Trailer Park'd: Lansing Food Truck

A few weeks ago, we made a trip to Lansing to visit Impression 5, a children's museum, and to take in a Lansing Lugnuts game. I figured we should take advantage of the day to get in some great local food. Purely by accident, I ran across Trailer Park'd a day or two before we left and my work was done!

Trailer Park'd is a food truck that serves delicious local food. My husband had the pork belly sandwich, my son had the burger (which was on the most wonderful focaccia) and I had the tacos. Everything was great! From the smell of the smoker working as you approach to the lunch counter that is draped off the pick-up truck, this is an experience everyone should have!

You can find their menu and schedule on their website and their Facebook page.

Local Product: Creo Chips

I have a confession to make...I am addicted to Karen Attard's Creo Chips. One morning a few years ago, I innocently went over to one of our local farmer's markets. There was a woman with a table and a festive umbrella...she had homemade tortilla chips in an array of flavors. I took home "Secret Recipe" and "Dirty Suzy's" (which are cinnamon and sugar) and the family was hooked immediately! I will venture out in almost any weather to restock. I was pregnant last summer and we were gone on a rather long road trip at one point, so I did not get a sufficient amount of chips. This summer will be different! Anyway, I asked Karen a few questions about her business and her yummy chips, and here's what she said.

What inspired you to make your own chip's?
Initially I just made these for myself. Nachos are one of my favorite meals but I couldn’t find a brand of chips that I liked more than the homemade ones I was experimenting with. After a few years my friends and family began requesting bags for their own dinners and family parties… that’s when I knew there was a need in the marketplace for a product I created! Hoping to make some extra money I began selling my product at farmer’s markets in the Walled Lake area and things have only grown from there.

How do you decide what flavors to make?
I started with Secret Recipe and Dirty Suzy (named after a friend and early supporter of Creo). Now my best inspiration for new flavors comes from my clients; current flavors include: Garlic Breath, Cajun Kick, Kasey’s Crunch, Splendid Suzy, Senor Slim-ez and Slim-e Jim-ez. I also make tostadas and various other flavors by special request.

How often do you make chips? How many do you make at a time?
I’m approaching my 6th year at the Walled Lake Farmer’s Market (every Wednesday May-October) and 5th year of distribution through Great Harvest Bread Company on Maple Road in Commerce. This sales knowledge allows me to estimate the demand at each of my new markets, which currently include: South Lyon (Wednesdays), Pontiac & Milford (Thursdays). Clients are welcome to visit my Facebook page to suggest flavors or find more information on market locations and times.

What chips are my favorite?
This is an easy one for me! My personal favorites are Garlic Breath, Kasey’s Crunch and Senor Slim-ez.

How do you think the "eat local" movements benefits you & your local area?
I really enjoy working the local Farmer’s Markets because it allows me to get to know my customer base – something very important when developing and bringing a new product to the marketplace. As I’ve said before, my clients are my best source of inspiration and I love hearing all the different ways they are incorporating Creo Chips into their meals: baking or frying chicken in an egg and Garlic Breath batter or using this flavor as a chili topping; dusting baked fish with crumbled up Cajun Kick, Dirty Suzie’s on top of ice cream; pulled pork over a bed of Kasey’s Crunch (as sampled at Tanglewood restaurant in South Lyon).

On a larger scale, I saw an article a few years ago in Hour Detroit magazine that if we all spent $10/week on Michigan products we could collectively put $36 million back into the state’s economy. Not only does it benefit us as a community to financially support locally owned businesses, health-wise buying local means you and your family are not ingesting as many preservatives and chemicals that many larger food companies use. Plus, frequenting a local farmer’s market allows residents to connect with their neighbors while purchasing a variety of items; veggies, home baked bread, flowers and of course Creo Chips!


The name Creo means “I believe” in Spanish. I thought of the name while out walking one afternoon with my oldest daughter Lindsay. Creo Chips has been a passion of mine for the last six years and its because of your belief in me and my products that I’m able to continue producing these chips.






Need ideas for dinner?
Let me help!


Hosting or attending a party?
Let me help!


Looking for an extraordinary gift?
Let me help!


Believe in Michigan?
Let me help!

And as always… Thank you, I appreciate your business
~Karen Attard

I urge you to stop by one of the markets and grab some chips. I think you'll be addicted, too!

The Burger Joint: Milford, Michigan

First, I must apologize for a lack of pictures. Our camera battery died as I was trying to get a picture of the outside of the restaurant. *Sigh* Oh well, use your imagination and you'll be fine!

The Burger Joint, on Main Street in Milford, Michigan, is awesome! It's a small place where you order at the counter and then wait for your number to be called. Their meat is ground locally just for them and their fries are hand cut. At our table, we ordered a salmon burger (a special for Lent), a kid's cheeseburger, a Joey burger, and a custom burger with garlic aioli, bleu cheese and burnt onions. Every sandwich was delicious and perfectly made. The fries and coleslaw were also wonderful.  We were there in the middle of the afternoon on a Saturday and there was a pretty steady trickle of customers, but we only waited about 10 minutes for our freshly made food.

All-in-all The Burger Joint was a great place for a quick, casual meal and I will definitely go back!

It's Maple Sugaring Season!

This was originally posted on my Yes Michigan blog, but since it's that season again, I thought I'd repost it.


Did you know that Michigan is very active in the Maple Sugar industry? Michigan is one of few places in the world that has native maples suitable for sugaring!

This is the time of year to see some sugaring demonstrations. Freezing nights and above freezing days cause the sap to run. On a good day, from a large tree, you might get a gallon of sap. It takes forty gallons of sap to boil down to 1 gallon of syrup!
Parks all over Michigan are doing maple sugar demos in the next couple of weeks. My family headed over to Independence Oaks in Clarkston for Maple Magic last weekend (actually in the spring of 2009). Using a puppet show to interest the kids, we learned the basics of tapping a tree, collecting the sap and boiling it down to syrup. With crafts and samples of foods made from maple syrup the program kept everyone happy!
After the inside portion, we headed outside to tap a tree and see a kettle of sap boiling over an open fire. The presenters did a great job and the program was enjoyed by everyone!
The park itself looked like it had a lot to do. We passed trails, play equipment and picnic tables. The Lewis Wint Nature Center has both stuffed and live animals to check out. The entrance fee into the park is $7 for a day, so if it hadn't been raining we would have spent a lot longer. The program was an additional $2 a person. If the weather had been nicer, we could've packed a lunch and had a great day out for $13. Definitely budget friendly!

Check out the Maple Syrup Association website for more information about sugaring and check out possible demos in your area!

Vacation Round Up: Southern Soul BBQ

On the way home from Florida, I was determined to experience some great local food. I'm a fan of "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives" on the Food Network and, as it turns out, there was a restaurant that had been featured about 15 minutes off our main route. So, we headed over a big bridge and a slightly less big causeway to St. Simon's Island, Georgia to visit Southern Soul BBQ.

My husband and I are big BBQ fans. We've eaten various styles all over this fine land and this was some of the best. It's a place that you would probably pass right by if you weren't aware of it. Nestled between a gas station and a Domino's pizza on a traffic circle, it's small and unassuming. However, if you keep your eyes peeled, you'll see the smoker and the pile of wood sitting outside the front door. If you have your window open you'll smell it and if that doesn't draw you in you need to check on your BBQ awareness.

Both my husband and I had pulled pork. Mine was on a sandwich with slaw. There were multiple styles of sauce to choose from and they were all excellent. I had fried okra and it was perfect. My husband ordered a side of fried green beans which were delicious! Both veggies were still fresh and slightly crunchy within their batter and each batter was different; perfectly suited to the vegetable it contained. My four year old had a grilled pimento cheese sandwich. Since that was a departure from his usual cheese, he wasn't quite sure about it, but I had a bite and thought it was yummy.

The atmosphere was friendly and laid back. It felt a little more hippy than most BBQ places. Everyone was great, from the employees to the customers. The cross section of customers was amazing as well. The youngest was my infant son, the oldest was a group of 70+ folks who came in for lunch. There were bikers, yuppies, yankees (that was us), and a gentleman who was staying nearby doing some photography.

If you're ever in southeastern Georgia, or spending time among our coastal islands, check this place out. And, if you've found a great little local place in your travels, please let me know. I always appreciate advice in my quest to eat locally as often as humanly possible!

Guidelines #1: Food

Food is one of my very favorite things, so let's start there. Keep in mind, these are guidelines. There are no hard and fast rules for this quest of mine. Sometimes life happens. I'm not going to berate myself if an experiment goes terribly wrong and I end up ordering a pizza...or drinking heavily while locked in my bedroom. OK, probably not that, but you never know.

My hopes for the food part of this adventure are as follows:
1) I plan on cooking real food, from scratch, about 80% of the time. The remaining 20% of the time we will probably be visiting or eating out. If we're eating out, I will do my best to find a locally owned restaurant. Ideally, they will source their foods locally.
2) This spring, I'm going to plant a garden using the square foot gardening technique. I already have rhubarb and raspberries planted and they should both bear fruit this summer.
3) I am going to buy the majority of my meat and produce from local sources. Ideally, these will be organic and untreated.
4) This summer and fall I'm going to begin learning to can and preserve the food that I grow and buy locally.

That about covers it, I guess. I'll probably revise these as I go along, but I think food will be the easiest part. Stay tuned for the hard stuff!