Thanks for your patience. We now have a regular schedule at Wolverine State Brewing in Ann Arbor

Hello dear readers and friends of Debajo del Sol. We've done it! We've set a schedule at Wolverine State Brewing. See our Hours and Events page for details. We welcome two newish employees. Emily has been with us since last season at Mark's Carts and Grace just started this week. We are so excited!!! This means we can be open five nights a week.

We've also brought back our paella on a limited basis. Tonight, Saturday, June 22, we will have paella on the menu.

Now that we have you all excited for the new regular schedule. I do have to say that we will not be at Wolverine on Thursday, June 27, and Friday, June 28, because we will be serving lunch at the Fordland Food Truck Rally in Allen Park. We are so excited to make another appearance at this wonderful event. We had such a great time at the last event in May. There was a warm reception for all the carts. We will return to Wolverine for music night on Saturday, June, 29.

Cristina at Fordland Food Truck Rally: Photo Courtesy of Fordland Food Truck Rally

No Dearborn event for us tonight. We are at Wolverine!

Hi all,

We had a little hiccup in our calendar. No worries. We had to back out of the Dearborn event, nothing major, just some red tape we hope to get straightened out before the next Dearborn event. That's okay. We are at our home base for the evening instead. That, of course, is Wolverine State Brewing Company on Stadium behind Big George's. We love our home base.

Look for info on upcoming events on our events page. We are doing our best to keep it current. We will be putting some stuff up there in the near future.

Cheers,

Cristina
General Manager
Debajo del Sol

The little cart that could

That's what Chef Jay said in passing at Debajo del Sol's last event, the FordLand Food Truck Rally. It was a blast! We appreciate how patient and enthusiastic everyone was. The lines were long and the people were friendly and genuinely excited about the great food coming from all of the trucks. Thanks to Scott of Treat Dreams. Not only does he make the best handcrafted icecream around, but he organizes great food truck rallies. In fact, he has organized another food truck rally in the City of Dearborn that we will be at Friday, June 7. It kicks off at 5 p.m.
Jay's little cart that could remark comes from us pulling up at these rallies with our little cart. We are a small operation, a 6-foot by 10-foot stainless steel box on a trailer. That was big at Mark's Carts, but out in the wild blue yonder we are itty bitty. Sometimes, we feel even smaller when we pull up next to these fully operational trucks. Still, we hold our own and we love talking to the other truck owners and getting to know how they got into the business. It's a great community of people who love good food and love to make people happy by satisfying their culinary curiosity. We enjoy getting out and about now and meeting everyone and look forward to the summer of rallies and events. If you can't make it to the events, visit us at Wolverine State Brewing Company. We open there most Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays when we don't have special events. Check us out on Twitter and Facebook for times and locations and such. We also will be set up at Wolverine for University of Michigan football saturdays in the fall. We'll be open Tuesday, June 4, as Linday Lou takes the stage for a night of great music at Wolverine.

At FordLand Friday, May 31.

We are still working on a regular presence at Wolverine State Brewing on Stadium. We are getting out there more. The best way to keep up with what we are doing and where we will be on any given day is to follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Tomorrow, Friday, May 31, we will be open for lunch at FordLand on 1000 Republic Drive in Allen Park for the FordLand Food Truck Rally from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. The flyer is pictured above. We are excited to be hanging out with the Metro Detroit food truck crowd these days. They are always a great group and always serving up some great cuisine. Our menu will include duck fries, chorizo corn dogs and sliders. Chef Jay has a limited quantity of duck eggs to add to the duck fries for a real decadent treat. He's also rolling out the lamb sliders with lamb from Back Forty Acres in Chelsea. Also want to give a shout out to our CSA Bridgewater Barns Family Farm in Saline. Tony and Janet provided some rockin' duck eggs. 

We will not open at Wolverine that Friday night, but we will open next week at Wolverine. Look for our announcements.

Farewell to Mark's Carts, but not goodbye

We are moving on from our place at Mark's Carts. Most may be aware of that by now, as the new season is underway and we are no longer part of the courtyard. We enjoyed our time at Mark's Carts and owe a lot to the project that gave us a running start with our food cart business. Now, it's time to move on.
After a long winter of thinking hard about what our future will look like, we are excited for what is in store for Debajo del Sol. We are most certainly not going away. We are still here. We are excited to be working with E.T. Crowe and her gang at the Wolverine State Brewing Company on Stadium. We are in the process of establishing a regular schedule, so keep an eye on our schedule. As soon as we have solidified times and secured staff we will announce some regular hours.
We also are excited to announce that we will be taking the cart on the road. We are branching out to festivals, food truck rallies, and music festivals. We are excited to be a part of the Romeo 175th Anniversary Jubilee happening this Saturday, May 18, in Romeo, Michigan. In August, we will be a part of the Mo Pop Festival at Freedom Hill Amphitheater. We are adding more events to the schedule as well. We'll update the blog as we go.

Pulled pork sliders served at an event last weekend

Debajo at a Taste of Tilian

What a perfect night at Tilian Farm Development Center. We set up our cart behind the barn as we teamed up with Ben of Bending Sickle Community Farm to create this delicious duck egg tortilla with tomato basil salad and tomato jam. Green Things Farm contributed the tomatoes and zucchini. It was a real team effort to put the dish out for the Taste of Tilian Fundraiser. We had a blast. We didn't get to taste anything else, except the delicious beet chocolate cupcake with goat cheese frosting. The line outside our cart seemed endless for a while, but it was all in good fun to celebrate great local food. The evening was capped off with music from the wonderful band The Understory.

Back at Union Hall Kitchen

Well, we are back at Union Hall Kitchen. Our suppliers are making stops again and we are gearing up for our new season. We feel a little more prepared than we did last year. Jay spent the day prepping all kinds of savory yums, including a chicken pepitoria (a traditional Spanish dish of chicken stewed in almond and saffron sauce) that we are rolling out this week in a sandwich with an apple and aioli slaw. There we are working as a team to get that aioli made. He made sofrito in preparation for another season of delicious paella. We'll be opening with our Catalan-style pulled pork. In our never ending effort to source as many ingredients locally as we can, we are now getting our Manchego from Graystone   Farm and Creamery in Chelsea. The Midwest truly meets Spain. We'll also be making shrimp fritters with lemon aioli. The shrimp, too, is sourced locally from The Shrimp Farm Market in Okemos, Michigan's first and only shrimp farm. I, of course, am back at baking our gluten free almond cookies.




We are anticipating a wonderful and fun grand re-opening event Friday, March 30. We love the atmosphere downtown and can't wait to be a part of that again on a full-time basis. Here is a photo of our card. We look forward to seeing you there.

Debajo del Sol at Mix Market Ypsi today

Chef Jay will be at Mix Market in Ypsi with delicious spinach, raisin and pine nut empanadas, saffron and almond chicken sandwiches.
Mix Market is located in the J Neil's Mongolian Grille building on the corner of Michigan Ave. and Washington Street, across from Mix, the store. The owner of Mix, Bonnie Penet and Leslie Leland, came up with a wonderful use for the empty building across from their shop by creating an indoor market that features locally made arts, crafts and foods.
We are really excited to be a part of something so wonderful happening in Ypsilanti, our hometown.

Capturing a sunrise, a 9-11 meditation

Love this miraculous world that we did not make, that is a gift to us. --Wendell Berry

This is a photo of a sun rise I took a few weeks ago. It's not a fantastic photo by any means, but it represents a rare moment of peace in my life, a moment of watching something I have not really stopped to see in many years. After all, there are deadlines to meet, bills to pay, and all that jazz. Even now, I often wake up in a panic thinking about it all. But, today is a day of remembering, remembering that we are still here, remembering that day 10 years ago when we got the wind knocked out of us. We watched a door slam hard, shutting behind it our innocence and perhaps our naive "that could never happen here" thoughts out forever.

It's a different world, now. There is no going back. We hear talk of threat levels and wonder what that means for us. We see crazy ebbs and very few flows in the economy and wonder what that means for us. We hear chatterboxes on television trying to tell us to beware of this or beware of that and wonder what that means for us. In all of it, it can be hard to find a moment like the one above, a moment that brings clarity and makes me really see what truly matters.

We have all heard the stories of 9-11 survivors who were headed off to work, were on autopilot in their morning routines, as we all are so apt to be, when something, a sick child perhaps, made them stop and take a few minutes longer. In essence, we are all like those survivors. If nothing, the tragedy should not make us always fear the fact that this could happen again, but it should remind us of our fortunes, should make us stop more often and take in a breathtaking sunrise or take in, as I saw yesterday from the window of my food cart, a tender moment when two young parents are enraptured by the beauty of their sleeping infant. With the victims of 9-11 and their families in my heart, I choose to see more of these moments from here on out. I choose to capture more sunrises, to capture more smiles from my teenage children (yes, I am aware that means I have my work cut out for me), choose to worry less, to love more, to sing more, even if I can't carry a tune. Yes, our world has changed, but it can change again. Peace.

Catching Up

Ann Arbor Art Fair was long and hot and long and hot. Now that we've managed to get through the hottest of hot days we feel like we can handle high 80s, low 90s no problem. While sales weren't quite what we'd hoped that week, our Kiki had a good week. She set up a display of her paintings and sold a few of hers as well as a painting by our dog Maynard. Proceeds from her art sales will be donated to the Humane Society of Huron Valley where Maynard lived before we became his forever family.








A couple weeks before art fair we hung out in Kerrytown for the Bacon Festival. I meant to post the photos of our cart friends who participated.



Ji Hye of San Street assembles a steamed bun.










David and Blake serve up some pie at the Eat cart.










Angie and Keith of Humble Hogs.

Ann Arbor Art Fair anticipation and our menu

The weather is getting warmer and that can only mean one thing. The Ann Arbor Art Fair is nearly upon us! There will be lots of fun things happening down at Mark's Carts. We will have music, including our friends Jason Magee and Erik Santos of 16 More Miles. They performed once already for our Friday Night Live series and, as always, it was great! If you missed that performance you can catch them playing here during art fair along with a bunch of. Other great musicians.
There also will be youth art displayed and sold. Our daughter, Kiki, will be selling her animal paintings. Her intention is to donate a portion of her proceeds to the Humane Society of Huron Valley where our dog, Maynard, came from.
For art fair we'll be cooking up some great stuff. We've already rolled out our chicken paella. Jay is marinating the chicken in garlic and herbs. Yum! We'll also be throwing in some fresh local vegetables.
We'll also have our staples, chorizo corn dogs and our decadent and delicious duck fries, featuring crispy hand-cut potato, chorizo duck gravy and blue cheese. We have been around these parts for a good number of years and are well aware of how hot art fair days can get. Our watermelon gazpacho with cucumber, basil and local goat cheese made by our friends at Four Corners Creamery in is just the blast of refreshment needed after a day of taking in all the wonderful art coming to town. Our Spanish-style potato salad made with a sherry vinaigrette also is refreshing. Can't forget our other menu favorite, the lamb burger with pear mustarda and blue cheese. Should make for a fabulous time. We look forward to seeing you down at the cart. We'll post art fair deals and music schedules soon.

Late night and other stuff

Dear Ann Arbor,

The past couple weeks at Mark's Carts courtyard have been exciting. We celebrated our first month of operation as the first food cart courtyard in southeast Michigan on June 9. We are finally in a groove at Debajo del Sol. We feel a lot more organized. It could have something to do with the iPad we got to help us with the cash transactions. That makes Cristina and happy girl.

We had some visitors last week. Congressman John Dingell came to the courtyard last Friday. No one wears Searsucker like Dingell. That same evening the courtyard enjoyed its first Friday Night Live event. We held a drawing for a free paella dinner for two. Our winners, Peter and Jean, returned Thursday night for some tasty rabbit and chicken paella.

Thursday, The Detroit Free Press ran a front page story about Mark's Carts. We were excited to see a photo of Jay's paella on front page of the entertainment section. More photos of all kinds of fun stuff at the food courtyard are at the Detroit Free Press website.

Tonight, Jay and our friend Scott G., are doing late night service from midnight to 3 a.m. I am definitely no going to be doing that. My hope is that all goes well. Well, I thought this blog would be more descriptive, but I think fatigue is blurring the letters on this blog.

We look forward to more fun at the courtyard. Come join us.

Yours,

Cristina

P.S. Blake is the pie king.

Celebrating Cristina's Birthday Wednesday with a mini-fundraiser for the Pink Fund and looking forward to Friday Night Live

I was on my way back to the courtyard today from a bread run when I realized how I wanted to celebrate my birthday on Wednesday, June 8, at the courtyard. I am all about birthdays and I'm all about helping women and men with breast cancer, especially helping an organization that helps women and men with the financial burden created by breast cancer treatment and recovery. That's why Debajo del Sol will be holding a mini-fundraiser for The Pink Fund, an organization based in Michigan that provides financial assistance to men and women who are going through breast cancer and have lost income because of it.

I know all too well the financial burden caused by a breast cancer diagnosis. I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2006 and even with a good amount of vacation time and disability, five months of chemotherapy really did zap that all up and more, making it difficult to keep a full and steady paycheck while paying the mounting medical bills. That's why I think organizations such as The Pink Fund are as important to the fight as organizations that raise money to find a cure. Finding a cure would be great, but in the meantime women and men are living with the burdens cancer diagnoses ultimately cause.

My plan is to match whatever we collect tomorrow with the number of my age. We also will be running a special. The first person to guess my age correctly will get a free paella.

Here's to birthdays!!!!!

We'll also be open at the courtyard during Friday Night Live. There will be live music featuring the band Me and Ryan. Also, we'll run some specials. Look for details in Thursday's post.

We saw the sun

It happened today. The sun came out in Ann Arbor. That's after a week of storms, tornado warnings and snow. Well, the snow wasn't real. The snow was part of the movie set for Five Year Engagement, starring Emily Blundt and Jason Segel, which is shooting in Ann Arbor. I saw the fake snow as I walked up Washington to get some fresh bread at Cafe Japon. I had no idea there was a movie being shot in Ann Arbor until last Thursday. That was the day Jay and I made the executive decision not to open our cart as rain and thunder storms were forecasted for the entire day. We decided to make up for it and remain open throughout the holiday weekend.
Friday, Jay debuted the outdoor paella cooker, making his life a little more hectic. He now works the line in our cramped little mobile kitchen and simultaneously has paella cooking outside, so I'm learning a bit more about the line. In essence, I'm learning how not to destroy chorizo corn dogs. I admit I had no idea what I was doing when he left me alone in the cart for the first time a couple weeks ago. It wasn't pretty. I'm a quick study, though, and I haven't destroyed anymore chorizo corn dogs since. Knock on wood. Fortunately we have some great help in the form of our friend Scott G.

We love the community that is growing around our little food cart courtyard. We've had so many interesting, food loving visitors. Last week, Davis Smith posted a video blog about our courtyard. He said some wonderful things about our home away from home.
Jay's duck sausage with a pear mustard preserve and blue cheese foam, a little homage to the traditional Spanish duck and pears, proved popular, even if our whipper was a little ouchy.

We have more friends visit our cart. Jay's friend from high school Tim Ganun visited the cart. Jay took a brief break from all his cooking to say hello.
We also had a visit from one of our Kickstarter backers, Brian Steinberg, of Inchworm Bakery and Inchworm Microgreens. He'll be part of the Westside Farmer's Market opening at the Zingerman's Roadhouse parking this Thursday at 3 p.m. We wish him well and hopefully we'll get a moment to go check him out there. We look forward to seeing more of our friends and meeting so many new friends as the months progress. We also hope the sun will stick around for a while. Well, we'll see you at the cart. Ciao for now.

Kickstarter goal met, two weeks down, many friendly faces at the courtyard

We have met our Kickstarter goal. We are so grateful to those who helped us and look forward to seeing everyone at the cart. We do have a few more backers to mention, including Catarana Triacca, Winston Yu and Carol Souchock.

We've had an exciting first couple of weeks. We would never have gotten through the first week without the help of our moms, Mary (Jay's mom) and Maria (my mom). They helped out in Union Hall Kitchen as Jay and I figured out our groove. We are still figuring it out a bit, but we have a better handle on it now that we have a little bit of an idea of how things work. We even managed to deal with my car that decided to have issues this week.

We've enjoyed seeing our friends. Some even helped to do the dishes. Our friends Corrine, Ellen, John and Arik stopped by last weekend.





Our friend Piero has visited the cart every day.




















Our friends Steve and Jason helped Jay wash dishes yesterday.




















Can't resist putting this picture up of Jay with paella.













Well, we are resting up for the start of another week. We are expecting rain, but we'll still be down at the courtyard making some delicious fixings. See you at the courtyard.

A poem by David Julius Ceasar Salad for debajo del sol

Estoy muriendo de hambre
y nadie quiere ayudarme
My estomago esta vacio
Y mi boca esta secando
Debajo del sol

Caminando en la calle
Yo miro un fantasma
Llamando mi nombre
Con comida fresca
En las sombras

**********************

I am dying of hunger
And nobody wants to help me
My stomach is empty
And my mouth is drying
Under the sun

Walking in the street
I see a ghost
Calling my name
With fresh food
In the shadows

Life at the Courtyard

We've been fortunate as far as weather goes. The sun has given life at the courtyard some great ambiance. We were busy today. We love being busy. We love being at the courtyard. Right now, it's all about finding our groove and ways to improvise to keep our customers happy. Ann Arbor has given us a warm welcome, though, and we are grateful for that.
Me, I love being in the city and seeing the streets of Ann Arbor wake up as I run morning errands. I'm getting to know Miyoko at Cafe Japon, where we get our delicious bread. I feel like a city dweller again, a far cry from what it felt like working in a small town for 12 years. Still, I did love the small town, but there is just so much going on in the city.
Just today, I walked by poet Keith Taylor. I said hello, though he probably doesn't know me from Adam. Still, it made me all happy inside just knowing that on any given day at the cart I can run into a poet. In fact, on our first day at the courtyard I walked by a guy who goes by the name David Julius Ceasar Salad just sitting at a small TV table writing poems for a few bucks. I asked him to write a poem for our cart. He wrote it in Spanish and translated it. I'll have to post it tomorrow because I keep it at the cart for our friends to read.
Well, it's time to get some rest and gear up for a few long days in a row. See you at the cart.

We love Ann Arbor!!!

We finished our first two days at Mark's Carts. So many of our friends came out to see, and we met so many wonderful people. We thank everyone for their patience on our first day. Jay and I were a bit overwhelmed on our opening day but grateful for the strong interest in our cart. Needless to say, we are exhausted but very happy to be part of this project. We've had fun getting to know our fellow cart owners. We've had fun sharing our food with everyone. Our moms have both helped us get our footing. We are still trying to find our groove a bit, but we are closer than we were Monday. Tomorrow, we are transitioning our piquillo pepper dish into a piquillo pepper goat cheese tapas on bread. We want an opportunity to share our goat cheese mousse made with goat cheese from Four Corners Creamery in Tecumseh.

While we've been busy a few more people have given us a nudge on Kickstarter.

Thanks to Phil Dokas, Antonietta Trapani and Joeri Maas, and little Enzo Maas (Cristina's little sister, brother-in-law and their little guy), Aunt Trisha and Uncle Whitey Kuhn (Jay's aunt and uncle), Laura Gramlich, Fred Corbett and Ji Wu.

We greatly appreciate your support.

Down to the wire in all senses

This is a quick post because we are headed down to Union Hall Kitchen. The cart is in place. We have had many people stop by to check out the activity. There is a lot of work to be done before we open tomorrow. We've had Mama Maria in the kitchen the past couple of days. That has helped immensely. We will have Mama Mary (Jay's mom) helping us out today. Pictures will follow soon. We also have a special opening day dedication post coming soon. We are dedicating our opening to a family member, but I can't reveal her identity until later tonight. We are grateful for all the help we are getting. Our friends Steve and Missy Cunningham and their daughter Leah came down yesterday just in time for Steve to give us a little extra manpower in moving our cart. I'll have photos of that later, too.

It seems like everything is down to the wire. Our Kickstarter campaign is down to the wire as well. We have a week to go and we are less than half the way to our goal.

We have more folks to thank for their support. Thanks so much to:

Jim Le Moine
Leeann Berry and Paul Trapani (Cristina's sis and bro)
Marilyn Newton Schebil

I will have more to post later tonight.

Day 1 at Union Hall Kitchen and more shout outs

Union Hall Kitchen was abuzz with activity today. This was the first day Jay and I spent a good amount of time at Union Hall Kitchen. We waited for orders to come in and couldn't do much more than bake a bit and organize our goods. We weren't the only ones prepping. Phillis, of the Lunch Room, Keith, of Humble Hogs, and Paul, of Darcy's Cart, were all in the kitchen with us getting ready for our opening on Monday. The cement has been poured and our courtyard looks fabulous. We hope to move our cart in on Saturday.
In all the excitement I was initiated quickly into the cook's life as I burned my arm good on the convection oven door. That darn thing gets hot! Oh well. Live and learn.
Along with getting a few things prepped, we got our wonderful chalkboard sign put together. The sign was a collaborative effort between our mothers. Jay's mom, who with many years experience at finding innovating and inexpensive ways to create sets and costumes for plays, found an innovative way for us to create our chalkboard sign. My mom, with her exceptional painting talent, gave our sign some Spanish flair. Thanks to the both of them for their extraordinary talents.
More thanks goes to those who have helped push our Kickstarter campaign forward. We have only 10 more days and we are a little more than one third of the way toward our goal.

Thanks go to:
Darren Kuhn
Aunt Debbie Rood
Jeff McCabe (of Selma Cafe, check it out)
Steve Russie
Harold Taylor
Brian Poore (of the most excellent band 16 More Miles, check them out)
Nathan Scott (Jay's brother)
Leslie Larkins
David Barnett
Jim Lincoln (of the Tecumseh Herald, check it out)