Two for the Road: Our Love Affair with American Food
Author: Jane Stern
Road trip! In this rollicking memoir, Jane and Michael Stern tell what it's like to eat everywhere across the U.S.A. Driving more than three million miles, eating twelve meals a day, they discover not only the pleasure of biscuits and gravy and cherry pie à la mode, but a world of cooks, customers, and fellow roadfood devotees for whom good food is one of life's essentials.
Hop into the car for hilarious adventures and misadventures as the Sterns search for the definitive barbecue, sandwiches, Indian fry bread, sweet potato pie, and other treasures along America's highways and byways. Eat in a midnight restaurant where a "murderburger" is the specialty, dine in a place whose proprietor is devoted to the memory of Richard Nixon, devour ribs alongside a cook's pet pig, and feast at one of the last of the old-time boarding houses. You'll meet such personalities as America's greatest bull rider (who won't eat clams but downs deep-fried lamb testicles), a waitress who gets her dining tips straight from Jesus, and a pre-reality-show radio homemaker who broadcasts straight from her kitchen.
Join the Sterns at the start of their journey when, fresh out of grad school and with little more than hunger as their guide, they hit the road in search of something to eat. Discover with them a strategy to maximize cafeteria tray capacity (desserts first) and to sniff out a great breakfast in an unfamiliar town. Best of all, savor the delicious potluck banquet of beloved regional fare, unusual eateries, and the unforgettable characters who make up American food.
The New York Times - Nora Ephron
I love Jane and Michael Stern. They write about ordinary food so simply and exuberantly that I couldn't help thinking, as I read this latest book of theirs (the 31st), that they deserved a room of their own in the Smithsonian Institution, right next to Julia Child's Cambridge kitchen. The Sterns' exhibit would consist primarily of an automobile, possibly the gas-guzzling vomit-green Chevrolet Suburban with calico curtains that the couple bought back in the early 70's, when they began a lifelong odyssey for hot biscuits, red velvet cake, stuffed ham, bright blue gelatin, cinnamon buns, barbecued ribs, candied yams — all the uncelebrated, homely, traditional regional American foods that were at the time completely off the radar of almost everyone who made a living caring or writing about food.
Publishers Weekly
The authors of Roadfood are crazy for American local food, that often informal, inexpensive cuisine that's not especially healthy but sure is tasty. The husband-and-wife team has traveled the country since the 1970s, seeking out the sort of food found in "unlikely restaurants in small towns and off two-lane highways," which, naturally, leads to all manner of fish-out-of-water scenarios, which they relate in this endearing chronicle. The Sterns' adventures are funny, if not quite perilous; the car breaks down in Enigma, Ga.; six jugs of iced tea bought at a South Carolina restaurant leak all over the car's floor, which the Sterns don't realize until days later, when they're nearing the Mojave Desert and could really use a refreshment. Their enthusiasm is inspiring; they regularly consume 100 meals in 10 days or less, but that only makes them more passionate for road food. Their descriptions of their grail are the book's highlights: baby back ribs at Carson's, in Skokie, Ill., for instance, are "sensuously sticky with a baked-on sauce that [is] striated red-gold as if it had been painted by an artist of the Hudson River School"; caramel rolls at North Dakota's Havana Cafe are "light and fluffy, swirled with veins of caramel frosting." (May) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
For the past 30 years, the Sterns have traveled America's back roads looking for the most tender chicken and fried steak, the flakiest pies, and the most gelatinous congealed salads. The authors of Roadfood and many other books finally tell the story of this decades-long road trip. After their days as art students at Yale, they purchased a disreputable vehicle and planned to eat their way from coast to coast. Like Hobbits, they not only had second but third and fourth breakfasts-plus lunches and dinners. While Michael stayed thin as a rail, Jane packed on a few pounds and discovered the benefits of commodious and sturdy Amish underpants. Included here are tips on how to choose cheap motels ("Don't stay in a room where the TV is chained to the wall") and an appreciation of misprints on menus ("oven fried children"; "spaghetti with clamps"). A book to be savored while sitting in the Formica and vinyl booth of your favorite diner eating meatloaf and real mashed potatoes, this title will be popular with libraries that own other titles by the Sterns.-Susan Belsky, Oshkosh P.L., WI Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
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