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“They both were very, very focused on food and everybody getting fed,” he added, noting that his parents would insist he fill his stomach with seconds even before going out to eat somewhere else, comparing the moment to “Coco” (2017), one of his “favorite movies of all time,” where the main character’s grandmother keeps giving him helpings of tamales.

“My mom always cooked. I’d wake up [on] Sunday morning, and she’d already be making sauce—just an amazing scent throughout the house. Then, throughout the week, she’d be cooking different meals and trying different recipes,” Lombardi added. “Anytime I’d go to my grandma, she’d always be cooking [too].”

“I know people talk about sitting around the dinner table and that being a great way to bring family together,” he said. “My brothers and I played sports growing up, so it wasn’t like we had every single evening at the table at the same time, but as much as my parents could have that, we would always be sitting together and enjoying dinner, so it revolved around that food, and then also that, anytime I think about food, I think about family, so it really has certainly been ingrained in my being that food is important.”

This style of nonfiction, he explained, helps him keep in touch with his creative writing skills while spending the majority of his time writing for either his state position or for Best of NJ.

After freelancing post-college—and sometimes actually for free, depending on the site—Lombardi’s portfolio, which included work for the now-defunct U.K. publication News Hub, opened up new opportunities for him.

Lombardi said that because of his preferred subject matter, he learned to photograph with a simple Canon point-and-shoot camera out of necessity.

“When I started doing the freelance writ- ing, I noticed that a lot of pieces I wanted to write needed photography to go along with it, and a lot of the pieces that I wanted to read, if I went on on a site, the stuff that drew me in more were the pieces with photography rather than the stories,” he said, adding with an honest laugh that “sometimes stories can be very interesting, but I guess I may be too drawn to food, to a fault, so I always want to see the picture. ‘Oh, you have the best spicy chicken sandwich? Alright, let me see that.’”

The same goes for his landscape shots for hiking articles, with the journalist wanting to convey the “gorgeous” reality of these natural landscapes. Lombardi is proud—and a little surprised—that all the images in his first traditionally published book were shot by him personally, including the “About the Author” photo.

But now armed with professional headshots from a friend and photographer, David Nemec, Lombardi is grateful for the chance to fill a book with his words and images for the first time. Lombardi started working for Best of NJ in 2015, becoming an events writer and photographer for the publication. Soon, a familiar face in the food scene began to emerge from his beat of street fairs and outdoor gatherings.

During the interview, the D’Addarios spoke with Lombardi and his then-girlfriend, now wife, Christine, “as if we’ve known each other for years,” but throughout the recording, “people kept interrupting—in the best way possible—to compliment Chris on his barbecue and just how much they enjoyed it, and they’re going back; they’re waiting for their second order because they loved it so much.”

“You don’t really think, specifically talking about the food trucks—at least I didn’t think about—one, what went into the business, and two, the people behind the business,” he said. “My dad and I used to go to the city, whether we went to see a baseball game or for different purposes, [since] I have family who live out there, but you see the hotdog vendors a lot.”

As a resident of Central New Jersey, Lombardi explained, he grew up near the site of Rutgers University’s famed “Grease Trucks,” a horde of historic, hunger-satisfying food trucks that served inexpensive campus fare. The institution removed a majority of these businesses and relocated the rest around 2013, which caused many of the “Fat Sandwiches” and other deep-fried delights of legend to drive off with them.

While grease trucks have a charm of their own, especially for nostalgic college students, Lombardi’s prior associations with food trucks carried that same imagery. Lombardi now knows just how these owners have “a wealth of knowledge” to impart, and with chefs that pay close attention to menus and ingredients as part of their commitment to delivering a satisfying meal for customers.

“I hope that [readers] take away that there are people behind each and every one of these businesses, and not just the 20 that are featured in the book, but that anytime they go to a food truck festival, there are people behind those businesses,” he explained, extending that “on a grander scale” to any local shop, “that there are owners behind it, and there are families behind where they are and what’s being offered to them” as customers.

As a former restaurant server himself, Lombardi recognized the importance of people understanding that those in the industry are more than just “nameless, faceless beings behind the counter,” especially in non-traditional environments like food trucks.

Lombardi said he was lucky that he had met with the owners of two food trucks the weekend before the March shutdown, which set him up to have enough content for the first few months of his Best of NJ series in 2020.

Once outdoor events began again, though, food trucks emerged as a way to offer safer eating experiences in uncertain times. Food trucks became more accessible in the months before traditional restaurants reopened for business due to the ease with which they could relocate and join forces with other businesses. That feeling of camaraderie that Lombardi found so intriguing was stronger than ever.

Although Parisi’s initial vision for the book was an “oversized coffee table book featuring large color photos of the trucks, the teams behind them, and their signature menu items,” according to his preface, Lombardi had another idea.

As a way of differentiating the compilation from the webseries, Lombardi thought featuring recipes from the food trucks would add “a little bit more of a draw,” since the direct know-how would not give away the star recipe—such as Maddalena’s cheesecakes or the Brownie Bar’s brownies—but inform readers on how to follow in similar footsteps.

The options, Lombardi said, include “anything from side dishes and sauces up to complete meals where you can feed your family or a party,” with the author saying he owes the “enthusiastic” food truck owners for sharing the recipes that made the book possible.

For example, “Massimo’s (non) Gingerbread Cookies” is one that Lai Barboni, the co-founder of The Brownie Bar, published and created for her son, “who doesn’t particularly like gingerbread cookies but wanted to embrace the celebrations of Christmas,” according to Lombardi.

“She shared that recipe, and that was super touching because she was sharing a part of her family,” Lombardi said. “It’s sharing love.”

Lombardi said that when all is said and done, it is important to be proud of your cuisine and remember the value of cooking a meal to sustain you and your family.

“In terms of being at home and cooking in your own kitchen, it’s an unparalleled experience. I love going in and throwing on some

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