Last Saturday, ravenous crowds braved slightly stormy mid-summer weather to attend JDub’s Brewing Company's first-ever food truck rally. Citing cities like Austin, Los Angeles and Portland—where vibrant food truck culture makes up a vital part of the local culinary scene—owner Jeremy “JDub” Joerger notes, “We wanna bring a little more hip to this community, more funk, more of that community spirit.”

The rain subsided just in time for eager eaters to enjoy local bites—paired with JDub’s award-winning brews—from four wheeled eateries: Mother Truckin’ Good, BulGoGi Sarasota, Yummy Kebab and Baltimore Snowball Factory. Close to 500 adventurous eaters watched their food get sliced and diced, embarking on a gastronomical journey traversing France, Morocco, Italy, Korea and Japan.

The idea for the rally sprang, as Joerger puts it, “out of the madness that is JDub’s ever-searching to be innovative in our own way.” In an effort to support local business and promote community culture, he says, “We’re always following our own soul and searching for what’s innovative.”

To the left of the JDub’s tent stood Mother Truckin Good, known for having a menu that changes every two weeks (this week's offering was gourmet slides). Yummy Kebab, the newest addition to the brigade, served up traditional Moroccan dishes and all-American fare, while BulGoGi Sarasota kept things simple with a three-item traditional Korean menu. For dessert? Snowballs, spiked “adult” pops and chocolate-covered cheesecake lollies from Baltimore Snowball Company.

By hosting the rally—with plans in the works to make it a once-a-month staple—Joerger aims to create a space where all of Sarasota’s diverse population could come together in one location. “One thing I love about this place—you’ve got retirees with twenty-somethings with hipsters with yogis, and we’re all hanging out and it doesn’t feel forced,” says Joerger.

JDub's will host its next food truck rally on Friday, August 20th—which promises to be an expanded event with 8 to 10 trucks and additional beer tents.  

Pictured: Hungry masses flocked to JDub's first food truck rally. Photo editing by Heidi Stone.

Enter the White Nitro—creamy fizz slides out of the long tap, sloshing and slipping into a milky wave, filling the frosted pint glass in a hazy snowstorm of witte. A waterfall of hopping baby bubbles vies to make their way to the popping top, as they ascend, slowly changing the liquid hue from eggy white to lemonade-soft gold. Behold:  Portland, Maine-based Peak Organic Brewery’s stab at the increasingly popular “nitro” beer, made using a method of infusing nitrogen into a brew rather than the typical carbon dioxide, resulting in a creamy, smooth pour in place of the nose-tickling prickle induced by normal carbonation. Beer aficionados can easily spot a nitro from across the bar, noting the characteristic slow, color-wheel rise of the bubbles to the head of the glass. While typically reserved for stouts of the Irish variety, Peak Brewery appropriated the nitro category to create the first widely distributed nitro Belgian white ale—all at once lemony, herby and full-bodied, the White Nitro bursts and bubbles with each zesty, fluffy sip. With perfect New England pitch, this salt swept and light Mainey brew currently lives on tap at Mandeville Beer Garden.  

Photo courtesy of Peak Organic Brewery.

Mandeville Beer Garden, 428 North Lemon Ave., Sarasota, 941-954-8688.

While school is out, keep the learning going with a visit to Huck, Pippi and Jane, three North American river otters in the exhibit Otters & Their Waters at Mote Aquarium. The exhibit provides an otter’s-eye view of watersheds, lands that drain water toward rivers, estuaries and the sea. Watersheds are important to people and myriad wildlife, including river otters, their prey and many animals from land to the coastal oceans where Mote Marine Laboratory scientists carry out their research. Otters & Their Waters is open during normal hours, 10am–5pm seven days a week, at Mote Aquarium. The exhibit is located at Mote’s Ann and Alfred Goldstein Marine Mammal Research and Rehabilitation Center. Make sure to catch all the action all with the Mote’s live Otter Cam on the website.  

Otters & Their Waters

14 physicians in the Intercoastal Medical Group (IMG) have been named among the country’s leading physicians for the third year in a row in the annual America’s Top Doctors compilation produced by publisher Castle Connolly. IMG is a professional association of more than 85 physicians serving Sarasota and Manatee counties with seven locations. Some of the physicians include Hollen, Johnson, Larkin, Yohn and Kozlow.  

Intercoastal Medical Group

Neal Communities only has four houses remaining in Woodbrook. This community located in north Sarasota opened in November 2011 with 224 available homesites. The communities’ cottages have sold out, but the neighborhood has two homesites left that will accommodate floor plans from the homebuilder’s Celebration Series.  

Neal Communities

Goodwill Manasota received a grant of more than $73,000 in funding from the Ralph S. French Charitable Foundatin to support the hiring of an additional GoodPartner Coach. This is the sixth year that Goodwill has received funding from the French Foundation in support of this program, which provides persons with disabilities and other barriers to employment with job training and case management services.  

Goodwill Manasota

This month, in Defending a Vulnerable Art, we give an inside glimpse into the mind of an architectural visionary. A founding member of the Sarasota School of Architecture, Carl Abbott’s classical training (combined with his pioneering spirit) makes him wary of the impact of advanced technology on the creative mind. “My contemporaries today, some just do what the computer can do,” says Abbott. “They don’t see past it.” At 80, Abbott still works for the half century-old architecture firm that bears his name. To him, architecture is fine art, “vulnerable” in that innovation and originality can be lost to rote replication. 

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