TRAVELS WITH ALICE

by Calvin Trillin ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 20, 1989

Reporter-vacationer Trillin (U. S. Journal, Uncivil Liberties, etc.) hits the road again, accompanied by loyal wife Alice, the girls Abigail and Sarah, as well as a host of happy readers. The itinerary for this trip includes some notable locales--notable especially for Calvin's primary objective: good eats. It's not a Grand Tour. It's a Hanging Around Tour, a new, cosmopolitan kind of Calvinism that shows us taureaux piscine (that's right, a sport involving a bull in a swimming pool) or takes us to a place the author would like to designate, based on cuisine, the Italian West Indies. This gustatory Baedeker brings us to a market town that bears ""an uncanny resemblance to a wine label"" and to the ""fastefoude"" emporia of Paris. The rewards of the flawless pommes frites or blaff (""the only onomatopoeic stew I know about"") of Guadeloupe are not overlooked, though ""that old Caribbean standby--Miami frozen fish covered with Number 22 sunblock""--is foregone. And don't pass up the Florentine refreshments sampled by our munching Michelin and Alice (or the principessa, as she is known in the gelaterias). Crafty Trillin--an alert traveler, prodigious fresser and, possibly, as he believes, the first person from his Kansas City high school to have eaten R‚unionaise food--has concocted another elegantly written ragout, zestful and tasty.

Pub Date: Oct. 20, 1989

ISBN: 0374526001

Page Count: -

Publisher: Ticknor & Fields/Houghton Mifflin

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1989

Categories: NONFICTION