Tuesday, February 12

 
A Dream of Parking Perfection, with a Little Food

One of my favorite food writers is Calvin Trillin, a Missouri-born but Manhattan-living writer who can make even parking the car an event of life-changing proportions. This story, a feature evolving from Trillin's latest book, "Tepper Isn't Going Out," centers on the theory and practice of finding and maintaining a good parking spot in Manhattan. It isn't directly about food, but it's simply impossible to be anywhere in even the same psychological space as Trillin without getting food mixed in somehow. Reading how Trillin combines parking and brunch-food shopping gives you an idea of the great food writing that lies between the covers of classics like "Alice, Let's Eat." Trillin coined the gently derogatory phrase "Maison de la Casa House" to describe restaurants that foist horrible permutations of "Continental Cuisine" on unsuspecting Midwesterners. He also speculates that the government is filling abandoned missile silos with surplus chicken a la king. The next time you're at the library, see if they have any Trillin nonfiction collections. They're slim volumes, and the essays read quickly.
posted by Unknown 9:50 AM