A program and book signing by
Jane and Michael Stern

3 MILLION MILES, 72,000 MEALS, 2 PEOPLE

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.

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.