the grilled cheese

Not only do I love eating, I also love shopping for food and thinking about food and talking about food. Lucky for me, today was the “Let’s Talk about Food” festival in Boston, presented by the Museum of Science. The idea was to bring food, science, and community together, and I think the event was a definite hit. One of the highlights, for me, was watching demos by a few truly amazing chefs. In the photo above, Joanne Chang (of Flour Bakery fame) is showing the crowd the difference between chocolate chip cookies made with melted butter and the same cookies made with room temperature butter. During the presentation, Gus Rancatore (next to Joanne) told us all about the trial and error process of creating the amazing ice cream flavors sold at Toscanini’s. (Toscanini’s is said to be “the best ice cream in the world” by the New York Times. So you should probably go there.)

We stayed for the next presentation as well, because chef Erwin Ramos from Olé (certainly the best Mexican joint around town) was making his to-die-for guacamole. He also showed us quick and easy methods for making tortas and salsa. Both demos were extra entertaining, because Meghna Chakrabarti (host of Radio Boston on WBUR and a favorite of mine) was doing the emcee-ing.

Naturally, we were ready to do some eating once we’d witnessed the science behind what happens in the kitchen. Fortunately, the food trucks were out in full force — seven in all! We scanned the menus for each, to see which would be most accommodating to the dollar a day spending plan. Grilled Cheese Nation advertised a “shot of tomato soup” for a dollar — perfect blogging material, right? Wrong. They were out of soup! We had planned to get a sandwich anyway, so we forked out the $6 and I pretended the grilled cheese was priced at $5 and I was tipping them $1. That’s how it worked in my head, anyway. We went with the “Blue Man Goo” sandwich — Great Hill Dairy blue cheese with fig spread and balsamic vinegar on Iggy’s raisin pecan bread. It was a pretty amazing combination, though they really were stingy with the amount of cheese included. We decided then and there we would make our summer goal to visit every food truck in Boston. Here’s to hoping there are $1 items on the menus so I don’t have to cheat like I did today.

Tagged: Blue Man Goo, Boston, Erwin Ramos, Flour Bakery, food trucks, Grilled Cheese Nation, Gus Rancatore, Joanne Chang, Let's Talk about Food Festival, Meghna Chakrabarti, Ole, Radio Boston, Toscanini, WBUR