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When we first experimented with dinner last November we stumbled upon a fun Clover tradition. Chris Anderson had a crate of plantains. He said: here, fry these up. We found that since dinners are more peaceful and spread out, we actually had room in the fryer and time to play around. Some of you remember those plantains. They were awesome.

Now that dinners are up again we’re playing with snacks again. Tonight if you stop by the trucks you may get a chance to try a fried pickle. I love these. There’s a bit of corn in the batter. Yum. Look for treats after 4pm all week on both trucks.

Next week we premiere a new seasonal sandwich, so I thought I’d share the story behind the pimento.

I grew up in Texas eating pimento cheese sandwiches all the time. Never saw the sandwich outside the South. It’s really simple: grated cheese, mayo, and pimento peppers (the same sweet red peppers you find inside green olives).

For the Clover version we did a mix of sharp cheddar, roasted red peppers, dill, capers, pickled celery, and cucumbers tossed with Aleppo pepper. The pimento started off slow, but the past few weeks we’ve been selling out of it every day. Let us know what you thought.

Rolando and I set out to overhaul our tea offerings the other week. It’s going well. We found some herbals we really like from Providence. Next time you’re by the truck at breakfast time ask for a sample. And now we’re trying some new black teas. Look for them later this week.

I love tea. I hope you all get a chance to try a cup and see how great it can taste. While we’re working this all out we’re very sample friendly, so don’t hesitate to ask to try something, but expect we’ll ask you what you thought.

There’s a lot to Clover you haven’t seen yet. Don’t worry, our menu will stay simple, we’ll never be promotional, we’ll always be screwing things up, learning, and making more mistakes.

But Rolando and I have dozens of ideas we plan to explore when the time is right. The right time for sodas was this past week. We’ve been playing with some recipes. These are really simple: soda water + sugar + flavor. We started with cinnamon, vanilla, and tarragon. I was really surprised you all wanted to try the tarragon. You can look forward to cardamom, root beer, celery, cider, and on and on. Because of the way we make these we can work with really delicate flavors (tarragon, fresh vanilla bean) that would never hold up to bottling. And we control the amount of sugar, so we can keep these from being too caloric. Most important, we control the taste, and know exactly what goes into each cup.

Look forward to a soft entry of these as it gets warmer.

We’ve struggled with tea since day 1. How to do tea?

I love tea. And I know that despite being the most popular beverage in the world, folks just don’t drink a lot of tea in the US. At first I thought it was an issue of education, or appreciation. But now I think it’s because tea is awful. OK, I’d use stronger language, but we try to keep this family friendly.

First, when you order tea out it feels like a $0.05 sack in a cup of hot water. I know soda and coffee have the same margins (not the way we do it, but for most places), but there is something unsatisfying about a cup of hot water with a bag floating.

Second, that bag is problematic. What do you do with it? It’s wet, it drips. Some have told us we should do what fancy places do, serving “loose leaf” tea in sacks. I don’t know if you’ve ever gotten one of these, but they drip all down the side of the cup. Even worse than the Lipton sacks.

Third, how are you ever going to brew the tea properly? 3 things matter to good tea: (a) temperature of water, (b) ratio of water to tea, (c) brew time. That cup of hot water with a tea sack floating in it? It’s probably not the right temperature, the ratio is likely off, and how on earth are you going to know when it’s hit the proper brew time?

I think we have a solution. This week we’re going to explore a better tea. You’re going to have some of the best tea in your life. You may actually love it. Come on Boston, let’s drink tea!

I’m down in Providence buying tea. Rolando found a tea place. It’s has the kind of name I don’t love, part ironic, part hippy (Farmacy), but they teas I’ve sampled so far I absolutely love. These herbs are grown here in Providence for the most part, and they process the teas here.

We’ll be sampling these for the next 2 weeks, a different tea every day. I avoided most of the “functional” teas, sticking mostly with taste. We can’t wait to hear what you think of them.

We didn’t mean this as a gotcha, and I hope I don’t turn anybody off, but that sweet potato sandwich you’ve all been eating: it had tofu in it.

We’ve been sort of on the fence about tofu. Rolando and I have been against fake meats from day one, but tempeh, seitan, tofu, they all have their own culinary histories and are OK by us. But tofu in particular is a food a lot of people think they hate. It represents so much of what Clover is not, that we’ve been cautious about using it at all.

Where the %$@ was that tofu hiding you ask? Rolando hid it well disguising it as a spread. Basically just tofu blended with cilantro to make a smooth spread. Some of you asked what was in the sandwich, hopefully we described it well.

Sorry about the picture, couldn’t catch one of this sandwich without at least one bit in it : )