Chicago Foodways: Jane & Michael Stern, Thurs 5/18 7:30

Long before I knew of the Internet I knew of these people ...

Chicago Foodways Roundtable presents:

Two for the Road
Our Love Affair with American Food

A program and book signing by

Jane and Michael Stern

Thursday, May 18th, 2005

7:30 PM

at

Kendall College
900 North Branch Street, Chicago
(West of Halsted Street, North of Chicago Avenue)
FREE PARKING

Cost: $2 per person, free to Kendall students and faculty with ID.

3 MILLION MILES, 72,000 MEALS, 2 PEOPLE


Photo used by permission from the publisher Houghton Mifflin

Jane and Michael Stern are America’s leading authorities on the culinary delights to be found while driving.. They’ve been searching out American roadfood while driving, eating, and chronicling bbq pits, hamburger joints, clams shacks, ice cream parlors, diners and the like for over 30 years. They’ve brought roadfood into mainstream pop-culture through their bestselling glove-box bible ROADFOOD (in-print since 1978), their monthly column in Gourmet magazine, and a weekly spot on public radio’s The Splendid Table. Winners of a James Beard Lifetime Achievement Award, the Sterns have been inducted into the Who’s Who of Food and Beverage in America. When they are not traveling, they live in West Redding, Connecticut.

TWO FOR THE ROAD is the culinary adventures of Jane and Michael Stern’s lifelong road trip – never before told. It is filled with the food American’s love to eat: velvety barbecue pork sandwiches, lazy-susan’s filled with crunchy fried chicken, blue ribbon blueberry pies, fluffy buttermilk biscuits, and more. Their memoir of American roadfood past and present is contemporary cultural anthropology at its best.

Driving across the country looking for the best regional foods isn’t always a picnic. Some of their unexpected revelations include:

· Why the more pigs displayed on a restaurant menu is a good thing. Jane and Michael have a pig rating system instead of a star rating system. Large crabs, cows, and Jesus pictures are also indicators of a good roadside joint.

· How they cheat when they eat. Eating twelve meals a day is an impossible feat, even for pro’s like the Sterns. Waitresses sometimes wonder how they ate the whole lobster – shells and all! (Jane carries oversized purses.)

· The strange looks town people give Michael as he takes pictures of his cheese sandwich.

· The need for roomier clothing and Jane’s discovery of Amish underpants

· Why prison gifts shops are a great place to buy presents.

To reserve e-mail chicago.foodways.roundtable@gmail.com or phone 847/432-8255 so we can arrange a proper sized room. Please include your name, telephone number and the number of people in your party.

PLEASE RESERVE ... WE WILL CHANGE LOCATIONS AT KENDALL COLLEGE DEPENDING ON THE RESPONSE.

I'll be there. Anyone else planning on going?

I have just over 80 reserved so far. There are other LTH people coming, who have PM or e-mailed me directly. Once I hit around 100, then I am wait listing people. So those who have signed up and later learned they cannot make it, then please advise me!

Regards,

HI,

We've moved to a larger venue within Kendall. If you are inclined to come, then please do!

Regards,

Thanks to Jane and Michael Stern for an entertaining evening-- especially the Leavenworth Prison story. And our own Cathy2, head of Chicago Foodways Roundtable, deserves special recognition for arranging this special event. Thank you, Cathy. As always, you rule!

You hear the term whirlwind tour but you don't get quite what it means until you see the Sterns, who started the morning in Akron, had lunch at Manny's, talked to us, and then hit the road for Milwaukee.

It was fun listening to them, and I admire their freelancers' resourcefulness which enables them to first write up a book of restaurants they've been to (Road Food), then write a book about how they went to the same restaurants (Two For The Road), then tell the stories from the book in person, while managing to make it different enough each time to sustain interest. Actually, they did a lot more than sustain interest, they had us laughing pretty hard most of the way.

Cathy2 introduced them by making one of the classic American foods featured in one of their earlier books:



Here's the monstrosity closer up:



Signing afterwards. I gave them a copy of the Maxwell Street video (visible at Michael's left) and we chatted about the late Kansas eccentric Iola Burgraff (you'll have to read Two For the Road to learn more).



Thanks, Cathy, for arranging this fun event!