10 minute read
Smothered. Fried. Chicken
A Little Razz-Ma-Tazz
A family soul food truck comes to Eureka
By Jennifer Fumiko Cahill
jennifer@northcoastjournal.com
On Juneteenth, the silver RazzMa-Tazz Soul Food truck sits parked between the Southside Mike’s BBQ and Taste of Bim trucks with a small crowd in front and a handful of young people running orders to patient customers. The fryer was down and the crew had to cook some 200 pieces of marinated and coated chicken in a pan on the truck’s stovetop. When it was all over, owner LaToya Fields says she “ugly cried” in gratitude. “It worked, we’re OK and, oh my God, this is happening.”
A year ago, after chatting about starting a mobile business, a friend shared a Craigslist ad for a truck with Fields, who’d been cooking and selling plates from home on and off. She says she was the only one who showed up with a vehicle that could haul it away and so became the proud owner of the former Simmer Down trailer. After she and her family sanded off the yellow paint, painted on a logo her daughter Taziyah Harris drew — a queen with Afro-puffs — and got vinyl lettering from another friend, it was reborn as the Razz-Ma-Tazz soul food truck.
Fields is used to cooking for a crowd, a skill she learned from her mother growing up in Compton. “My mom has always been an amazing cook and she did foster care for a while … so it was just a mass cooking situation.” To feed Fields and her brother, along with four or five other children, her mother would cook in batches and make up plates they could grab from the fridge. “I was always in a kitchen,” either helping at home or hanging around at the restaurant/bar her mom was managing, she says.
When Fields moved to Humboldt in 2014 to attend Humboldt State University, she didn’t have a job so started selling food to get by, offering $10 plates to her daughter Taziyah’s teachers and on a Facebook page. Even after finding a regular job, she kept it up on the side here and there.
“My graduation cap said ‘Compton Built, Humboldt Strong,’” she says. “HumLaToya Fields and her daughters Taziyah Harris and Caci Fowler in the Razz-Ma-Tazz soul food truck.
Photo by Jennifer Fumiko Cahill
boldt made me put on my big girl panties and figure things out.”
That included some of her grandmother’s recipes for traditional African American soul food — all of which say, “season to taste” — with the help of her mother. “My grandmother is from Mississippi and my dad is from Chicago, and it’s just in the seasoning. … When she would make sweet potato pie, we would fight over who gets how much.” That pie, like Fields’ peppery black eyed peas, has to sit overnight to “settle” to taste as it does in her memory. Like her grandmother, she’s not eager to document exact measurements for everything. “I have to smell — I stand over the pot of greens and I season, and I just know.”
Fields wasn’t alone missing the stewed oxtails, collard greens, macaroni and cheese, fried chicken and cornbread she grew up eating. What didn’t fit in her freezer after feeding her family went to appreciative friends. And eventually her Facebook page had some 300 followers. She took orders, cooked, made up plates and drove around with deliveries. And like Fields, her daughter learned those recipes by helping in the kitchen.
Now set up with a spot for the truck at 1411 Broadway at the corner of 14th Street in Eureka, a food handling license, commercial kitchen at Redwood Acres and help from friends and family, including boyfriend Staci Fowler, a Chicago-based caterer, Fields is determined to build the business for Taziyah. “This is for her to have something.” She says she told her teenage daughter, who’s taking culinary classes through her school, “If you want to travel and when you go to college, this business will help you pay for that.”
Taziyah and her sister Caci Fowler staff the truck with three other teens, who are all “full employees.” Fields says, “I’m hoping it’s sustainable, the kids are excited.” After figuring the cost of re-upping her food supply, she split the Juneteenth profits with the kids. “I want them to feel appreciated, to feel that their hard work is not for nothing. … They’re not privileged kids. … I don’t want them to feel taken advantage of.” After being on her feet all day, one of the teens, Fields says, proudly told her it was the first time she’s ever bought herself shoes.
Fields is trying to keep the cost of menu items low. So long as it’s sustainable, a hefty chicken thigh smothered in gravy is $2.75, a fried pork chop is $4.50, a shareable helping of meatless greens is $3.75 and the peach cobbler that sold out early on Juneteenth is $3.75. In a food truck market seeing upscale menus and prices of late, it’s eyebrow raising, but she has her reasons. “I know what it’s like to be a struggling parent and your bills are already killing you and needing good food and wanting good food,” she says. “I want to survive and I want to be successful, but not at the expense of not letting people eat good food.”
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Jennifer Fumiko Cahill (she/her) is the arts and features editor at the Journal. Reach her at 442-1400, extension 320, or jennifer@northcoastjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter @JFumikoCahill.
Conman Bolo plays Blondie’s on Friday, July 9 at 7 p.m.
Photo by Ken Johnson, courtesy of the artists
Into The Great Wide Open
By Collin Yeo
music@northcoastjournal.com
As I write this, I am nursing a mild sunburn and what I increasingly suspect is carryover of inebriation from a day of patriotic drinking and grilling. Such is the nature of things but I have to say these are mild wounds compared to the pleasure I had of having people around and feeding them while listening to music and talking. I’ve come to realize that one of the greatest pleasures in life is good company and the cheer it brings. It echoes with such a resonance that we have centuries of song and dance about that very subject to entertain us still. We’re social creatures who work best in cohesive groups. That’s really the core of my political and artistic life, to be honest. A love of people, despite ourselves.
If you are a member of the Humboldt music community, then you are probably aware we lost one of our own in April, when Timmy Gray died. I didn’t know the man closely so it isn’t my place to eulogize him, but Tim was an inescapable figure either behind the soundboard or on the drum kit, and if you have experienced live music in this county in the last few decades, he was likely behind quite a lot of it. Some people leave a benign energy in their wake and I know enough about this fella and the people missing him to know that he was one of the good ones. So I’ll pour one out to a fellow traveler and do my part to spread the word that there will be a celebration of his life at the Arcata Playhouse on Friday starting at 6 p.m.
Never forget that the people who wish you were still here are your best epitaph.
Have a beautiful week.
Thursday
Laney Lou and the Bird Dogs is a Montana band that specializes in a rigorous and energetic style of acoustic music the group describes as “stomp-grass.” Although this descriptor seems pretty straightforward to me, if you are having any doubts about its meaning, I suggest that you come to The Jam at 7 p.m. to figure it out for yourself. The second-fiddle support slot will be filled by Hill Honey & the Wildcats (so many animal names, RAWR!), which I haven’t had the pleasure of hearing yet. Scanning the group’s photos, I see some familiar faces in the lineup, so I can say with supreme confidence that this band has some serious talent in the roster ($15, $10 advance).
Friday
I wrote recently that I had broken my indoor live music fast by seeing Conman Bolo at the Siren’s Song. Even if I hadn’t been starved of live music and its intoxicating pleasures, I would have raved about the show because these dudes are great musicians. The music they’re playing is a sincere brand of what the internet dubbed “yacht-rock” about a decade ago and which is best described as “jazz-related soft rock.” Think Christopher Cross or any Michael McDonald song sampled by a ’90s rapper and you get the idea. Anyway, it was fun for me and, as a grade A certified Steely Dan freak, I enjoyed the dulcet tones and soothing sax — even if saxophonist Jesse Garate lied to me about pulling out a cover or two from the Dan’s discography. Oh, well. Tonight you will find this cadre of rhythm aces doing their very best at Blondie’s. Also along for the ride are dope., about whom I know nothing — I’ll soon be changing that. This 7 p.m. show is not to be missed ($5).
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Saturday
There’s a new kid on the block and the best way to herald their arrival is ... what else? A block party. And Brainwash Thrift is doing us all one better by throwing a month of Saturday block parties to introduce itself to the community. If you want to be in on the action, come down to the Sunnybrae Center starting at 2 p.m. to check out the scene. There will be local vendors aplenty and performances by Icarus and Suns, Word Humboldt, DJ Anya Slayer, Luvcult and more. As Luthor Vandross and Janet Jackson once put it so succinctly, the best things in life are free. And this party is no exception.
Sunday
Annie and Mary Days are back, my dears, after a year off because of you-know-what. So I would suggest getting your caboose down to Perigot Park in Blue Lake for a day full of good times with other people. Holy moly, we can actually see other people, many of them strangers, in a safe social setting actually encouraged by society. The mind reels. Lots of things are happening here today but my beat is music and today’s lineup is pretty clutch. Expect excellent sets from Dead On, The Backseat Drivers, Cadillac Ranch and my favorite little honky tonkin’ thunder group Barn Fire (free).
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Full show listings in the Journal’s Music and More grid, the Calendar and online. Bands and promoters: send your gig info, preferably with a high-res photo or two, to music@northcoastjournal.com.
Collin Yeo (he/him) is just a man whose intentions are good. He lives in Arcata and implores you to please don’t let him be misunderstood.
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