I love to eat. I love to read. I live to read. I live to love. I eat to live. I eat to ...read?
Anyway, they're pretty important aspects of my life, so no surprise that I love reading Calvin Trillin. After reading About Alice a few months back, I picked up a few other Trillins that I had missed. This was one.
It's a republication of a book of articles originally published in 1978. I wouldn't have known it if I hadn't looked at the flyleaf. The material is as fresh and fun as if it had been penned last month.
The theme is more or less that Trillin yearns to try every good meal (particularly regional delicacies) in every good restaurant he reads about (and his agents are everywhere) as his lovely wife tries to limit him to three meals a day, and occasionally attempts to get him to diet.
The most mentioned restaurant is Arthur Bryant's in Kansas City, famed for its barbecue, but he is on no less a quest for the best fried chicken or country ham. He also seeks out Dungeness crab and oyster loaf, pizza and barbecued mutton. And just about every type of food to be found in Louisiana, though most of it is ingested in New Orleans. He does eat some things I wouldn't touch with a barge pole, but it just goes to show that chacun a son gout. Imagine the accents where they belong.
It is part travelogue, part food journal, part intimate portrait of a marriage. Alice herself is a gourmet cook (married to a gourmet/gourmand, what's not to like there), who is addicted to good food, particularly dessert, and most particularly, chocolate.
The real amazing thing here is that I have never seen photos of Calvin or Alice Trillin where they look the least bit overweight. That's the real secret I'd like to discover.
[Image from Barnes & Noble, where they also have an interview with Trillin.]
The answer may be as simple as recalibrating the vibration trigger to be less sensitive.
Posted by: São Paulo Para-brisa Reparo | April 06, 2011 at 09:00 AM