January 29, 2025
Hei Hei x Jackie O’s Lunar New Year Celebration
4:55 PM: My heart is racing. The line outside the food truck is already at least 50 people deep. Over my shoulder I think I see sparks coming from one of the outlets, but that could be a mirage. Five minutes until open.
5:00 PM Our first customer is Chris, pawpaw guru and county commish, and, as fate would have it, the first person we met at the Farmers Market after moving to Athens three years ago. Kurt announces the order: 6 piece wings and pork dumplings. It’s game time.
5:01 PM: Ronnie, our kitchen captain, lets us know in a controlled tone that the large flat top griddle used to cook two thirds of our menu is no longer working. Wait, what?
5:15 PM Post-it notes with unfilled orders cover the wall of the food truck. Through the sliding window I’m focusing on faces in the crowd trying to gauge levels of hanger. There are way more people than anyone expected. Orders are rushing in.
5:20 PM Ronnie sends AK on a mission to the ACEnet kitchen to see what he can scrounge up.
5:30 PM: To my left is Kurt, a shell of himself, fully in the grips of the primeval fight-or-flight response. I’m having an out of body experience. We are, without question, up a creek with no paddle, no boat, and possibly no hope.
Athens is a town grown out of a university, tucked in Appalachia, there’s a lot of different cultural, geological, historical elements and influences that come together, mostly in harmony, to create a special place. Bill Best, seed saver and scholar of modern Appalachia, contends that while American culture often emphasizes individualism and material acquisition, Appalachian culture places a higher value on community and connection.
I’ve filtered a lot of my education about the area and the culture through its food. If you live in Athens there is a good chance you’ve been invited to a maple syrup boil, traded or been gifted seeds, bartered, fermented, foraged, had someone you just met give you fresh deer meat. What these experiences have in common is a culture of exchange, generosity, and interdependence—a way of life where value is measured not by what you own, but by what you contribute and share with others.
5:45 PM Friends are worried. Appearing at the back of the truck, Jen and Brian ask if there’s any way they can help. Without a plan, I’m unable to answer. Brian runs home to grab anything to cook with. Liam appears and offers to get his generator, we can use all the juice we can get.
6:00 PM Brian returns with two camp stoves, a folding table, and pans. Kurt and Brian start firing off kimchi pancakes.
6:10 PM To our astonishment AK returns with a 36” Blackstone propane griddle. Back at ACEnet he ran into Nick, owner of Olive Branch Catering, who, recognizing exactly what we needed, sent him back with his formidable griddle.
6:15 PM Cheers erupt as Yi-Ting and family show up with the giant dragon puppet. Children and adults are equally delighted. Core memories are formed.
We have reached Wrestlemania VII levels of drama. Randy Savage firing off FIVE Flying Elbow drops in a row on Ultimate Warrior. It’s unthinkable to survive that sort of onslaught. Everyone thought it was over for Warrior– no, they knew it was over. Savage goes for the pin—1… 2…but Warrior kicks out! After a series of shoulder tackles and that legendary mid-air catch, in the ultimate comeback, Warrior is victorious.
6:45 PM We’re really cooking now. We’ve reached yellow Post-it note equilibrium. AK is simultaneously steaming, frying, flipping dumplings and pancakes on the Blackstone and he even has some help from a couple friends. At one point I see Mr. Catania, Liam’s father-in-law drinking a beer and flipping kimchi pancakes. Although his words are unassuring- “My wife usually does the cooking,” his pancakes are immaculate.
7:30 PM The trailer is engulfed in smoke from the fryer and Ronnie is draining boiling hot oil into a hotel pan which Mike is balancing on one knee. These are professionals at work. We dispatch our friend Cam to Walmart to get 7 gallons of canola oil to refresh the fryer.
8:30 PM A cold six-pack of Jackie O’s Mystic Mama materializes for the crew. Whoever you are, thank you. This is fun.
9:30 PM We serve our last customer. They order a kimchi pancake and 4 piece wings. A feeling of relief washes over me and my adrenaline turns to elation.
11:00 PM The Hei Hei crew makes it inside the Tap Room for a celebratory round of somek. Hugging and cheersing, we are exhausted, exhilarated, and very happy.
It was a night of firsts. Our first pop-up. My first out of body experience. The first time someone has tipped me with homemade weed chocolate. To say that it was easy, would be a lie, and to say that I was totally prepared would also be a lie. But looking back (all of three weeks ago) all I can think about was the love and support we felt from our community.
I keep Robert D. Putman’s book, Bowling Alone, on my bedside stand. This act is mostly aspirational, as I’ve never been able to get through the sometimes dense political science text and its many graphs (I have problems with graphs). I discovered the book while living in a small town on Lake Erie, a few miles from the town where Putnam grew up, in Port Clinton, OH. It’s an influential book read by U.S. presidents and other luminaries. Someday, I too might get through it in its entirety, but what I did take away from the book through my cursory reading, is the idea of “social capital,” which refers to the networks and relationships that enable individuals and communities to thrive. Putnam writes, “The single most common finding from a half-century’s research on life satisfaction, not only in the United States but around the world, is that happiness is best predicted by the breadth and depth of one’s social connections."
I’d say Athens is very rich.
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU WE LOVE YOU
