everywhere we go and set up, we just keep hearing how cool it is, how good it is, and how just frickin dope our set up is. I’m starting to believe the hype, but I cannot lose touch of reality. We are a small operation delivering a high quality product in limited supply for a short period of time each week. IF you catch us, you can catch lightning in a bottle. Oh wait, this is a a blog. and I’m writing it.

I can’t help but be stuck on what Customers, folks are saying every time we go out. Our pizza is delicious and unique. it’s ready in a relatively short amount of time, even with a two person crew, and its consistently good. I frickin love pizza, but theres a big problem here in America with Pizza. its too thick, too greasy, too salty, too, Blahhhhh. too overwhelming. In fact, a few weeks a go I went to a place i consider to be good family style american pie, and well we ordered wrong. or those kids workin back there were too heavy handed. It was awful, I gagged actually taking a bite of a Pepperoni, mushroom and olive pizza. there were more ingredients on that one bite than there are on most of my pizzas. I’m omitting the name of this place because i know it was mostly our fault for ordering a three topping pie, but some of the blame has to lay on the hands making it. and when it got to me, I was like ohhh dang. gross, and I do not use that term lightly when it comes to pizza.

I’m hoping that by going out every week, making thin crust, high quality pizza on the streets, that I start to change peoples ideas about pizza. I’m not sure how the other guys do it, making greasy, tasteless junk over and over again. I cannot duplicate this process, I have tried to increase the orange grease that oozes from a good NY slice, but I can’t make it run all over my arm. Thank goodness! we are all too fat, and need to eat less, and more healthy alternatives. If you’re gonna carb up, shouldn’t it at least be Darn good? I believe so, I think so, and I make it so. Every week. Come find us, and try for yourself. Pizza to the people.

did I forget to mention we are now selling The brand new OMFG Bumper stickers for $2 each at select events. It says “OMFG street food is not a crime” and is a message to city hall, and anyone listening. Our city needs change and it needs that change soon. sure street food is not going to eliminate crime or prostitution, but it may help create jobs, and give folks a healthy new alternative to fast food here in our great city. its certainly not going to Increase crime. Hell it may actually promote neighborhood awareness and give folks a chance to come out and meet over a light dinner or a quick street snack. sorry step back two feet, what is the OMFG you ask? The OMFG is a group of oakland based street food enthusiasts working hard to change the face of street food in oakland. We need your support. Following last week’s article in the East Bay Express, a few of us got together and came up with the idea. your 2$ goes towards promoting the street food culture here in Oaktown, and helps us pay for flyers, stickers, and promotional materials about our upcoming events. you can purchase them at upcoming FOF events. Check our calendar for the latest schedule!
see you on the streets.

I sit, extremely tired, at the end of another month. One last gig tomorrow at Beer Revolution, and August comes to a close. Pretty darn amazing. Amazing i made it through my first summer as a legal and sometimes not so legal street food vendor. Yes I said it sometimes not. And I do this for a couple of reasons, both of which I’m not sure are going to get me anywhere, but right now its what I believe in. The First reason is because I love the thrill of going out and meeting people, and sharing my product and my creation with the community.

Take for example, yesterdays happening at the Berkeley Art Museum, and I do believe it was just that. Totally happening. Celebrating 40 years of Alice Water’s Chez Panise and the Edible schoolyard, OPENRestaurant organized an amazing day of Food activities including a Pedal Powered Grinding Food mill contraption, Live goats for milking, fresh made soups, Aguas frescas, and tamales right on the premesis. I took part in the Baking of several dozen loaves of Digger’s Bread, and meeting two of the original SF Diggers. not to mention Working with Steve Sullivan from ACME bakery, and Chris Sollars, and SF based artist and super cool dude. I think we all got a little toasty under the sun, along with the close to 200 Little loaves we baked in two ovens (guesstimate) we had 50 lbs. of Flour, and we did 9 oz. cans mostly. 4 main batches of 40-50 cans each. The second oven was supplied by Quill from Paso Robles, he hand builds Massive bread ovens for people, and needed to bring this one up to the Bay Area to ship it off to its owner in Hawaii. We got to hear some great stories from the mid to late 60′s era free food movement these folks were promoting and powering though with, feeding hundreds of people and doing what was necessary to build community. The whole event had a great vibe and it was a pleasure to take part in it.

The second reason is I knead the dough, you knough? Times are tough all around but people always need good food. The Bay Area is full of Legitimate opportunities for a Temporary Food Facility like mine. Yes, a TFF as it is known down at the County Health Department, and in order for a TFF to get a permit, the event needs to be acknowledged by that very same department, provided they are contacted by the event organizers and are notified of said event. The organizer needs to obtain a Permit to allow permits to be obtained by Vendors. Basically I can’t get a permit from the county if they don’t know the event exists, that’s how it works in this county, Alameda. Just for the record, I know this. I get permits for every event that asks me to obtain one.

I would get a year round permit from them, but they have yet to figure out how to allow my trailer to be permitted. I’m too big for a push cart and too exposed to be considered as a “Taco Truck.” In their defense, I have not tried too hard investigating how to get my trailer up to “Code,” if there is such a thing for a mobile Pizza Oven. Sometimes things happen that don’t follow protocol, and sometimes I participate in them, operating under the same guidelines and conditions we follow with permits.

My shit is legit. Our food is safe, blast-furnace style cooking at 950° ensures proper cooking of all ingredients. Hot and cold running water with soap can wash any utensils onsite. I’ve been inspected by Berkeley, Alameda, SF, and Contra Costa Co. and have passed every time, learning more each time we go out. For example, did you know that the fire extinguishers you buy at the Box stores are disposable? They can’t be recharged or checked by a fire inspector, so we gotta upgrade those to ones that can be. My propane set up, though directly under the outside corner of the oven, proved to be safe and not leaking. My Fire is completely contained, check. Ice in trays, check. lids on everything, check.

Next stop, Art Murmur Permit in hand, we’ll be rolling out this friday to kick off September here in the bay area. Check our website for the latest schedule updates here: Calendar of Events
See you next time on the streets.

Hello friends, I’ve been waiting to talk about this next weekend’s upcoming gig. I will NOT be making pizza Saturday August 27th, but I will be playing with Fire! We are renting out our oven for a special event happening at the Berkeley Art Museum. Teaming up are teachers, participants and learners from the free speech and food movements in the Bay Area over the past 40 years, to celebrate 40 years of Chez Panisse Restaurant and the Edible Schoolyard. More information about the event is here: openrestaurant.org. I will be running the Pizza oven all day with local artist Chris Sollars and Acme baker Steve Sullivan to follow the typical bread-baking schedule that the Diggers used in the 1970s to distribute free bread, baked in coffee cans. More information on the Digger’s movement and the Bread recipe we’ll be using Saturday can be found Here.

On Friday the 19th, we had a test baking session here at FOF headquarters, right in the driveway. We set up a couple tables and opened up the portable kitchen. Chris, Jerome and Amanda brought 24 little steel cans and Steve from Acme brought about 10 pounds of test dough. I brought the fire. I got up “Early” for a pizza maker at 8:30 to get the fire going and start warming up the Hearth. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to get a steady low temperature like 450°. I’m quite good at getting it up to 950°, but the slow and low is kinda hard. So small fires, ran one for about an hour and it got up to 200°, Ok, good start, let that sit for a bit, came back and lit a bigger fire to bring it up, and at 12:30 pm the thermometer was reading 550°, sweet, close the door. Up pulls the gang, right on time. Steve arrived with the dough and we began kneading. Got everything ready in about an hour, got all the cans loaded, and hashed out a game plan for the day.

Well, the oven was a success, we baked 24 cans in about 25 minutes, at a nice temp of 425° average. the Tops of the bread tubes got nice and smokey because we left some smoldering coals of almond in there while they baked. I was not sure the walls were quite hot enough, so I raked everything to the edges. Most of the cans came out quite acceptable for Free bread. Darn tasty, but then again we’ve got Steve Sullivan at the helm, duh. Acme Bakery is quite possibly one of the best bread makers around. I’ll just say it again, a sandwich isn’t a sandwich without Acme bread, and I was quite stoked to meet everyone and get involved with this project. Here’s a couple photos from the Finished product. The small cans produce sweet little Bread footballs. I bet a small pick up game breaks out on the Lawn of the Berkeley museum next Saturday. The event is free, so come on out! 11 am till 5 pm, with hands on activities all day!

Hi folks, its been ages since i last blogged. To be honest I simply haven’t had the time. There’s been a lot of activity to say the least. Perhaps you’ve heard of our new group here in Oakland called the O.M.F.G., or Oakland Mobile Food group. Its an organization of artisan street vendors working together to create food pods and street food scenes here in Oakland. We recently got clearance to crate a street food scene at the back end of the Oakland Coluseum for all Raiders home games. Our Kick off event was good with 5 vendors including Tacos Zamorano, Guerilla Grub, myself and the Oaktown Jerk, plus Guatemalan Barbeque. Real food for real fans. I think the next pre-season Game against the Saints on August 28th will be a lot better, and we’ll see a lot more craziness! I’m looking forward to it!

Check this out, the Gorilla-Rilla got up on the Guerilla Grub Truck at the kickoff Pre-season game!

Fall is shaping up nicely. Speaking of shape, I was standing out in front of Sacred Wheel Cheese shop this past Sunday and I was readying my Dough for the days’ Pizza. It was still early, drinking my coffee, and I was managing to get 32 pieces set up in the proofing trays. As I was doing this, a woman walked by casually, kinda looked down, and said, I Like your Balls. For once i was speechless. It caught me off guard, and well this obvious sense of awkwardness came over me, as if i was 13 again. I said, why, ahh hem, thank you! true freakin story…

The Indian summer is full up with weekend events, and I think I’m ready to buy my first full cord of almond firewood from Steve Sims. I think I have the room to stack it all. I’ve already dusted a cord this summer, possibly 2 cords this year already. This sure isn’t last year. Lots of wood these days! I remember it seemed like it took forever to burn off my first quarter cord of wood back in march of 2010. Now I can dust that in a couple weeks. I swear I just loaded a 1/2 cord down the driveway, and I’m lookin at my pile o wood and saying damn, gotta reorder again! Well woe is me, business is hoppin, summer is winding down and fall is just ramping up. Notable events I’m excited about include the Oakland Art Murmur for September 2nd, and Oaktoberfest in the Dimond District, coming October 16th. If we play it right we’ll be there for the first time this year alongside OMFG Vendors. Sweet, Beer and pizza, who knew?

Well Beer Revolution of Course! Some of you may know that Mondays are becoming more a regular stop for us, and you are more likely to catch us there out near the porch. Its one of the best places to hang out during a Bay area sunset in the Indian summer, and on Mondays, Man, great place to shake it off with a cold pint and a table of friends.

I believe there will be a lot of nice treats coming this Fall, with local brewers and happening spots in and around Oakland. Check our calendar of events frequently and follow us on the facecrack or twitter @fistofflour.

See you at the next burn

Well friends, July is indeed flying by, I cannot believe its almost over. So many more gigs and several of them will be happening in the evening. This is exciting because Shorty got some bad ass Efx this afternoon, and I simply cannot wait for the sun to go down and show them off! Yes, I know, what have I done this time? Gone over the top yet again? perhaps. This is only stage One. and its gonna get Cooler!

So I was all finished up a few weeks ago at Beer Revolution, on a warm monday night, I was hangin on the porch with the doorman and two very not sober patrons who were a little sad I had run out of pizza. They went to Domino’s after eating like 2 whole pizzas from me over the course of the earlier evening. they were very apologetic about the uncomfortable situation, having to do that right in front of me and all, but i was like, its cool man, Shit let me get a slice…I had run out of pizza, and as I often do, I neglected to properly feed myself that evening, so I actually tried a slice. I can’t believe I’m even telling you all this right now, but it wasn’t as horrible as I remembered. 20 years since i tried it, and 10 billion more pizzas and they finally got something that resembled food to come out of all those little stores across the country.

While i was munching and talking, out of the corner of my eye comes this glowing bright red and maybe blue bicycle rolling up and parks in front of the bar. The guy takes his helmet off and Its a friend of mine, Jefferson, who runs the Roll up bike shop in East Oakland. I’m like still tingling from whatever was in that slice and I was like Yeah man, that shit is off the hook! Where did you get those crazy lights for your Bike? “My friend is starting to build these little kits for about $100,” he says, and I’m like shit, thats it? Whats his number?

Enter Robb Pope, a young entrepeneur like myself, trying to make a dent in society by lighting up bikes, cars, vans, Short buses, buildings and whatever people ask him to light up with these incredibly bright, durable, waterproof LEDs. He is just now launching his new company called Brighter Cycling. Highly worth a Click through, especially if you ride your bikes at night, or out at one very popular Playa this summer! Winter is just around the corner too, and I guarantee you will be SEEN at night, from about a mile away I think. Possibly from space, yes, if enough people buy a single kit and all get together and line up their bikes, perhaps something could be seen from a great distance. Just a thought. I called him the next day.

Boom, we start talking about doin Shorty. He came by the next day and took some measurements of the bus, we talked a little more about how we’d do it, and got a simple game plan going. He showed me some Numbers, I said lets do it, and We set a date to install the Van’s components. That was today. It only took a few hours, a couple of pizzas and a few beverages to complete the task. (and some good ol american $$) I made food while he did the soldering in the dash. When he was all done I went to put the panel back on and realized I did not account for the new switch depth, so I had to dremel away the plastic, so to speak. Its hidden from view, and thank goodness because its not pretty under there. Its done, and we left some extra bits in there to add a few more little touches as the project continues in the next couple weeks. We’re waiting on more $$ from me and a controller from him. The trailer will be next and we have some special plans for it, so watch for that later this month!

Check out the little gallery. I’ll add some more pics after dark, maybe even get my partner to video me driving up the block…

(Ok, this post was started yesterday afternoon)

Mmm, its lunchtime here at FOF Headquarters and the whole house smells like Bacon. Well at least I can smell it right here, and it was good. BLT with Gruyere and heirloom tomatoes, yum. I love bacon, heck I like most pork products in their various forms, and it got me thinking about this Holiday Weekend’s menu. I’ve got about 45 minutes before its off to the Kitchen to get things going for Friday night Bites on Broadway, and parts of Monday’s big 4th of July bash out at the Kite Park in the Berkeley Marina. Its gonna be a blast, and its looking really good for the weather too. As any long time resident of these parts know, the June gloom tends to linger into the 4th of July weekend and most of us will end up with a sky of colored clouds and a lot of big booms. But perhaps, this year will be different. I sure hope so.

We are packed to the gills with product. We are ready for our first 10 hour day on possibly one of the windiest spots in the entire Bay Area. All the walls will be up and accounted for, and we’ll be set out at the Kite park. Anchors, Cinder blocks, and a whole lotta dough! I also hear that the fella who runs the Kite park is trying to line up all of the biggest Kites to make for a spectacular backdrop to the evening’s Big Show out on the water. I went out and checked the spot and yes, very windy it will be. I hope we can hold the tent down.

But bigger news is that I have entered a contest of sorts, sponsored by La Cocina In San Francisco. This year’s annual Street Food Festival is happening August 20. They are offering up 4 free spots to the street food vendors that can get the most votes over the next few weeks, and now is your chance to Vote for us. Click Vote for your Vendor before July 20th, and login via your facebook account, and select Fist of Flour. We are 4 vendors down, right up front, it only takes a second. The competition is tough, there’s a few big names there, and a lot of newcomers like myself. The four winners get a chance to participate in this year’s Festival, kitchen time and business advice. Not to mention great exposure in San Francisco. So get out and Vote for us today!

And, at the beginning of this blog i was prepping for Bites on Broadway. As many of you probably know by now, the popular and very short lived experiment on 45th st. came to a screeching halt last night as O.P.D. shut us down after just 3 previous weeks. Apparently there were some high level complaints placed against the event, so they told us to pack it up by 7 pm or face penalties like fines and citations. We managed to sell for the hour and a half, and the cops took off. Business was bustling and everyone was confused, stunned, and a little disappointed. Especially the newest vendors, some was their first time. 6:57 pm and the Sergeant rolled up, followed by two or three squad cars. Nice. So, the last pie got tossed in the oven and I was folding tablecloths as they approached. They were totally cool, nice even, and also expressed some level of unfortunateness for the whole thing. Officer X (i forgot his name) told me this is what the neighborhood needs but it was above his payscale, and he was following orders. I was like, yeah I know. I kinda saw it coming, especially with the recent fall of Forage SF’s very successful SF Underground Market. At some point the cities take notice, and this could be the start of a crackdown of sorts here in Oakland. I hope not, but there is a lot of food truck/cart activity here now, and the City’s laws and policies forbid a lot of whats really going on. They are slow moving to change anything as well, which makes it harder on us, small businesses who Want to operate here, who Want to pay taxes to the City, who Want to service their own communities with healthier alternatives to traditional fast food.

But we press on, I press on, and on. I’ll focus on other things, maybe lay low for a bit on the blatant stuff. Stick to house parties and private property. We have a lot more leeway when we’ve been invited to a spot. I dunno, we’ll see what happens with Bites. I heard there is a meeting with the city to discuss the permits again, but I doubt it will be resolved before next friday. We shall see.

Hello folks, wow, what a crazy last couple of weekends I’ve had. Been home for almost as long as I was gone now, and the jet lag is over. But I’m still tired. You cannot play a rockstar-like pizza cook on weekends and not feel like a rockstar-like pizza cook sunday morning, who stays up way to late three nights in a row after long shifts behind the peel, toiling over a 900° hell hole at three different locations. man, wrecked is a good word to describe me, and my stuff.

This week’s Bites on Broadway was good, slightly less attended and way more manageable than the Premier event last Friday. Last Friday was total chaos, and like a few other people have written, it probably sucked for a lot of folks. It was awkward on the side street for sure, and a lot of us really didn’t know what to expect. We did have some technical issues just days before and it was cancelled for a minute, so I was kind of like well lets just see what happens. I almost went solo, because i was having trouble lining up a crew to work. I still didn’t have anyone and it was Friday morning. In my head i was like yeah I’ll need one person at least, you know 200-300 people may come out, that’s fairly easy split across five vendors, and I need assistance. Thank goodness I got lolita to come in at the last minute. We were SLAMMED, from about 6 pm on, till I said I only had about 7 pizzas left around 8:15 or so. I looked around and realized we were the last van standing, everyone already sold out. 600+ people cleaned us out in just over two hours. wow.

Time to pack it all up and head to Sacred wheel in the morning for another Second Saturday. But better stop off at Dogwood and see who’s hanging around first before heading home. not always the wisest choice. Saturday morning was a tough one, but it was sunny and warm and i was outside, back in front of the oven. Workin till 4 pm, then its off to the Orchard with Steve for a thank you dinner and party with good friends who’ve just completely redone their house. Another late night caps the weekend. Rest, reload, and get ready for June 17th…

There were still hundreds of people in attendance at this week’s Bites on broadway, and I was ready with 69 pies and two assistants. We didn’t really get much of a line this time, but we did have a steady stream of happy eaters, and nobody was turned away. I got to break in a new assistant on the turn or burn station, Rebecca from Seattle. Met her thursday at Bar Dogwood, hanging with Damon from the Heathens, and she says she’s lookin for work. I’m like, I got work for ya. I think I have burned out all of my friends on taking shifts, so its time to start looking outside the circle. She proved solid, and came out yesterday to help with the First MacArthur Garage Brew/pizza party which was also hugely successful. My friend Kevin brews his own and has set up a tasting garage at his house. Pretty sweet. I pulled up around 3 pm, and we got the party going by 4:20, serving up mouth watering selections from my brain. Hot Coppa with Shallots and lil hot red peppers, finished with Basil, and for the veggie heads, we did Mushrooms with Dino Kale and sun dried tomato on the red sauce. yum. We ended the night with a few special sample treats, with the Blueberry balsamic reduction, goat cheese, arugula and coppa. That went fast!

So, where do you wanna go? Disco Volante? allright. I’ll take you there, no, no just one drink this time. That never works. DJ Platurn and company were in the house spinning great sets of 45′s, the music was a bit loud, but the beer was cold and the seats were comfy. One drink, famous last words. I found myself at my bedside by 2:40 I think. I still don’t know where all that time goes…

Hello friends, well, let me just start with a thank you. Thank you Oakland for believing in me, for coming out, and trying our pies! Where ever we seem to go, we get a favorable response. I’m pretty much as happy as I can be right now. It’s almost two years to the day that I first tried Pizza Politana in downtown Oakland. That random day I was just driving past the farmer’s market, and I recall I was really hungry. Not even sure why I was downtown, I may have just come back from the Alameda skatepark, and I remember that line of at least 15-20 people in front of me. Like is this worth it? well, It was. to say the least.

For it was that day that Fist of Flour was conceived in my little brain. I had no idea where it was going to take me or how it would actually begin, but deep down, I felt the streets were calling me. The little phone in my stomach was ringing off the hook in October 2009, it was The Institute of Mosaic Art calling to say we are offering a wood fired oven building workshop. Thankfully i took that call. I remember the class was almost canceled because there was not enough interest. I almost threw up, I was really looking forward to this. I thought this was it, my ace in the hole. I’ll build it myself goshdarnit, and the rug was pulled from under me.

Celeste called back two days later and the class was on. The rest is written elsewhere in my blogosphere, and is Pizza history now. 2010 was a year of fermentation and experimentation and as a result, I have had a gig almost every weekend since January 2011. 30 gigs to be exact, that I’m counting, and its only the middle of May. Summer is starting, and I’m taking a quick two week jaunt to England to see some old friends and meet some of my partner’s relatives. Oh and drink lots of good northern English Beers, and do some walking around the countryside singing Led Zeppelin songs as we go. its gonna be great. My hands will have time to heal from the peel, if they don’t get too wrecked from this coming weekend.

This weekend starts another long awaited process for me, and if I was really smart I’d stop writing and go do a few things to prepare for this. Shorty is getting a facelift, starting Saturday morning we’ll be stripping it down, sanding, priming, bangin, and crankin on getting it ready for paint, logos and decals. If we get all that done in time, my friend Pete will drag it off to San Mateo for its final treatments. When it comes back, its gonna be Big and Black and ready for action. I still need to size and layout the logos for the front and side panels. I have not decided if I’ll actually use the Fist on the bus. I guess I have to, but how? the lettering is easy, I’ll mimick the old SCHOOL BUS stylings on the front and back, and use the Brush script font for the sides. But where will my fist go? hmmmm. Doors? alongside the name? I kind of want it minimalist. I think its safe to say at this point people know the fist. I know for a fact that over the weekend of May 13-15 with the three gigs, I must have had 300 people try my Pizza.

At the Nomadic Pizza Throwdown last Friday, we didn’t win with a ton of votes, but we sold 76 pies and raised a lot of Money for Japan as a group. We did hand out a lot of stickers and it was the first time San Francisco has felt the fist in its tiny little 7×7 space. It was quite tough actually cramming all four Pizza ovens around the front of Coffee Bar. It must’ve looked pretty awesome from a far, and I bet you could smell it all the way to Oakland. 18th street is such a wind corridor, all that smoke and heat was blowing across the bay altering weather patterns. It was rad, the crowd seemed to really dig trying all the different selections. There was no bad pizza this night, and we did a good thing.

So what’s next? Well, our next two stops will be June 10th and 11th in the Temescal general area so mark those calendars folks. The first stop is a new event that has already been building steam and getting a little media attention, CHOMP! Bites on Broadway is a new street food venture put on through the collaboration of Karen Hester and the Oakland Mobile Food Collective, a new group of well, the name kinda says it all.

We are I think 8-9 vendors strong now, and we are hoping to unite all of the mobile food operators here in the East Bay, primarily in the City of Oakland to band together and Change the existing street food laws to allow for more flexibility and frequency of locations to operate around the city. Some neighborhoods like the Temescal district are wholly embracing the idea, and are allowing us to create a working model for the city to possibly adopt. The mobile food revolution is finally happening here in the US and Oakland is falling behind. We have an amazingly rich and diverse street culture over here and its about time the City acknowledges it. We hope to make this a regular thing here, so come on out June 10th, and every Friday till October, and check it out! 5:30-9:30 at Oakland Technical school, 4351 Broadway. The vendors will change and rotate each week as the collective grows larger, so we’ll be able to keep it Fraiché (See South Park season 2010 episode 14, please see this episode if you think you are a foodie!)

June 11th is Second Saturdays at Sacred Wheel Cheese and Specialty Market, and We will be there with our newly painted van, 4935 Shattuck, just behind the Peets coffee. Our menu changes weekly, and there’s always something special to put on pizza at Sacred Wheel, so come on down and grab a slice and say hi, grab a lil Grilled cheese and a cup of amazing soup, or peruse the shelves and cases for well, super yummy stuff.

Ok, thats a long post, congratulations, you made it to the bottom, finally. You’re done, I’m done for a few weeks. Phew. See you all in June!