Last year Squarespace reached out to me and to curate and launch a promotional event for the 2011 South by Southwest Interactive Festival. They wanted raise brand awareness and rightly thought a street food event would do just the trick!

The event took us around four months of fun yet challenging planning. And then, in March, we launched the Squarespace SXSW Food Truck, just a half a block from the heart of the festival! As with most planning, the final product was a mile away from the initial concept, and all for the better. What launched was a pop-up gourmand’s food truck serving truly outstanding eats from a rotating selection of Austin’s best street food vendors. All of the food was free, courtesy of Squarespace, and boy, was it a hit! Here are some highlights:

The event focused around a monster of a food truck, wrapped cleanly in black vinyl, and positioned against a striking red backdrop that wrapped an entire building in downtown Austin.

Each morning a line of conference attendees wrapped around the block, all patiently waiting in anticipation for the tasty treats they were about to receive. In all, the truck saw around 10,000 visitors in just four days.

The space also had a super fun photo booth, powered by Smilebooth, where folks could take food porn photos and enter to win giveaways like MacBook Airs and iPads.

But to me, the star of the show was the food. We weren’t going after just ‘OK’ food; we wanted the best. We looked at our truck as a way to deliver Austin’s hottest street eats to hungry attendees. The lineup was great. We had Franklin BBQ dishing out amazing pulled pork and chopped brisket sandwiches. East Side King, the brainchild of some wildly talented chefs from Uchi and Uchiko, made two styles of bao buns. Man Bites Dog did what they do best, amazingly delicious and creative hot dogs on fresh baked kolache buns. And Gourdough’s, who were crafting their signature doughnuts, just as deliciously hot and messy as ever!

After all was said and done, I think the event went off without a hitch. Everybody seemed to have an amazing time, and the food flew! One blog even said that Squarespace dominated food at SXSW! Amazing. What’s more, Squarespace has asked me to come back on this year to put together another killer event. Can’t say exactly what it will be yet, but stay tuned. It’s going to leave 2011 in the dust!

My apartment smells like pork and smoke. It’s pretty great.

You see, I have a new friend named Chris. Chris is good at getting himself involved with exciting projects. One project Chris has been working at is Kitchensurfing, and I’m pretty stoked about it.

Someday in the future, Kitchensurfing.com will launch as a sort of Airbnb meets Meetup for food enthusiasts. The platform will connect cooks with kitchens, and hungry bellies with tasty vittles. I think it’s going to be great, and I’ll keep you posted on it’s launch.

While the site is being developed, Chris & his team have been building the Kitchensurfing community through frequent eat-up’s at their stunning Manhattan office. They’ve been using Meetup.com to rally the troops, and successfully hosting supper-club style lunches and dinners.

What’s this got to do with me?

Well just a few days ago Chris asked me to jump in and cooked up a lunch. I made Pulled Pork Sandwiches with an Asian Slaw and Lime Cilantro Mayo. Here’s how it went down:

First I trimmed four pork shoulders and rubbed them down with some coarse Kosher salt. Then right into the smoker they went, kickin’ it with the hickory. Meanwhile, I shaved some brussels and red cabbage, and folded that together with mint, cilantro, and basil leaves. The greens then got topped with a ginger & fish-sauce based dressing to produce a light, sweet, and all together refreshing South East Asian slaw. Yum.

I also zested a boatload of limes, juiced a few, and added it all to some mayo. A few secret spices, a bit of heat, and about an lb of pureed cilantro, and boom!, you’ve got yourself a bright, refreshing, mayo.

A few [many] hours later the shoulders were done. Go time.

I hit up Amy’s for some of their challah rolls, butter grilled them, and started to assemble.

Each sandwich got a nice helping of slaw, a generous meat mound, and a drizzle of mayo. I also tossed some chips in togarashi and popped them on the plates. The eating began!

On the whole it seems folks liked it food. Nearly all the plates came back clean. Yay!

Pulled Pork Sandwiches, Fully Dressed

Cooking Notes
The biggest take away from the cooking experience for me was, and has been for a while now, how great salt is as a rub. I used to use a ton of shit on pulled pork. I’d basically lather the butts in yellow mustard, make a 7+ ingredient Memphis style dry rub, and cake that on. It’s tasty, but so little smoke gets through all that gunk. These days I let the smoke do the talking. On pork, it’s salt. On brisket it’s salt and coarse pepper. That’s it. And you know, sticking to that simple regiment has produced better ‘cue than any rub I’ve ever used. Plus, it makes a pretty neutral product. Want to go to The Carolinas, make a mustard sauce for it. Prefer something sticky and sweet, through your favorite KC style sauce on. Or in my case, you produce the perfect canvas for something completely unusual.

Salted & Smoked Pork

Thanks Chris & the whole Kitchensurfing team for having me. It was a blast. And of course, thanks to Miko for helping me, as always! <3

Growing up, my buddy Florian had a knack for finding four leaf clovers. He didn’t really have to search, they would just reveal themselves to him. Well, it seem’s I’m developing a similar skill for the Google Street View car.

So far, my little purple car has been recorded sitting in front of my apartment in Brooklyn, NY.

Google also captured it parked in my buddy Aaron Franklin’s barbecue joint in Austin, TX where I was loitering with Miko and Zack.

View Larger Map

But my up-close and personal debut was just around the corner from Franklin BBQ in Austin, where I saw it coming and was ready with a pose.

If you’ve never seen Google Street View before, it’s simply a photo based, mapped, geotagged version of Google Maps. You can cruise down streets and see buildings up close, as if you were actually there.

The collect the images with this outfitted car that a Googler drives. The car itself is pretty easy to spot. It’s a colorful, branded Google, and has a massive tech-packed proboscis protruding from the top. Crammed into antenna is some pretty sophisticated tech:

“…The latest car has 15 lenses taking 360 degrees of photos. It also has motion sensors to track its position, a hard drive to store data, a small computer running the system, and lasers to capture 3D data to determine distances within the Street View imagery.”

Neat stuff.

So, be prepared and smile big. You never know when the Google car is just around the corner!

I just got an email from my buddy Adam Christianson pointing out that What’s This Food?!, my video podcast about strange and unusual foods, was voted the Top Arts Podcast of 2011 by Apple iTunes! I had no idea this was happening, but I’m beyond ecstatic.

For What’s This Food?!, iTunes has constantly been my top viewership point – with over 80% of my views coming from iTunes alone. But, not once did I imagine it would net me an honor like this.

Big thanks to all of you who’ve been watching What’s This Food?! this year, and of course VendrTV over the last three years. The show wouldn’t have been possible if it wasn’t for our awesome episode sponsors, so shout outs to all of them. And of course, a huge Thank You to Miko and Marley, the countless hours they’ve spent filming, editing, and putting up with my shenanigans this last year.

If you’ve not yet seen What’s This Food?!, you can catch it on my site, via YouTube, or of course on iTunes. I’ve posted one of my favorite episodes below. And stay tuned, more episodes are on their way.

Recently, Fast Company Magazine asked me for my opinion on how Quiznos, a chain of custom sandwich cafes, could save their slowly sinking sub shops. They were looking for game changing ideas, and I think mine certainly uproots their currently operation. Check out the article to see my response, and then post a comment here letting me know what you’d do to put them back on track.