In a truck close by the entrance to the Red Hook ball fields, the Martinez family prepares tacos, quesadillas, and the oversize corn tortillas called huaraches (hwa-Rah-chays).
These Mexican "sandals" — this one's about a size 12 — are easier to handle sitting down, especially when the pork-and-beans base is smothered in salsa verde and avocado. Poking out from both ends, you might just be able to see a pair of ramps, the wild leeks that make their appearance each spring not long before the ball fields typically open for business. A huarache actually conceals a superthin layer of beans within the corn tortilla itself; a quesadilla (Keh-suh-Dee-yuh) doesn't. Otherwise it's much the same story. Below, from later in the season, is a beef quesadilla "con todo" (with everything); radishes stand in for the ramps.
Also shown below: chicken sopes (So-pace), fried disks of corn dough with distinctively pinched rims that help corral the toppings, at least till you tear them all to pieces; morning at the truck. If you'd like to step right up to the window, as in that bottom photo, don't wait till midafternoon.
Martinez truck
Red Hook Ball Fields
Near Clinton and Bay Sts., Red Hook, Brooklyn
Saturday and Sunday, May through October
