Great American Eating Experiences

great american eating experiencesFollow the locals to their favorite foods throughout the United States, state by state, with the help of this gorgeously packaged travel planner.

Anchored by regional specialties and the best places to sample them, Great American Eating Experiences serves up real-deal comfort foods like New Orleans Po’ Boys and Chesapeake crab cakes, sprinkled with fun food factoids, food surprises, and more. Go beyond the Internet basics and discover the country’s most authentic food experiences. As an added bonus, GPS coordinates for each destination make sure you don’t miss these sometimes hard-to-find secrets.

The book is organized state-by-state, highlighting the best regional eating experiences both tried-and-true and unexpected. Among more than 130 festivals, you’ll discover a festival celebrating Moxie, a medicinal elixir-turned-soft-drink that is almost exclusively found in Maine; local Michigan spots to try Cudighi – ground sausage sandwich topped with mozzarella and tomato sauce; where to sample Native American fry bread in Arizona and New Mexico; the best places to eat Key lime pie in Florida; the two dueling Philly cheesesteak restaurants in Philadelphia; the New Orleans birthplace of the muffaletta; and much more.

This colorful travel planner helps you discover the best local foods and eating experiences throughout the United States. (description from publisher)

Off the Menu by Marissa Guggiana

For every dinner service, there is a staff meal, family-style celebrations prepared by chefs for their crew. The meals are never on the menu, but are designed to show appreciation, provide energy for the evening, and more importantly, please even the pickiest palate. Off the Menu brings you behind-the-scenes profiles of the country’s top restaurants, and explore the tradition of the staff meal.

Each night, sous chefs, line cooks, waiters, busboys, dishwashers, and managers all gather to eat, socialize, and plan before opening for business. Ranging from small plates to multi-course extravaganzas, from an inspired use of leftovers or entirely new offerings, the concept is simple: a well-fed staff is a happy one. Guggiana has taken the most remarkable, soulful, and mouthwatering of these dishes and translated them for the home cook. You will find more than 80 recipes from 50 of the nation’s top restaurants. Each entry includes profiles of the restaurants, behind-the-scenes trips to the kitchens, and dining out tips, restaurant tricks, and cooking techniques from the cream of the culinary crop.

Pull back the curtain on the staff meal, and find new, exciting ways to feed your family from the best in the business.