Tag Archives: Texas

May 16

Crave Heat: Food Truck With A Cause

Image Source: photos.al.com

Crave Heat is a Tex-Mex food truck that participates in food truck festivals like the one held last April in Huntsville, Alabama along with 14 other food trucks. This is something most food trucks do all year long – travel around a city or a specific area offering their food. Most festivals like the one held last April called Street Food Season offered live bands, free admission, and other types of entertainment for the whole family.

In most food events like these, the crowds that attend number more than a thousand and each year, attendance grows bigger. Crave Heat stands out among most other food trucks because of its mission to feed the homeless.

Crave Heat food truck owners Armando and Priscilla Guerrero were originally from Austin but moved to Huntsville with a mission to serve food to the homeless on special holidays like Thanksgiving.  The rest of the year, they would market their food. They applied for the Valpak Dough to Grow Grant but did not get enough votes to win part of the $10,000 grant. Unfazed, they continued with the mission with funds they earned or received and were able to feed about 100 homeless last Valentine’s Day. They also accepted cookie donations as part of the Valentine Day’s meal.

Crave Heat serves freshly made salsa, fish tacos, burritos, and carne asada fries. They also have another food truck called Crave Ice which serves snow cone although this dessert truck only operates during the hot months.

Armando still has his day job as a computer systems analyst for a company in Huntsville. The food truck is something he sees not as a hobby business but something that will grow and spread to other areas. He says, “If they can’t come to use, that’s fine. We’ll go to them” speaking of the homeless people. Crave Heat is currently operating at the corner of Green Street and Holmes Avenue from 11 in the morning to 2 in the afternoon except Fridays to Mondays and if the weather permits. On weekends, they join food festivals or can be seen parked around Huntsville; a different corner for Fridays and Saturdays.

Jan 6

The Fried Foods Of The Texas State Fair

Image Source: Wikipedia

The Texas State Fair is an annual tradition held in Dallas since 1886. It is usually held towards the end of September and runs for 24 days. One of the highlights of the fair is the food. Texans have a strange sense of food humor as they introduce new types of fried foods for all to sample. Some of their most controversial fried food items are the following:

Fletcher’s Corn Dog – No one does corn dog like Neil Fletcher – the man who invented the original corny dog many years ago. In the 1983 Texas State Fair, it was estimated that he and his brother sold over 300,000 corn dogs at $1 each. Since then his corn dog has been a regular food fare in the fair.

Fried Turkey Balls – These are turkey balls that are dipped in a cream corn and then fried. It is served with turkey gravy.

Fried Chicken Waffles – Put together chicken and waffles and you have fried chicken waffles. It’s almost like a corn dog except it is flat.

Fried Spaghetti and Meatballs – The spaghetti noodles, sauce and meatballs are packed into a ball, battered, and fried. It still tastes like spaghetti with meatballs but has that added crunch, sometimes oily taste.

Fried Chicken – The usual fried chicken recipes are easy to find in the fair and you at least have this one traditional fried meal you can always fall back on if you’re hesitant to try the other fried foods.

Fried Oreos – The cookies are covered in chocolate syrup and icing sugar before being fried. When you bite into a fried Oreo, the cookie is softer, almost pasty and chewy. You might also like to sample the fried Nutella which is another sweet but strange concoction.

Fried Grilled Cheese – It starts off as a grilled cheese sandwich which is then fried so if you love grilled cheese, you’ll either hate or love this fried version.

Deep Fried Bubblegum – Nothing could be stranger than fried bubblegum and it has been called disgusting by many. However, for those who love the candy, it is an experience that should not be skipped.

Other fried foods are the fried burritos, Texas fried fireball (pimiento cheese ball), fried chicken meatloaf, fried millionaire’s pie (a dessert of fruit and nuts), and fried spam empanadas. To help you eat all these fried foods, why not try the most famous beverage after beer and sodas – the Asian bubble tea?