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| Two for the Road: Our Love Affair With American Food | 
 enlarge | Authors: Jane Stern, Michael Stern
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
Buy Used: $0.01
You Save: $13.94 (100%)
New (46) Used (32) from $0.01
Avg. Customer Rating:  15 reviews
Sales Rank: 252001
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.5 x 1
ISBN: 061887268X
Dewey Decimal Number: 641
EAN: 9780618872688
ASIN: 061887268X
Publication Date: May 9, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Over 600,000 Feedbacks Posted!!! Great Buy!!!*** Never Used*** May Have a Publisher's Mark~We have over 3,500,000 Books Sold!!!
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Product Description
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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| Customer Reviews: Read 10 more reviews...
 I Promise If You Are Not Hungry, You Will Be :) May 18, 2008
I had read and heard exerpts from this book in different media, and was happy to finally find it. The Sterns travel the country and find the most wonderful food at little out of the way diners, restaurants and food stands. There are numerous recipies, in case you feel that you must try the dish. Their other book is wonderful as well. One warning however, if you are dieting, you may want to read the Stern books after you have eaten! I highly recommend the Stern books, and foodies (like me) will triple love them!!!
great writing August 23, 2007
This book was great. Whether you are a foodie or not, the Stern's keep you amused throughout the entire book!
The funniest and most charming book on food I've read in a long time July 23, 2007
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!
 America on 12 meals a day July 13, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I started reading this book and told myself I'd stop when it got too cookbookery. Surprisingly, it never does. This is a successful eating-and-traveling book of Americana of the last 30 years. The Jewish couple's delight in all things Southern and porky is a refreshing surprise. Their backroads culinary discoveries a treat for the eyes and stomach. The first night I read this book in bed, I got hungry for potato chips late at night. And I don't normally get hungry late at night.
Although this is first of all a book of downhome cooking and less about travel (when one eats twelve meals a day, where's the time to travel and explore the countryside?), the couple's demands are simple: make the food tasty, heap on the mounds, and don't charge an arm and a biscuit. Oh, and don't forget the pies!
My one complaint, and here's my bias, is that the Sterns tend to ignore New Jersey's great diners. There are so many wonderful restaurants in Jersey that are worthy of a gourmand's critic: Russo's Italian Diner in Southampton, NJ, Apane's south of Pemberton, and many other historical eateries hidden in the Pine Barrens.
Reading this book may make people want to write to the authors and demand that they critic their own favorite dining experiences. (I'm sure that is why they keep on traveling, to follow the leads of passionate eaters across this country) Then there are other great Amish places in Ohio and Indiana...may I recommend The Dutchman's Essenhaus off Route 20 in Indiana, not too far from Shipshewanna? Food there is served family-style, all-you-can-eat served right at your table. Meals are $14 or so a person but well worth the visit.
This book and others by the Sterns succeeds because of the passion of this topic to them and many other Americans. I can not eat 12 meals a day or else I'd be easily three times the size of Jane. But I do appreciate the recommendations of this book, the quirky writing style of the couple (even when they write about themselves in the third person), and the recipes at the end of each chapter.
Finding serious comfort food June 8, 2007
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
Jane and Michael Stern are a married couple renowned for their love of what they call "roadfood." In other words, the kind of uniquely American food you find in small cafes off a main highway - serious comfort food. They've been traveling the country for decades writing about their finds in a series of food travel books and cookbooks as well as a regular column in "Gourmet" magazine. I have a number of their books and always enjoy them. "Two for the Road" details a bit more about their adventures - the behind-the-scenes of how they find this amazing food all over the country.
Most of the stories are humorous in nature, and their light writing style is welcome here. They tell tales of language misunderstandings (thinking that the waitress in a small southern cafe was offering then "bald corn" when in fact it has been "boiled") and food culture clashes (ordering vinegar steamed tripe and finding the stink overwhelming). The couple has a series of running gags - the challenge of eating 12 meals a day, having to replace their car every few chapters, their love of menus, and so forth.
"Two for the Road" goes down very easily; it's kind of like a James Herriot novel for food lovers instead of animal lovers. Your mouth will likely be watering throughout, helped along by the inclusion of two to three recipes at the end of each chapter. The Stern's also helpfully include addresses of most restaurants they discuss (one glaring oversight is the Bunton Cafe in Nashville). Some of the text is "borrowed" from their other books; for example, several entries from their classic "Roadfood" book find their way into this book as well. However, overall, "Two for the Road" is a very enjoyable, fun read that will likely be well received by food lovers of all kind.
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