A TRUCK OF CAJUN FLAVORS
New Meow Wolf venture Trinity Kitchen to fill culinary hole in Santa Fe
Santa Fe’s food truck (and culinary) scene just got kicked up a notch. This weekend, the city will finally have a truly dedicated Cajun/Creole joint, Trinity Kitchen, a food truck brought to you by the prolific artist collective Meow Wolf and a pair of buddies from the South.
Cajun/Creole food is the food of New Orleans, a cuisine formed by the comingling of the English, French, African and Caribbean palates that swirled in that steamy Southern melting pot. The “trinity” in Trinity Kitchen refers to the “holy trinity” of Cajun cooking: onions, celery and bell pepper, a trio that forms the basis for almost every Cajun or Creole dish.
Trinity Kitchen is actually a Meow Wolf-owned endeavor, and it will be mostly permanently parked outside the exhibit at 1352 Rufina Circle. It will be co-helmed by Eliot Chavanne and Connor Black, both 25 years old, both from Shreveport, La., who have been best friends since they were kids.
“We’ve known each other since were in third grade,” Black says. “We’re like brothers, I would say.”
The driving force of the truck was Chavanne himself, who has been a Meow Wolf employee since September, working as a docent and manning the front desk. Persistence won out.
“I’ve been a pest for about the past year,” Chavanne says. “They’ve pretty much given us free rein to do what we want out of it.”
Chavanne, who began studying culinary arts in high school, has gone between Santa Fe and New Orleans since 2013, working in the culinary industry, from Whole Foods to baking to high-end eateries. A month ago, once he got the go-ahead for the food truck, he was joined in Santa Fe by Black, who has a background in boutique hotel hospitality and catering. Both are excited to bring the food they love to a city that, while otherwise a Mecca for foodies, is bereft of one of the world’s best cuisines.
“We grew up eating Cajun food — it’s something I love to cook, it’s what I would want to be cooking if I had my own place, so it’s perfect,” Chavanne says.
The truck will begin with a smallish menu of about six items, but those six items include a big chunk of the heart of Cajun cooking, including, for example, a chicken and sausage gumbo full of smoked andouille sausage, smoked chicken and okra. There will be fried chicken and waffles (trendy, but also traditional); a cochon de lait po’ boy sandwich, meaning a pecan-smoked pulled pork sandwich served on French bread with barbecue sauce and coleslaw; a fried oyster po’boy with spicy remoulade sauce (which is like a flavorful aoili); and smoked baby back ribs, Shreveport, La.-style.
“Where Shreveport is located it’s right next door to Texas, so there’s a lot of overflow,” Chavanne says. “With the ribs, we use a vinegar base, wet rub, and then a dry rub. They’re smoked for six hours, and the last hour, we’ll barely glaze a little barbecue sauce on top of it to caramelize it.”
Chavanne and Black will use locally sourced ingredients whenever possible and will make everything from scratch, including the sausages. As they go, they plan to add items, like boudin sausage (Creole blood sausage) and crawfish étouffée (a spiced shrimp stew served over rice). And yes, there will even be beignets, little fried dough balls dusted with powdered sugar that serve as the confectionary ambassador of New Orleans. And if the beignets prove popular, Trinity Kitchen might add stuffed beignets to the menu as well. “A beignet is the best version of a doughnut,” Black says.
The truck is meant to be affordable — the price point is roughtly $8 to $14, with the oyster po’ boy the priciest item on the menu — and everything comes with sides and a tomato-based jam and watermelon slice. Chavanne and Black get downright giddy at a future full of sweet potato chips, potato salad, baked beans and cracklins (divinely fatty fried Cajun pork rinds).
This is the first food truck for both Chavanne and Black, and the support of Meow Wolf allowed them to completely customize it, including a few amenities that make work inside a contained space a little easier on tallish guys.
“We’ve rented food trucks before for catering events, which gave me a lot of insight on how I don’t want to design my food truck,” Chavanne says.
“We raised the ceilings to 8½ feet because when you’re 6-foot-1, you smack your head on a lot of stuff,” Chavanne says.
The truck also has a cutoff porch in the back with a smoker, which will allow the pair to begin smoking their pulled pork, ribs, chicken and sausages in the mornings. “When they smell that, they know where to come,” Black says.
The truck, which is scheduled to open Friday for Memorial Day weekend, will operate six days a week (closed Tuesdays), from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weeknights, and will be open after Meow Wolf ’s many weekend shows — a major part of the business model.
“I go to those shows and I walk out at 2 a.m. and there’s 400 people leaving the building that all go get fast food,” Chavanne says. “We have 400,000 people coming a year, and every one of them is required to eat to stay alive.”