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

By Calvin Trillin

BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Calvin Trillin's Quite Enough of Calvin Trillin.

“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

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Sep 23, 2009
• ISBN: 9780307493873

Calvin Trillin

Peter M. Wolf is an award winning author. His recent memoir, My New Orleans Gone Away, reached the New York Times e-book Best Seller list. Previous books such as Land in America, Hot Towns and The Future of the City have been honored by Th e National Endowment for the Arts, Th e Ford Foundation and The Graham Foundation. Wolf was educated at Metairie Park Country Day School, Phillips Exeter Academy, Yale, Tulane, and New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts. His research has taken him to Paris as a Fulbright scholar and to Rome as a visiting artist/scholar at the American Academy in Rome. In New Orleans Wolf serves on the advisory board of the Tulane University School of Architecture, and as a trustee of the Louisiana Landmarks Society. In East Hampton he is a trustee of Guild Hall and the Village Preservation Society. Wolf, a fifth generation New Orleans native, is Leon Godchaux’s great-great grandson.

Reviews for Alice, Let's Eat

[seriousgrace · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

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.

[auntieknickers · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

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

[kristenn_43 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

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, 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.

[rossryanross · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

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.

[tzelman_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

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