The basis for the movie starring Kathy Bates, Ambulance Girl is an inspiring story by a woman who found, somewhat late in life, that “in helping others I learned to help myself.”Jane Stern was a walking encyclopedia of panic attacks, depression, and hypochondria. Her marriage of more than thirty years was suffering, and she was virtually immobilized by fear and anxiety. As the daughter of parents who both died before she was thirty, Stern was terrified of ...

Chicken and Dumplings, Fried Green Tomatoes, Cornbread, Collard Greens, and Sugared Pecans!By any measure, the Blue Willow Inn in Social Circle, Georgia is as southern as you can get. Proprietor Billie Van Dyke says that no one is allowed to leave hungry, and certainly no one should after feasting on a variety of Southern salads, meats, vegetables, breads and desserts and, of course, sweet tea, the "Champagne of the South," and lemonade. Housed in a gloriously restored southern man...

A Roadfood™ CookbookThe colorful history of El Charro Café and the 150 recipes for vibrant, exciting Mexican food make this book as unique and entertaining as the 80-year-old restaurant itself. It is rumored that in the 1940s, founder Monica Flin would sit on the El Charro patio, sipping martinis from teacups and playing cards with John Wayne, who was in Tucson to film westerns. Today the restaurant is run by Carlotta Flores and her husband, Ray. The El Charro Café...

Beginning as a party house in the forties, the then private home had one of the largest hardwood living room floors around, perfect for dancing the night away. In the fifties it was known as the Harpeth Valley Tea Room owned by Lon and Annie Loveless. In 1951 it became the Loveless Cafe and in the seventies and eighties "the modest roadside eatery that once had been Nashille's secret went national. Discovered by food writers . . . the Loveless found itself recognized as a precious cultural...

While Italian restaurants are popular throughout the United States, New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut make up the part of the country most associated with the great ones. And one of the best is Carbone's in Hartford, Connecticut.Founded sixty-five years ago, Carbone's is Hartford's oldest and best-reviewed restaurant. The founder, Charlie Carbone, learned some of his best recipes from New York restaurants by going into their kitchens, posing as a health inspector, and watching ...

Mixing elegance with an island attitude, Louie's Backyard is an award-winning Key West, Florida restaurant famous for its fine food and relaxed oceanfront ambience, and what marks the food at Louie's backyard is innovation.Chef Doug Shook likes to create new variations daily. "Inventing is the joy of cooking," he says, which means the recipes in The Louie's Backyard Cookbook are the best of many recipes Shook has created over the years. They are for people...

No restaurant defines Yankee cooking as well as Boston's Durgin-Park. In anatmosphere of clattering dishes, conversation, and sharp-tongued waitresses, itserves its time-hallowed specialties: roast beef that may be the best anywhere,incredible quantities of Boston baked beans, New England boiled dinners,chowder, apple pie, apple pan dowdy, and hot cornbread.Few restaurants can claim a tradition as long and entrenched as Durgin-Park. Founded in 1827, it has had only four owners. Che...

What are the all-time best dishes America has to offer, the ones you must taste before they vanish, so delicious they deserve to be a Holy Grail for travelers? Where's the most vibrant Key lime pie in Florida? The most sensational chiles rellenos in New Mexico? The most succulent fried clams on the Eastern Seaboard? The most memorable whoopie pies, gumbos, tacos, cheese steaks, crab feasts? In 500 Things to Eat Before It's Too Late, "America's leading authorities on the culinary d...

This delightful biography "offers conclusive proof that Hines was not only a real human being, but an American culinary hero" ( The Weekly Standard).Duncan Hines may be best known for the cake mixes, baked goods, and bread products that bear his name, but many people don't know that he was a real person and not just a fictitious figure invented for the brand. America's pioneer restaurant critic, Hines discovered his passion while working as a traveling sal...

An all-American classic: "For the first time in decades, we can revisit the best recipes from some of the best restaurants of the '40s and '50s." — St. Louis Post-DispatchAdventures in Good Cooking was a culinary landmark. Duncan Hines had left his native Kentucky and crisscrossed the country as a traveling salesman, becoming a national tastemaker in the process by reporting on the many restaurants he visited. Eventually, his recommendations becam...

The Harry Caray's Restaurant Cookbook is a visit to Chicago and the restaurant that serves "the best Chicken Vesuvio in the city". More than 150 recipes include potent pasta, holy-cow steaks, and chicken fit for any person or occasion.Harry Caray's Restaurant is named for the late, renowned baseball announcer and has been designated the Official Home Plate of the Chicago Cubs. The bar is 60'6", the exact distance from the pitcher's mound to home plate, and...

A "wonderful compilation" of hundreds of classic dessert recipes from the man behind the brand name (Nathalie Dupree, Food Network host).You may know his name only as a beloved brand on the supermarket shelf, but Kentucky native Duncan Hines published his first cookbook, Adventures in Good Cooking, in 1939—at age fifty-nine—after years as a well-traveled and widely known restaurant reviewer. Featuring recipes from restaurants across the country as well as ...