Alice, Let's Eat: Further Adventures of a Happy Eater
Calvin Trillin
Language: English
Pages: 192
ISBN: 0812978064
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
“Trillin is our funniest food writer. He writes with charm, freedom, and a rare respect for language.”
–New York magazine
In this delightful and delicious book, Calvin Trillin, guided by an insatiable appetite, embarks on a hilarious odyssey in search of “something decent to eat.” Across time zones and cultures, and often with his wife, Alice, at his side, Trillin shares his triumphs in the art of culinary discovery, including Dungeness crabs in California, barbecued mutton in Kentucky, potato latkes in London, blaff d’oursins in Martinique, and a $33 picnic on a no-frills flight to Miami. His eating companions include Fats Goldberg, the New York pizza baron and reformed blimp; William Edgett Smith, the man with the Naughahyde palate; and his six-year-old daughter, Sarah, who refuses to enter a Chinese restaurant unless she is carrying a bagel (“just in case”). And though Alice “has a weird predilection for limiting our family to three meals a day,” on the road she proves to be a serious eater–despite “seemingly uncontrollable attacks of moderation.” Alice, Let Eat amply demonstrates why The New Republic called Calvin Trillin “a classic American humorist.”
“One of the most brilliant humorists of our times . . . Trillin is guaranteed good reading.”
–Charleston Post and Courier
“Read Trillin and laugh out loud.”
–Time
agricultural sciences in Nova Scotia is limited to a little experiment I’m carrying out on levels of production in totally neglected apple trees, but I am occasionally astonished anew to find that a neighbor who mentions the need to prime the pump is talking not about tinkering with the free-market economy but about priming the pump. People in Nova Scotia do make hay, and if at all possible, they make it while the sun shines so that it will be dry when they store it in the barn. One day in Nova
decided to assume that the predatory-looking creatures in the back of the car were in fact chickens. He slowed in the traffic leaving Barnstaple, and pointed toward a car in front of us that was towing a trailer containing a calf. “That’s my next venture,” he said. “Does Francie know about this?” Alice asked. “Lovely thing, that,” Jeffrey continued. “Lovely. I once fell in love with a Jersey cow at the Dunster Show.” 5 Fly Frills to Miami My decision to take a rather elegant picnic
Washington eaters believe that it was handed down intact to a man with a tattoo, and still others believe that it was not the sort of recipe anyone would have to guard very closely. Fenner’s favorite restaurant in the Washington area was the renowned Silver Spring fish house called the Crisfield Seafood Restaurant. He misses practically everything about Crisfield’s. “They know how to treat children,” I heard him say once. “They know how to treat oysters,” said Morisseau, who did some eating in
Guide to the Bars of Reading, by Suds Kroge and Dregs Donnigan (“Dedicated to our wives”). Alice has always seemed unenthusiastic about leaving for Stanley’s after the soup, and, aware that these weekends are supposed to be special, I haven’t made an issue of it. On Sundays, after our stop at the Dutchman’s Diner, we wander through one of the nearby antique markets—Renninger’s or Shupps Grove. Shopping is so much a part of any American vacation, of course, that a visitor to Atlantic City
terrible!” “There must be something wrong with this connection,” I said. “I could swear I just told you that I was about to have dinner at Chez Helène.” “You’re going to have to go on a diet. This is serious.” It occurred to me that a man telephoning his wife from a soul-food restaurant could, on the excuse of trying to provide some authentic atmosphere, say something like “Watch yo’ mouth, woman!” Instead, I said, “I think there might be a better time to talk about this, Alice.” Toward the