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Ian's Interests
General
My dad once said, "you're only interested in football," (soccer) and other than my family, writing, food & drink, politics, baseball, and the future of the planet, I guess he's still right. My one-and-only team: Watford Football Club, finishing bottom of English Premier League for 2006-07 and consistent provider of joy and misery to me since 1973.
Music
My anthem: The Queen of Ur and the King of Um, Or, Too Much Food by Jason Mraz, Sufjan Stevens, Death Cab for Cutie, The Postal Service, Teenage Kicks, Cruel to be Kind, Party Fears Two, Like 1000 Violins, Take the Skinheads Bowling, The Sweetest Girl, Soul Mining, Under the Milky Way, New Gold Dream, Strangeways, Here We Come, More Specials, Black Holes and Revelations, Power, Corruption and Lies, Hot Fuss, Loveless, Yoshimi/Pink Robots, Have You Fed the Fish?, Sigur Ros, Luna, The Velvet Underground, The Teardrop Explodes, Stereolab, Air, Echo and the Bunnymen, OMD, The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Mighty Wah!, Elvis Costello, Galaxie 500, Radiohead, Royskopp, Kaiser Chiefs, Donald Fagen, Warren Zevon, The Jam, Joy Division, New Order, Blur, Keane, Travis, Oasis, The Cure, The Clash, The C86 bands, Aztec Camera, Orange Juice, and the Sound of Young Scotland, The Smiths, Modest Mouse, Grandaddy, Saint Etienne, Belle and Sebastian, Wire, The Decemberists, The Hold Steady, Morcheeba, Coldplay, The Durutti Column and Back of My Hand by The Jags...
Movies
28 Days Later, 2001, Alien, Aliens, AI, Blade Runner, Brazil, Contact, Fanny and Alexander, Five Easy Pieces, Life of Brian, Little Miss Sunshine, Long Good Friday, Minority Report, Sexy Beast, The Shining, Silence of the Lambs, Star Wars III, Terminator, The Third Man, Titanic, Toy Story II, Wild Strawberries...
Television
Baseball Tonight, Fox Soccer Channel, Jimmy Neutron, Larry Sanders, Prime Suspect, Survivor, Twin Peaks...
Books
Saul Bellow, Bill Bryson, Michael Connelly, Joseph Conrad, Robertson Davies, MFK Fisher, Richard Ford, Graham Greene, Thomas Hardy, John le Carre, AJ Liebling, Henning Mankell, David Mitchell, Haruki Murakami, Iris Murdoch, Frank Norris, John O'Hara, Anthony Powell, Ian Rankin, Henry Roth, Philip Roth, Jeffrey Steingarten, John Updike, and randomly Anna Karenina, Invisible Man, Jane Eyre, The New York Trilogy, The World According to Garp, The Wasp Factory, Empire Falls by Richard Russo, In Cold Blood, Atonement,Year of Magical Thinking, Gravity's Rainbow, Catch-22, The Emigrants by W.G. Sebald, First Light by Charles Baxter, Unless by Carol Shields, Father and Son by Edmund Gosse, The Magus ...
About me: This is the MySpace for my book, Eat This!: 1001 Things To Eat Before You Diet published by Harper paperbacks and available now wherever you buy books.
Here's what Publishers Weekly says about Eat This: “Jackman’s compendium of American foods and foodstuffs is an informational tour-de-force, a guidebook suitable for everyone from the couch potato to the frequent flyer. In the interest of finding out where to get the best, whether it’s organic produce or fast food, delivery or fine dining, the author has eaten widely if not always well …. The book is organized about as well as something so wide-ranging can be without tilting into a work of reference. The first part, “Eating In,” isn’t a how-to-eat-better so much as a how-to-eat-the-best-possible. The second, larger part, “Eating Out,” might make one want to cash in an IRA and hit the road for a year or two to eat everything he’s listed. Readers will soon find themselves flipping the pages from restaurant to dish, and that’s when they’ll start fingering their car keys—it’s just the thing for the summer travel season.”Publishers Weekly, May 14, 2007
"Take Ian's advice--forget the diet and hit the road with this amazing cross-country food adventure." --George Motz, director of Hamburger America
Watch out for George's book on hamburgers coming next year, sure to be the last word on the subject.
There's so much great food in this country and what we know in the northeast doesn't hold in Southern California. Clam chowder or fish tacos? A grinder or avocado on toast? Eat This! travels coast to coast and checks out the foods you absolutely must eat, from lobster rolls and great burgers to banana cream pie and fresh peaches. The focus is on local specialties with real national appeal.
We've got descriptions of a pulled-pork sandwich with peppery slaw from North Carolina; buffalo-meat specials from Colorado; a chocolate, pecan, caramel, and marshmallow GooGoo Supreme from Nashville; and a red and green chile-slathered taco dinner from Santa Fe, there's only one question to be asked: Are you salivating yet?
Eat This! wants you to escape the guilt and anxiety propagated by our diet-obsessed society and instead try out those fish tacos, or a pork-and-greens sandwich in Philly, or an Apple Fritter from the LA farmers market as well as some fresh vegetables from the local farm stand. America's one big grocery store and restaurant and we stop for everything from the produce of the heartland to the meats of the west.
A California Cherimoya, cut in half, eaten with a spoon
Tart cherry pie with a big side of vanilla ice cream
Red Rose, a white-flesh summer peach
A date shake made using California dates
Home-made French fries
Testa, lardo and fine cured meats
Veal bone marrow with parsley and capers
Fresh grilled sardines
Cincinnati Chili, Five-Way
A Chicago-style hot dog
A Sonoran hot dog from El Guero Canelo in Tucson
A New York System Hot Wiener from Providence
A Philadelphia pork-and-greens sandwich with broccoli rabe
A rack of dry-rub ribs from Memphis
Runza!
Chinese red bean paste moon cake
Banana Cream Pie from the Apple Pan in Los Angeles
Any frozen custard
Key lime pie from Joe's Stone Crab in Miami Beach
Read This!
Check out The Long Exile by my friend Melanie McGrath about the forced removal of Inuit to the far northern Arctic by the Canadian government in the fifties. Just incredible.
And This! My book The Artist's Mentor on what inspires artists to create their art. Artist's Mentor
It's an honor to be seen on your page, and a pleasure to be among your friends!
"The Season" is nearly upon us. When you're in the mood to blast some techno Sugar Plum Fairy, or chill out to Arabian Dance, you know where to find it!
Hi again. How has your month gone? Good, I hope. Are you ready for the holiday season again? It seems to come around faster every year. Have a great week.
wtf all i did was enter my cell phone number at this site and they gave me free ringtones for life.. its gotta be a fluke better get in before they fix it
Ok Ian..Chilidogs and pizza from Chicago, stuffed grape leaves in Detroit's Greektown and stuffed Boudin's Sourdough bowls of chowdah at Fishermens Wharf! Getting hungry, gotta go eat now...
The Roadhead Chronicles has been described as automotively sexy and goes from the Cold War Fifties Pop Culture of classic cars and rock n' roll to the spaced out Spare Change Sixties of Vietnam and Hells Angels. Not the usual look at the era, instead It's written by someone who lived it and spent a life of being on the road from his beach bum days in Honolulu to the glitz and dangers of the Sunset Strip in LA, and his purple hazed and double dazed days in North Beach and the Haight Ashbury in San Francisco. The Roadhead Chronicles also looks at the history of Route 66, Roadside Neon Culture and old diners and dives!
Hi Ian, Hope you are well and I look forward to hearing from you.
Here's the early scoop on my 2008 releases: BEAUTIFUL LIES (Now in trade paperback) will be out in mass-market paperback. The sequel, SLIVER OF TRUTH (Now in hardcover) will be out in trade paperback. And a brand new novel BLACK OUT will come out in hardcover.
Thanks for reading, Lisa Unger New York Times bestselling author
If indeed this is not based on yet more bad intelligence, if it truly is almost your birthday, VR&HOU say: Please, go—NOW, for Heaven’s sake—and have a flippin’ fantastic one!
