On the Menu: Mama Dukes Hawaiian Barbeque to join Bloomington's Food Truck Friday
Hawaiian barbecue has come to Bloomington thanks to Amber Racoma and her business, Mama Dukes Hawaiian Barbeque.
"We were going into business together," Racoma explained recently. But her mother passed away in February 2022 before that dream became a reality. In September 2022, Racoma left her full-time job and began pursuing the dream of opening a food establishment by herself.
Racoma is a recent graduate of the Ivy Tech Community College-Bloomington entrepreneurship program and earlier this year began offering catering and hot lunches she creates at the One World KitchenShare. Racoma originally planned to go into business with her mother, who provided the recipes and instruction on how to properly make the dishes, including a special Hawaiian mac salad.
"It never left my heart," she said. "I quit my full-time job and pushed through with my dream to carry on her legacy." Racoma said her mother taught her to cook with "aloha," the word translates "the presence of breath" or "breath of life" and means love, peace, compassion.
After graduating from Ivy Tech on May 6, Racoma has been working to open a booth she hopes to have at Bloomington's Food Truck Fridays. Eventually she wants to get a food truck.
"The main thing I will sell (at Food Truck Friday) is the Shoyu chicken," she explained.
The Shoyu chicken, a tender, sweet, salty and savory chicken dish, was one of the recipes her mother taught her.
"I had to earn it," Racoma said about using her mother's recipes. "She didn't just give them to me. I had to prove I could master that dish."
Once Racoma mastered one dish, her mother would present another Hawaiian recipe to create.
Racoma's Shoyu chicken is a boneless chicken covered in a special soy sauce that's served with white rice and mac salad. Another Hawaiian favorite, musubi, which resembles Japanese onigiri, is another of Racoma's offerings. She has Spam musubi and Teriyaki Spam musubi. Hawaiian mac salad has shredded carrots, apple cider vinegar, mayonnaise and special seasonings added to cooked elbow macaroni.
Cardinal Spirits wins 4 USA Today awards
Cardinal Spirits has won four awards in the USA Today 10Best Readers’ Choice Awards. The Bloomington distillery at 922 S. Morton St. was No. 2 for Best Canned Cocktails. In the Best Craft Specialty Spirits, it placed No. 8; for best craft vodka it placed No. 6; and for best craft rum, No. 8.
This is the fifth year Cardinal Spirits has earned USA Today 10Best awards in multiple categories. For the competition, USA Today taps a panel of spirits experts to nominate 20 alcohol producers in each category before the public is invited to vote daily to determine the top 10 rankings.
For a complete list of spirits produced by Cardinal Spirits, go to https://www.cardinalspirits.com/. The distillery’s spirits and canned cocktails are distributed in 13 states and Washington, D.C.
Update on Peach Cobbler Factory
The Peach Cobbler Factory, which had hoped to open a Bloomington store in 2022 or early 2023, is still in process. The franchise owner has said he hopes to open the store, at 115 N. College Ave., within the next month or so. Look for more details in a future On the Menu column.
Contact Carol Kugler at ckugler@heraldt.com, 812-331-4359 or @ckugler on Twitter.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Mama Dukes Hawaiian Barbeque launching at Bloomington food truck nights
