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

On to the next phase

Greek philosopher Heraclitus said "The only constant is change." For Debajo del Sol that means a change of venue. We have enjoyed our time at Mark's Carts and are grateful to have been a part of the groundbreaking concept in Ann Arbor, but we are moving on. That does not mean Debajo del Sol will be gone. We are simply putting the "mobile" back in mobile cuisine. 

Our plan is to continue to be open part-time at Wolverine State Brewing, so come visit us there and enjoy the tastiest microbrewed beer in Ann Arbor paired with Chef Jay's dishes that blend the flavors of Spain with comfort foods we know and love. 

In addition to being at Wolverine, we hope to pop up at various events around Southeast Michigan. We'll keep you posted. Check out our "Events and Hours" page for our schedule at Wolverine and for any upcoming events we will be a part of.

Happy Holidays to all and Merry Eating!!!!

Jay and Cristina

Debajo del Sol

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.

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.

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.