Alice, Let's Eat: Further Adventures of a Happy Eater

Calvin Trillin has an ever-patient wife. In Alice, Let's Eat Mrs. Alice Trillin practically steals the show in every chapter she appears. She has great wit. As an example, I loved her "Law of Compensatory Cashflow." My husband has the same law: if you save a bunch of money by not buying something, you are free to use that savings on something equally as frivolous. At the time of writing, an in-flight meal cost $33. Trillin packs his own "flight picnic" so he can spend the "saved" money somewhere else, maybe on an oyster loaf. Much like American Fried, Alice, Let's Eat is a collection of humorous essays all about eating and finding the best food across the globe.

I've been reading Trillin's essays for years but this is the first time I've sat down with an entire book's worth. As with many poetry collections, I sat down expecting to browse through a small selection of pieces at a time but then suddenly I'd finished it.

Although everything was written in the 70s, remarkably little is dated. Many foodie trends have, in fact, cycled back around. My copy is a first edition hardcover. It cost about $2 and likely always will but the yellowing pages and dated dustjacket font added nicely to what nostalgia there was.

Besides the food, the fun of reading Trillin is in the humor, the kind that provides a chuckle on nearly every page, far too frequently to quote. It's the same sort of humor as Nora Ephron's, show more but less political and more prolific. I did get a little green about their apparently unlimited travel and leisure budget, though. And I kept wanting to tell Alice to just go sightsee without him rather than always missing out on a museum in favor of a restaurant.

The more about food you've read, the more rewarding this collection is. My favorite part was encountering Shopsin's when it was still just a grocery and mentioned under a different name. Trillin also describes a restaurant in Reading PA called simply Joe's, whose award-winning cookbook I bought (new) 20 years later.

It's not an entirely fun book. Alice Trillin comes across so vividly as such an interesting, clever, and just plain nice person that her relatively early death (in 2001) casts a melancholy light on many passages.

On the plus side, this is the second of a trilogy. And I would love another helping. show less

Trillin writes sentences that make you laugh out loud and water at the mouth at the same time. He has a funny way of looking at the world, and he eats foods like a man possessed; from pictures, I have learned that he's a thinnish man, which seems remarkable after reading about his voracious hunger.

The first clue was this funny quip: "It all comes out on the honeymoon. " I soon realized I was reading something like "Julie and Julia", as much about marriage and love as it was about eating. Wonderful at many levels.

Very funny at times, and always interesting to hear the adventures of the Trillins and their meals.

Listed in various sources as an American humourist (although most such sources spell humourist in American!). This, along with other Trillin books, makes really good reading with food as the focus. An added poignancy is added as his title companion, his wife Alice, died in 2001 and is the subject of a later book, 'About Alice' - also recommended.

Essays by a perpetually hungry humorist. Will travel anywhere. No veggies.