Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #70390 in Books
• Published on: 2006-05-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 304 pages

From 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)
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Review

About the Author
JANE and MICHAEL STERN are contributing editors to Gourmet, where they write the James Beard Award–winning monthly column "Roadfood." They also do a weekly "Two for the Road" segment for The Splendid Table on public radio. Their Web site, www.roadfood.com, was named the best Internet food site by PC Magazine, Forbes, and Yahoo.com. In 1992 they received a James Beard Lifetime Achievement Award and were inducted into the Who"s Who of Food and Beverage in America.

MICHAEL and JANE STERN are contributing editors to Gourmet, where they write the James Beard Award–winning monthly column "Roadfood." They also do a weekly "Two for the Road" segment for The Splendid Table on public radio. Their Web site, www.roadfood.com, was named the best Internet food site by PC Magazine, Forbes, and Yahoo.com. In 1992 they received a James Beard Lifetime Achievement Award and were inducted into the Who"s Who of Food and Beverage in America.

Customer Reviews

Road Hogs
Jane and Michael Stern love those little hole-in-the-wall diners that always seem to have either the best food you've had in ages, or the worst. They have asbestos-lined stomachs and aren't easily scared. These traits serve them well in their chosen career as low-end restaurant reviewers and kitsch collectors. Two for the Road is their story, or at least an entertaining collection of stories from their thirty-some years on the road together.

For a book that's about finding great food, there are an awful lot of gross-out episodes here. But that's only to be expected from people who eat twelve meals a day when on the road, and whose criteria for which eateries to try include whether there is a smiling cow or pig statue on the roof. And let's face it, who doesn't love a good gross-out story?

In addition to stories about great diners and really awful ones, there's the occasional detour to pursue their interest in kitschy pop culture. It seems they love to visit prison gift shops. (How did they discover that prisons even have gift shops?) Jane and Michael tell how they stumbled into the inmate-filled exercise yard of Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary while searching for the gift shop. As the inmates ponder this unexpected development, Jane asks a group of prisoners where the gift shop is. Quickly determining that there is no gift shop (or guards), they scoot out through the unlocked doors and resume their journey.

Unbelievable? Sure, but they've got a million of 'em, and whether you envy their career or find it as appealing as being force-fed lard through a tube, you can't help but enjoy their enthusiasm and humor.

On the Road and On the Money
We've used Roadfood, Roadfood Goodfood and all other Jane and Michael Stern books for years. Two for the Road is the behind the scenes of all the wonderful reviews and all the terrific places that the Sterns have traveled to and eaten at for the past three decades. And the story behind the great food is as good as the food itself: it's all sumptuous, homey, loving, funny, feisty, unpretentious - a look at America that is open and gracious and filled with appetite and wit. I love this book and after reading it over the weekend with family in Kennedale, we drove back to Houston and stopped for lunch in the small town of Calvert, Texas - and all that I had read and fantasized about popped into a very happy reality at The Otherplace Cafe where the lunch consisted of the best chicken fried steak I've ever had, a salad with home grown tomatoes; fried corn, sweet potatoes, a "thirteen vegetable stir fry", Mexican green beans, home baked rolls (the kind that break into thirds) and chocolate cake with nuts - plus iced tea. All for eight bucks. The only choice on the menu apart from the meat, was the kind of potato to get and I'm not touting the place which was certainly very good, I'm touting the book and the Sterns, who have helped all of us stop and try new things and new places, meet new people (the cook worked in the Navy for eight years teaching high pressure welding) - and to experience and explore America in all of its beauty, strangeness, friendliness, hopefulness and culinary genius.

Delightful
This book is a delightful narrative of the adventures of Jane and Michael Stern as they travel the USA in search of interesting roadside food. Starting in the early 1970s, with an original goal of eating and reviewing every restaurant in America, they quickly realize that they need to narrow their focus. Henceforth, they travel the byways, staying at mom and pop motels (some downright scary - but mostly just good fun), and eating at the kind of cafe that the locals enjoy. In a sense, this book isn't just about food, but also about the kind of smalltown goodness (with a bit of eccentricity thrown in) that one often finds in the USA. The descriptions of the food are sheer poetry of yumminess. I wouldn't think that something like "stuffed ham" (boiled ham with greens and spices stuffing it, that is then "shocked" cold and served) would sound aluring, yet they manage to make it sound like the food of the Gods. I recommend this book for anyone that enjoys food books, travel books, or welldone memoirs.