STERN, Jane 1946-

PERSONAL:

Born October 24, 1946, in New York, NY; daughter of Milton S. (a salesman) and Norma J. (a nurse; maiden name, Wexler) Grossman; married Michael Stern (a writer), October 25, 1970. Education: Pratt Institute, B.F.A., 1968; Yale University, M.F.A., 1971. Religion: Jewish.

ADDRESSES:

Home and office—West Redding, CT. Agent—Robert Cornfield Literary Agency, 145 West 79th St., New York, NY 10024.

CAREER:

Writer, photographer, and screenwriter.

MEMBER:

Screenwriters Guild.

AWARDS, HONORS:

"Roadfood" column, Gourmet magazine, has won three James Beard awards; James Beard Award for Lifetime Achievement; the Web site www.roadfood.com was selected 2001 site of the year by Yahoo.

WRITINGS:

WITH HUSBAND, MICHAEL STERN, EXCEPT AS INDICATED

Trucker: A Portrait of the Last American Cowboy, McGraw (New York, NY), 1975.

Roadfood, 1976 (see also below), updated and expanded, HarperPerennial (New York, NY), 1992.

Auto Ads, 1977, Random House (New York, NY), updated, 1978.

Friendly Relations, Random House (New York, NY), 1978.

Amazing America, Random House (New York, NY), 1978.

Horror Holiday: Secrets of Vacation Survival, Dutton (New York, NY), 1980.

Goodfood (see also below), Knopf (New York, NY), 1983.

Square Meals: A Cookbook, Knopf (New York, NY), 1984, Lebhar-Friedman Books, 2001.

Where to Eat in Connecticut, Globe Pequot (Chester, CT), 1985.

(Also illustrator) Real American Food: From Yankee Red Flannel Hash and the Ultimate Navajo Taco to Beautiful Swimmer Crab Cakes and General Store Fudge Pie, Knopf, Random House (New York, NY), 1986.

Roadfood and Goodfood: Jane and Michael Stern's Coast-to-Coast Restaurant Guides, combined, updated, and expanded, Knopf (New York, NY), 1986.

Elvis World, Knopf (New York, NY), 1987.

A Taste of America, Andrews and McMeel (Kansas City, MO), 1988.

The Encyclopedia of Bad Taste, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 1990.

Sixties People, Knopf (New York, NY), 1990.

American Gourmet: Classic Recipes, Deluxe Delights, Flamboyant Favorites, and Swank "Company" Food from the '50s and '60s, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 1991.

Jane & Michael Stern's Encyclopedia of Pop Culture: An A to Z Guide of Who's Who and What's What, from Aerobics and Bubble Gum to Valley of the Dolls and Moon Unit Zappa, HarperPerennial (New York, NY), 1992.

Way out West, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 1993.

Dog Eat Dog: A Very Human Book about Dogs and Dog Shows, Scribner (New York, NY), 1997.

Eat Your Way across the U.S.A.: 500 Diners, Lobster Shacks, Farmland Buffets, Pie Palaces, and Other All-American Eateries, Broadway Books (New York, NY), 1997.

Two Puppies, Scribner (New York, NY), 1998.

Chili Nation: The Ultimate Chili Cookbook with Recipes from Every State in the Nation, Broadway Books (New York, NY), 1998.

Louis and Billie van Dyke's Blue Willow Inn Cookbook, Rutledge Hill Press (Nashville, TN), 2002.

The Louie's Backyard Cookbook, Rutledge Hill Press (Nashville, TN), 2002.

The Durgin-Park Cookbook: Classic Yankee Cooking in the Shadow of Faneuil Hall, Rutledge Hill Press (Nashville, TN), 2002.

(Jane Stern only) Ambulance Girl: How I Saved Myself by Becoming an EMT (memoir), Crown Publishers (New York, NY), 2003.

The Harry Caray's Restaurant Cookbook, Rutledge Hill Press (Nashville, TN), 2003.

Carbone's Cookbook, Rutledge Hill Press (Nashville, TN), 2003.

Southern California Cooking from the Cottage, Rutledge Hill Press (Nashville, TN), 2004.

The Lowcountry Cookbook from the Old Post Office Restaurant, Rutledge Hill Press (Nashville, TN), 2004.

John and Michelle Morgan's Famous Dutch Kitchen Cookbook: Family-Style Diner Delights from the Heart of Pennsylvania, Rutledge Hill Press (Nashville, TN), 2004.

Also author of screenplays and television scripts, including "Apache Bill," 1974, "The Dirty Side," broadcast by WNBC-TV, January 17, 1976, "Dream Street," broadcast by WNBC-TV, 1976, and "Blondes Have More Fun," 1981. Contributor to Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, Happy Trails: Our Life Story, Simon & Schuster, 1994. Contributor to magazines, including Esquire, Good Housekeeping, Redbook, Penthouse, New York Magazine, and Yankee.

Writer of "Roadfood" column for Gourmet magazine; "Roadfood" segments appear regularly on the Television Food Network; regular contributor to "The Splendid Table" segment on National Public Radio.

ADAPTATIONS:

United Artists bought rights to Friendly Relations, and Horror Holiday: Secrets of Vacation Survival has been optioned by Paramount.

SIDELIGHTS:

In a career that has spanned more than a quarter century, Jane Stern and her husband, Michael, have coauthored books about such aspects of popular culture as cuisine, canines, collectibles, and Western style. Among their most popular works have been the several-times updated Roadfood and Goodfood guidebooks, as well as their monthly Gourmet magazine column and television segments for the Television Food Network, both of which are also titled "Roadfood." The Sterns have also contributed regularly to "The Splendid Table" segment on National Public Radio. "The Sterns are known for the dual nature of their interests," noted Ray B. Browne in the Journal of American Culture. "They love their subjects yet manage to keep at arm's length and to give intelligent, loving, amusing—even ironic—treatments and comments."

Jane and Michael met at Yale University, were married in 1970, and then spent the next thirteen years on the road, eating, testing, and writing books about food. They soon honed a method for their work. Michael does the driving, while Jane navigates, and serendipity often plays a role. About the actual book researching and writing, Michael told a People magazine interviewer: "We disagree only on whether one restaurant is better than another. We take notes while we eat. Jane makes a first draft of the ones she loves and I write about the ones I love. If neither one of us is passionate about a place, we won't include it." With such titles as Roadfood, Goodfood, American Food, and Square Meals, the duo have showcased non-four-star restaurants. "Our goal is to point the way to meals that uniquely express the soul of their region, where you can sit down with real people and enjoy real food in a place where strangers are welcome among the regulars," Jane explained at the Washington Post Web site.

With so many miles behind them, it is not surprising that the Sterns would have collected a few souvenirs; in fact, for this reason, People 's Kristin McMurran dubbed them "pack rats of pop culture." They have made good use of these odd American artifacts to write and illustrate several books on popular culture, including Jane & Michael Stern's Encyclopedia of Pop Culture: An A to Z Guide of Who's Who and What's What, from Aerobics and Bubble Gum to Valley of the Dolls and Moon Unit Zappa and The Encyclopedia of Bad Taste. In the former title, dubbed an "enjoyable, enlightening, entertaining romp" by B. Lee Cooper in the Journal of Popular Culture, the Sterns describe over 200 post-World War II people, things, and phenomena. The subjects include sports heroes, television personalities, public follies, and group manias. The Encyclopedia of Bad Taste, which McMurran called an "irreverent catalog," covers complementary ground, focusing on objects rather than people. Choice 's R. S. Bravard complained about what he considered to be "unfocused writing" and the lack of a definition for bad taste. In People, the Sterns defined good taste as "conservative, traditional, minimal, sober," and they defined bad taste as "exuberant, excessive, impudent, sentimental. It overreaches." The Encyclopedia of Bad Taste "is really a celebration of outrageousness; a love poem to spirited audacity," they explained.

The owners of two bullmastiffs, the Sterns qualify as dog lovers, and they have written about dogs as well. Two Puppies describes the antics of a Labrador retriever destined to become a guide dog and the couple's own bullmastiff puppy, while Dog Eat Dog: A Very Human Book about Dogs and Dog Shows "offers entertaining insight into that unique world" of professional dog breeding and dog shows, wrote Edell Marie Schaefer in Library Journal. Booklist's Jennifer Henderson predicted that "dog lovers will delight" in Dog Eat Dog.

Jane Stern once told CA: "I was an artist before a writer and took to the road for three years, traveling with the truckers, to research my [first] book. I have lost track of the miles we have traveled together, but I love the collaborative process and the intimacy that grows out of working creatively with someone else." Yet even such an adventurous and creative life might prove eventually to be too much of a good thing. After writing thirty books with her husband, writing a monthly column in Gourmet magazine year after year, making television appearances, and maintaining a Web site, Stern realized it was too much. As she told News-day reporter Adam Sachs, "My life had boiled down to having no interests besides my work and Michael." In 1999 she found herself in a depression and suffering from phobias that prevented her from leaving her home.

In what she later would consider an inspired decision, Stern trained to become an emergency medical technician (EMT) because she found that helping others helped her overcome her own fears. She thought, "I have to do the scariest thing I can think of. If I can do it, then I will be OK," she told U.S. News and World Report 's Linda Kulman. As part of the volunteer fire department in Georgetown, Connecticut, she went through a bootcamp-like physical training as well as medical training, earning the epithet "Ambulance Girl." For Stern, becoming part of a larger community was an important step in her recovery, because she had been a lonely only child and after marriage worked so closely with her husband. "All of a sudden at the firehouse, I was part of this family—incredibly dysfunctional, but in a wonderful way. It was like learning to be a human being," she recalled to Sachs. Many EMTs keep log entries of their calls, and as Stern did this she penned what became the memoir Ambulance Girl: How I Saved Myself by Becoming an EMT, which a Publishers Weekly critic called a "quirky mix of humor, self-doubt and courage." Among the work's enthusiasts were Booklist's David Pitt, who dubbed it a "remarkable variation on a time-honored theme," and a Kirkus Reviews contributor, who described it as "funny yet moving." On the other hand, in the New York Times Book Review, critic Ann Hodgman found the tale to be self-serving. "It shouldn't really matter what the motives are, as long as the help is there. Even so, Stern's limitless tolerance toward her own numerous foibles becomes irritating." Despite any perceived faults, Library Journal 's Dale Farris predicted that "readers will be captivated by the author's lively writing."

At the turn of the millennium, the Sterns began writing a series of cookbooks. Each title features the food of a particular regional restaurant whose food they had found particularly noteworthy in their previous travels. Among the titles in this series are Louis and Billie van Dyke's Blue Willow Inn Cookbook and The Lowcountry Cookbook from the Old Post Office Restaurant.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Stern, Jane, Ambulance Girl: How I Saved Myself by Becoming an EMT, Crown Publishers (New York, NY), 2003.

PERIODICALS

Book, July-August, 2003, Kelli Daley, review of Ambulance Girl: How I Saved Myself by Becoming an EMT, pp. 82-83.

Booklist, November 15, 1994, Ilene Cooper, review of Happy Trails: Our Life Story, p. 568; February 1, 1997, Jennifer Henderson, review of Dog Eat Dog: A Very Human Book about Dogs and Dog Shows, p. 916; November 15, 1998, Kathleen Hughes, review of Two Puppies, p. 554; January 1, 1999, Mark Knoblauch, review of Chili Nation: The Ultimate Chili Cookbook with Recipes from Every State in the Nation, p. 814; April 15, 2003, David Pitt, review of Ambulance Girl, p. 1437.

Choice, March, 1991, R. S. Bravard, review of The Encyclopedia of Bad Taste.

Economist (U.S.), January 4, 1997, review of Dog Eat Dog, p. 82.

Entertainment Weekly, January 24, 1992, Sada Fretz, review of American Gourmet: Classic Recipes, Deluxe Delights, Flamboyant Favorites, and Swank "Company" Food from the '50s and '60s, p. 53; November 27, 1992, Tim Appelo, review of Jane and Michael Stern's Encyclopedia of Pop Culture: An A to Z Guide of Who's Who and What's What, from Aerobics and Bubble Gum to Valley of the Dolls and Moon Unit Zappa, p. 72; February 4, 1994, Rebecca Ascher-Walsh, review of Way Out West, p. 50; November 25, 1994, D. A. Ball, review of Happy Trails, p. 70.

Hartford Courant (Bergen, NJ), July 6, 2003, Carole Goldberg, "Rescue Missions Help Her to Save Herself," review of Ambulance Girl, p. E3.

Journal of American Culture, Ray B. Browne, review of Way Out West.

Journal of Popular Culture, B. Lee Cooper, fall, 1999, review of Encyclopedia of Pop Culture.

Kirkus Reviews, April 15, 2003, review of Ambulance Girl, p. 597.

Library Journal, March 15, 1978, Ruth E. Almeida, review of Roadfood, p. 1062; May 1, 1978, Ruth E. Almeida, review of Amazing America, p. 972; September 1, 1978, Elin B. Christianson, review of Auto Ads, p. 1653; March 15, 1981, Annie Davis, review of Horror Holiday, p. 661; May 15, 1983, Melinda Stivers Leach, review of Goodfood, p. 1002; October 1, 1987, Paul G. Feehan and Janet Fletcher, review of Elvis World, pp. 95-96; November 1, 1990, D. Nudo, review of Encyclopedia of Bad Taste, p. 86; August 1, 1991, J. C. Sutton, review of American Gourmet, p. 136; October 15, 1992, Sherle Abramson, review of Encyclopedia of Pop Culture, p. 64; November 15, 1993, Wilda Williams, review of Way Out West, pp. 90-91; September 15, 1986, Ruth Diebold, review of Real American Food, pp. 86-87; January, 1997, Edell Marie Schaefer, review of Dog Eat Dog, p. 132; May 1, 1997, Sandra Knowles, review of Eat Your Way across the U.S.A., p. 129; November 1, 1998, Alicia Graybill, review of Two Puppies, p. 118; December, 1998, Thom Gillespie, review of Chili Nation, p. 148; May 1, 2003, Dale Farris, review of Ambulance Girl, p. 140.

Newsday, July 6, 2003, Adam Sachs, "Talking with Jane Stern," p. D29.

New York, December, 1998, Paul Lukas, review of Eat Your Way across the U.S.A., pp. 193-194.

New York Times Book Review, June 22, 2003, Ann Hodgman, "Siren Song," review of Ambulance Girl, p. 15.

People, July 18, 1983, "Good Food," interview with Jane and Michael Stern, pp. 64-67; June 17, 1985, Kristin McMurran, review of Square Meals, p. 19; January 19, 1987, Suzanne Hamlin, review of Real American Food, p. 20; December 3, 1990, Kristin McMurran, "Jane and Michael Stern Flaunt Their Encyclopedic Bad Taste," pp. 123-124; December 2, 1991, Eric Levin, review of American Gourmet, pp. 54-55; November 22, 1993, Kristin McMurran, review of Way Out West, pp. 31-32; July 28, 1997, Paula Chin, review of Eat Your Way across the U.S.A., p. 31; January 25, 1999, review of Two Puppies, p. 47; October 13, 2000.

Publishers Weekly, January 5, 1990, Genevieve Stuttaford, review of Sixties People, p. 56; September 27, 1991, review of American Gourmet, p. 60; March 30, 1992, review of Roadfood, p. 102; September 21, 1992, review of Encyclopedia of Pop Culture, p. 89; October 3, 1994, review of Happy Trails, pp. 61-62; November 9, 1998, review of Two Puppies, p. 63; April 21, 2003, review of Ambulance Girl, p. 47; January 19, 2004, review of John and Michelle Morgan's Famous Dutch Kitchen Restaurant Cookbook, p. 69.

School Library Journal, March, 1993, review of Encyclopedia of Pop Culture, p. 243.

Time, November 24, 1986, Mimi Sheraton, review of Real American Food, p. 92.

U.S. News and World Report, August 11, 2003, Linda Kulman, "Musings on Life and Limbs," p. 52.

ONLINE

Roadfood Web site,http://www.roadfood.com/ (June 26, 2004), "Founding Members of the Roadfood Team."

Washington Post Web site,http://discuss.washingtonpost.com/ (June 26, 2004), article by Jane and Michael Stern.*