Food for thought

Welcome to this week’s Reno News & Review.

Had a food weekend. Loved it.

I have to admit, I was a little slow to get on the local food bandwagon, but now that I’m here, I feel like I fit right in, an innovator. I mean, I’ve been growing food at my home for a long time, and I’ve never used engineered pesticides, herbicides or fertilizers, so I guess I was vanguard, but this week, I took the concept a slimy step or two further.

It all started Friday when Hunter and I went down to the Food Truck event at Idlewild Park. The weekly traffic obstacle was going on down on Virginia Street, so I was grateful that the Reno Street Food moved a bit out of the melee. Lots of families, lots of selection, lots of food that I shouldn’t be eating, a puppeteer with lots of puppets, it had a wholly different vibe than the downtown event (even though I also enjoyed my time there, just not the long waits). I don’t believe I waited more than 20 minutes in line at the most popular truck on Friday.

But none of that stuff is particularly innovative. Sunday is where I took it up a notch. My girlfriend, Kelly, lives in the so-called banana belt of Reno. It’s a microclimate in town that’s a little warmer than the rest of town so things grow there that don’t grow anywhere else in town. Anyway, her garden is beset by these giant snails—they look just like the snails you eat when you order escargot. Well, thanks to the wonders of the internet, I discovered they’re the same type of snail. I’ll tell you all about the process at a later date, but I can tell you—with a little garlic and butter—they taste exactly like the snails you’d get in the poshest French restaurant.

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Did you vote in our Biggest Little Best of Northern Nevada popularity contest yet? Somehow, I screwed up the URL, in my Editor’s Note last week. Just go to http://www.newsreview.com/reno/ballot/BestOfReno12 and get ready to spend some time.