Edited by Anthony Bourdain and James Wilson

Reading Responses
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Reading Responses
Reading Respons1 1: “Three Chopsticks” by Calvin Trillin in “The Best American Travel WritingTM (2008)” Edited by Anthony Bourdain and James Wilson
“The Best American Travel WritingTM 2008” volume contains a series of essays edited and with an introduction by Anthony Bourdain. Together with James Wilson, a series editor, the authors have collected a superbly assorted and sweeping collection of series exploring headlong into the darker evocative moments and refined understanding of full-time travelers. The essays portray a picture meant to provoke and absorb readers offering a moving record of what it is like being a traveler in the 21st century. One of the best essays in this collection is Trillin’s “Three chopsticks” where he portrays an insatiable appetite for street foods. For the purpose of this paper, an essay from the collection, “Three Chopsticks” by Calvin Trillin from The New Yorker will be analyzed. As a reading response, this paper analyses and provides an understanding on what the series author is communicating in their essays.
Calvin Trillin’s essay “Three Chopsticks” depicts that the many hawker stands spread throughout the streets of Singapore, provide an endless choice of food delicacies that travelers will never find in any other country on Earth (Trillin, 2008). A question while reading this piece of writing many will ask, “is street food the best ever cuisine?” Well, Trillin tends to not only idolize Singapore’s street food, but essentially all street foods above all other types of foods and speculates he his sense of taste is at optimal level when he standing up as he eats. As a habitual eater at Singapore’s food stands, the writer is even worried that he might come across bugs (Trillin, 2008). He goes ahead making a list of “must-eats”, but the list is long to exhaust. As Trillin gets home, he even finds that the New York food stands are even excessively exciting, anyway.in the concluding line of his essay, Trillin says, “You can’t go home without easting a knish. I’ll knock your socks off (Trillin, 2008, p.276).”
Trillin’s love for street food cuisine is unending. As a travel writer, he has had a chance to taste a variety of street foods at many stands, including the food stands at the streets of Singapore. In the essay, the writer comes up with a long list of his favorite dishes at food stands that he has personally had a chance to taste, but the list is unexhausted given the time he has in writing the series. However, his love for eating at food stands emanates from his psychological notion that food tastes better when one is standing. The scientific explanation to this reasoning needs research. Many people agree that food tastes same regardless one is standing or sitting.
Reading Response 2: “Speakeasy Tacos” by Michael Jaime-Becerra In “Golden State (2017)” edited by Lisa Locascio
Lisa Locascio, a novelist and critic, presents an excellent 20017 annual anthology with great contemporary fiction and non-fiction stories from California in its insane ad beautiful glory. The collection is sourced from both acclaimed writers and completely new voices from underground authors. Lisa is the editor of the anthology “Golden State 2017: The Best New Writing from California” and presents an incredibly varied viewpoints on life in “The Golden State.” One of 2017 contributors to the annual anthology is Michael Jaime-Becerra with his essay “Speakeasy Tacos.” With its beautiful geography, communities and their cultures, California calls for a literary picture of its complex landscape that combined geography and humanity. Jaime-Becerra offers a story of an immigrant family’s taco catering business where a mother takes on a catering business to ensure the survival of her children following the death of the husband (Jaime-Becerra, 2017). This paper is a reading response to Jaime-Becerra’s story seeking to understand the message the writer is attempting to communicate in regards to California.
Jaime-Becerra’s story paints a picture of a widow trying to make ends meet by taking on a taco business in the state of California with her two boys, Samuel and Eli, and a girl, Miriam. The three children, almost entering adulthood, spend the most part of their weekends cleaning, chopping, and packaging the family business supplies. However, they harbor a secret idea that her mother’s way of running the business either demands them to stop their cooperation to run their salon business, leave the house, or better still, secure a high-school teaching position in Louisiana (Jaime-Becerra, 2017). The author tells the story in second person, jumping from each of the children’s ideas who want to break out to become independent. While they are tired with the whole situation, they are still together and that is something worth a celebration.
The essay “Speakeasy” by Jaime-Becerra is incomparable to other essays that often become less successful in portraying the image of L.A. most unsuccessful essays attempt to be too clean and balanced, th...