Two for the Road: Our Love Affair With American Food

Two for the Road: Our Love Affair With American Food
by Jane Stern, Michael Stern

Two for the Road: Our Love Affair With American Food
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Book Summary Information

Author: Jane Stern, Michael Stern
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-05-09
ISBN: 061887268X
Number of pages: 304
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Book Reviews of Two for the Road: Our Love Affair With American Food

Book Review: The funniest and most charming book on food I've read in a long time
Summary: 5 Stars

I have read a lot of books on food, cooking, and being a professional chef, and this one is by far my favorite.

Michael and Jane Stern cleverly decide after college that instead of getting jobs and joining the rat race, perhaps they will travel about and eat lots of stuff and maybe someone will pay them to write about it all. Thus begins a rewarding and successful career for both as food writers.

Right from the get-go, I liked these authors. They are self-deprecating, hilarious, and will eat just about anything - well, Michael will, at any rate.

The intrepid adventurers set off in their non-air-conditioned, barely running vehicle, and drive along the backroads and byways to find diner food, cafeteria food, and truckstop food - anything, in short, that would be what most Americans would eat in their own neck of the woods or would be what others used to passing through would eat.

They are looking for the regional treasures that you won't hear about elsewhere - the great treasure trove of Jello salads, giant and perfectly grilled (or steamed!) burgers or sandwiches, homemade cakes and pies, chicken fried steaks, corn pudding, jonnycakes...

As a lifelong Northern Californian, I always suspected I was missing out on some culinary treasures from the rest of the country. Our veggies are never all the way cooked, our salad bars contain green matter and not a hint of Jello or macaroni, and the snoots are lifted high into the air on matters of culinary importance. We may have Alice Waters and French Laundry, but we sure are missing a lot of tasty-sounding food!

I really appreciated the Stern's take on our country's delicious yet often humble fare. They were always amusing; brutally honest, yet very respectful and never condescending when describing the people, places, and foods that they experienced. I felt like I was taken on a trip with them and got a real view of what I might experience someday on my own culinary road trip.

This book has a couple recipes at the end of each chapter, to give you a bit of the flavor of the road. The rice custard pudding is my favorite so far of those I tested - it came out perfectly the first time! I am looking forward to trying the Coca Cola Chocolate Cake with Broiled Peanut Butter Frosting next!

Summary of Two for the Road: Our Love Affair With American Food

Part memoir, part guidebook, part cookbook, and all parts hilarious, Two for the Road shares the lessons the Sterns have learned during thirty years of sampling regional fare on America?s back roads. If you want a great restaurant, forget the Yellow Pages, ask the local cop—and avoid anything that calls itself “world famous.? Sure bets are places with a giant plastic pig on the roof or pictures of Jesus on the walls. As the Sterns search for the Holy Grail of barbecue, they relate achingly funny adventures and misadventures, and what emerges is a big picture of America, revealing exotic eating customs that flourish right under our noses.

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