If ever I doubted the power of the taco to pull one out of an ugly cry, this notion was eradicated in a dirt lot in Tampa’s Seminole Heights neighborhood.
Minutes before approaching chef Rene Valenzuela’s modest food truck, I’d been sobbing in the dark of the glorious Tampa Theater, watching the life and death of Anthony Bourdain unfold. Bourdain himself was famous for scarfing all kinds of things in overgrown dirt lots, which wasn’t lost on me as I navigated the menu.
Smoked pork belly, shrimp and chorizo … a host of crafty offerings beckoned, in stark upmarket contrast to the tin foil and disposable plates. Flies hovered, but I shooed them, tears forgotten, my only stressor an awareness that I had to save room.
