Our first big snow

On Sunday, we did our first big scrub down of the truck. I was nominated to climb up into the vents and clean them out. There were things up there that belong in nightmares. Apparently the previous owner didn't take very good care of that part of the truck. Will probably be climbing up there for many weeks to come.

Wednesday brought more snow than these Texans have seen in a long time. We decided to take a snow day and bring the truck into the shop for some much needed TLC. Hopefully the truck will run much more smoothly now and it won't be hocking massive loogies every time Gliu tries to start it up.

Thursday was our first day at Broomfield Civic Center (aka City & County of Broomfield). Thanks to Julie for making this happen for us and to all the city employees for coming out despite the cold weather. We are looking forward to seeing all of yall every Tuesday and Thursday! If you're planning on being at or near the City (Maybe for jury duty? Hopefully not in any trouble with the police department.), please stop on by.

We've tried a couple locations out on different days and now we're ready to set up a more permanent schedule. This is our plan for now. Any changes will be posted on our website's homepage and calendar.

Monday: Garden Center
Tuesday: Broomfield Civic Center
Wednesday: End of W Midway Blvd in front of Hunter Douglas & New Business Media
Thursday: Broomfield Civic Center
Friday: Garden Center

Hope to see yall out there!

Grand opening week

This week was the Sesame Seed's grand opening. Our first operating day was Monday, which was cold, wet, and windy -- perfect day for selling sao bing. Thanks to the brave few who came out to Garden Center and gave us a shot!

We were at the end of W Midway in front of Hunter Douglas and New Business Media from Tuesday through Thursday. It was awesome meeting all the employees of the nearby companies. Special thanks to @mookpool for your awesome tweet! We hope you become our first regular.

We were back at Garden Center on Friday, a beautiful and sunny day (why couldn't Monday have been like that?). Since Security Service Federal Credit Union didn't like us parking next to their bank on Monday, we moved to the west side of Wells Fargo on Friday. Thanks Wells Fargo for being more chill.

Looking forward to the coming week. Check out our schedule to see where we'll be. Hope to see some of the folks from last week again and meet more new people.

Ridic story of the week: A customer bought 2 sandwiches and 2 sodas and gave me $20. I gave him $15 in change. Does something seem off here? Yes, your math skills serve you right. The correct change should have been $5. PooShoe's math degree from UT and her Fellowship from the SOA should be revoked.


Cooking experiment of the week: Bubble-top brioches. Time consuming but not difficult. Bread truly is a labor of love. We took the prettiest ones and turned them into yummy egg, cheddar, and bacon sandwiches. These were the leftovers.

Soft opening @ Denver Rescue Mission

On Saturday, we partnered with Denver Rescue Mission to host an event at The Crossing where our food truck provided a free hot lunch to the Mission's clients who are currently battling hunger. God has blessed us abundantly over the years and our hearts felt burdened to give back to the community.

We spent many days and hours prepping for the event and while it was stressful at times, it was a great learning experience. We got much needed practice using the equipment on the truck.

Saturday was a very early morning for us. We got up at the crack of dawn to haul our truck and ourselves down to Denver. One of the first things we did was fill up the water tank. The water hose reminds me of an umbilical cord.

After heating up the oil and firing up the oven and grill, Mama Liu got to frying the chicken while Gliu warmed up the BBQ pork and PooShoe baked the sao bing. We prepped food for 300 people to be served over the course of a little more than an hour. It was insane. When we were assembling the sandwiches, I felt like the stack of unassembled sao bing were growing instead of shrinking.

While we were working in the truck, Daddy Liu checked out the activity in the kitchen. The fried chicken was a hit.

After we had cooked all the food, we were finally able to take a little breather and mingle with some of the Mission's clients.

One of our favorite Texas men drove all the way up from Colorado Springs to say hi. We love you Jon Man!

Yes, we all crashed when we got home, but this was an extremely rewarding experience. Denver, thank you for giving us this opportunity. It was a pleasure to serve those in need. Chef Kameo, thanks for sharing your kitchen with us. We were more than happy to give you a much needed break.

The Sesame Seed is born

We picked up our newly wrapped truck from Ink Monstr on Thursday. Isn't she (yes, I have dubbed it a she) pretty? Reminds me a little bit of a stubby fire truck.

As we were driving home, in my rear view mirror, I saw Gliu and the truck take a massive dive toward the shoulder on the highway. What the heck happened?! Apparently the left side mirror is useless and you need to stick your head out the window when shifting to the left lane. This truck has way too many quirks.

We've been prepping for our Saturday lunch service at the Denver Rescue Mission for the past few days. 300 meals in a little over an hour? God help us!

I think I called over 50 local businesses to see if anyone would be interested in supporting the event and/or charity. Not a single bite. This is a cold, cold world I tell ya.

Our grand opening is this coming Monday, October 17 at the Garden Center in Broomfield. Only a few days left til the big day! See our website for the rest of our first week schedule. We're both excited and scared. Please come out and support us if you're in the neighborhood!

We are legit now

We brought the truck into the auto shop on Tuesday to get things under the hood checked out. They replaced the battery and did some other minor touch ups. Hopefully we won't be stranded on the side of the road with a busted truck again anytime soon.

We had our inspection with the health department on Thursday and passed! This was a huge hurdle for us. Holly, the inspector, was great. We had to switch from the Boulder health department (we initially thought we were going to operate there) to the Broomfield health department and she really sped up the entire application and inspection process for us. With our retail food license in hand, we can now legally serve food to all you hungry folks out there.

We also fired up the truck for the first time this week to make sure everything runs properly. Oven, check. Grill, check. Fryer, check. Refrigerator, check. Hot water generator and waste water removal still unknown. Please help, Chuck!

On Saturday, we dropped off the truck at InkMonstr to get it wrapped. They had just printed our wrap the day before and told us not to touch it. Mama Liu has a hard time following instructions.

Afterward, Team Liu went to the Double Ten Centennial Banquet in Denver to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Republic of China's independence. Thanks to Auntie Sue for inviting us. Multiple history presentations = Gliu and PooShoe nap time. 

Mama Liu insisted on bringing those balloons home. PooShoe was not too happy as they obstructed her rear view mirror while driving.

We are planning to do a soft opening on Saturday, October 15 and have our grand opening on Monday, October 17. Stay tuned for more details!

Ridic story of the week: We soaked and washed the paint brushes we used on the truck last week. I asked Mama Liu not to dump the paint ridden water down our kitchen sink. 30 minutes later, I walk into the bathroom to find a toilet bowl full of green paint. Freakin Mama Liu!

Cooking experiment of the week: We tried making beef noodle soup with hand-pulled noodles per Chef Tomm. Fail. Ended up rolling the dough out pancake-style and slicing it up. I must say that fresh noodles are very tasty, infinitely better than store-bought dry noodles.

Welcome

Howdy Colorodans and friends! Welcome to The Sesame Seed's blog where I, Grace aka PooShoe, will be documenting our progress as we start up our new food truck in the Broomfield area. Once our truck is operational, I'll also be blogging about what we're up to and other shenanigans.

This past week was particularly eventful. We finally got permission from a few organizations to allow us to park our truck on their property and serve sao bings. After a bunch of rejections from folks in the Interlocken area (I got a triple no from Oracle), we were feeling a bit discouraged. Thanks to the folks on the other side of Hwy 36 for showing some love to this little start up. Hopefully we'll nail down a couple more locations in the next week or two.

We picked up our baby from Team20 on Friday. Thanks to Chuck and his team for fixing up our home for the next few years. Gary aka Gliu is especially thankful to yall for screwing down all the heavy equipment. He does not want another repeat of his first experience of driving the truck when the fridge took a face plant to the ground.

We had some fun on our drive back to Broomfield. Mama Liu and PooShoe went to run errands while Gliu drove the truck home. The truck decided to take a nap about a 1/2 mile from home. Gliu sat on the rear bumper on the side of the road for about 1 1/2 hours with no cell phone reception (thanks a lot AT&T!).

Thanks to AAA for towing our truck. I wish I had a picture of them bringing the truck in. It was like Cleopatra being carried in on her gold & ivory throne or Lady Gaga being carried in in her bubble.


We picked up some paint on Saturday to temporarily cover up our truck's previous owner's logo while our wrap is being developed by InkMonstr. Painting with your hands is definitely more fun than with a brush!

Thanks for stopping in and please keep checking back for updates!