Many long years ago, Roadside Magazine ran an a photo essay cleverly entitled “Boy Meets Grill,” celebrating the guy at our local diner or coffee shop who flips pancakes, turns out meltingly crisp home fries, and knows how to do when it comes to eggs “sunny side up” and “over easy.” But what about the ladies who make our visits so comforting and memorable? A marvelous book has just been published, Counter Culture: The American Coffee Shop Waitress, by Candacy Taylor. It is marvelous because it is a book of integrity and insight. You should buy it immediately (order it through your local bookshop—the publisher is Cornell University Press—or grab it via amazon.com), definitely for holiday gifts, and/or alert Santa.

A quick thumb-through reveals a bounty of terrific photographs, portraits of the waitresses at work, at a counter or beside a booth, with favorite customers; enticing shots of pie being served and coffee being poured, etc. There is something candid and compassionate, but not patronizing, about these images—Taylor has a knack for respectfully capturing the real. Those of us who try to take good photos in such places would do well to study her success here.

However, though handsomely produced, this is not a coffee-table book, not really. Read it! A former waitress herself, Taylor undertook this project to interview and understand the older American waitress after a long night: “On that Friday night I thought to myself, if we are this tired, how do waitresses twice our age (I was in my early 30s at the time) do this, and how do they feel about their jobs? Do they have dreams they have never realized? Are they worn out from the physical and mental demands of the job?...The questions kept coming.” With camera, tape recorder, laptop, and an open mind (there are so many clichés!), Taylor set out to learn about career waitresses, or “lifers,” as they sometimes wryly, or proudly, call themselves.

By Peter Genovese

Rutgers University Press, Rutgers, 2003
$14.95, 225 pages, hardcover

Genovese does it again. By combining his true reporter nature with a vast knowledge of New Jersey culture, he takes us on a delightful summer-long journey down the 127-mile stretch of the New Jersey Shore. From Sandy Hook to Cape May, he showcases the shore’s premium sun-worshiping events as well as its most remarkable inhabitants.

The Jersey Shore Uncovered has a wide range of appeal. While vacationers can enjoy the discovery of the shore’s “mustn’t miss” events, locals can read up on the author’s take on their lifestyle. But don’t be quick to judge, because this book also covers uncharted territory, things that even the most informed locals have yet to discover.

Genovese gives his readers the fascinating inside scoop on topics like Big Mike’s E-Z Bail Bonds, the history behind the Kohr’s custard stand, and the Little Miss Chaos competition. Big Mike turns out to be 47-year-old former Navy Seal/stuntman/bounty hunter/bodyguard, retired from his “backbreaking/door-kicking days” in order to conquer the business of bail bonds in Atlantic City. The Kohr’s story begins when Elton D. Kohr and his five brothers opened their first ice cream stand on Coney Island in 1919. They “sold 18,460 cones at a nickel apiece” during their opening weekend…and the rest was history. As for Little Miss Chaos, let’s just say there’s cowbell throwing involved.

Along with such quirky topics, Genovese fills this book with charming images that show how everyday life down at the shore is like no other place. He covers the scene with pictures and stories about clowns, babes in bikinis, and little girls in hula skirts. He also reveals the “best-of-the-best” in boardwalk food, miniature golf, giant elephants, salt-water taffy, the shore’s greatest competitions, boardwalk rides, and much, much more.

Divided into sections, beginning with the official “Unlocking the Ocean” ceremony, this book proceeds by covering, at random, all other noteworthy topics dealing with Jersey Shore ideology. Genovese ties up his funky topics with a list of acknowledgments: “To all those who opened their doors or made room on the sand for me during the summer of 2002”—for, without them, this book wouldn’t have been possible.

So, at Genovese’s request, “get settled in your beach chair, put on some suntan lotion and enjoy.”

Buy this book at Amazon.

by Sarah Rolph

Tilbury House Publishers, Gardiner, Maine
Soft cover, 120 pages, $20.00

In A1 Diner, Sarah Rolph compiles the best recipes from one of the best diners in the Northeast, the A1 Diner in Gardiner, Maine. But that’s not all: She wraps them in heart-warming anecdotes and profiles of customers and owners past and present, and lovingly illustrates them with the fine photography of Jeff Giberson. a

Yet, as a serious diner aficionado, I read these books wondering if they have an appeal to anyone with just a passing interest in the subject, or who never expect to visit Gardiner. Luckily for Rolph and for her readers, the A1 has plenty of lore to enchant even those unfamiliar with the diner or this old Maine mill town.. Take, for instance, original owner Eddie Heald’s decision to perch the A1 on 20-foot steel girders to bring the entrance level with the bridge crossing the Cobbossee Stream Or the more recent opening of the A1 Market To Go, an Italian-inspired ali-mentari where customers can buy wines, cheeses, and other imported foods to take home. To a diner purist this extension may seem incongruous, but only to someone unfamiliar with the diner’s philosophy that raises the standard of comfort food to a new level as well.

Those lucky enough to live nearby can easily sample the extraordinary fare created by Michael Giberson and Neil Anderson, owners since 1987. These meals might include shrimp scampi, Mexican chicken pie, or maybe salmon loaf with egg sauce. Or simply eggs and bacon. Regardless, customers get a meal prepared with a level of care and creativity every diner should emulate.

Rolph approaches the history of the A1 with unusual honesty, documenting in chapter 5, for ex-ample, how Anderson and Giberson’s homosexuality hindered their early acceptance in the community, even as a possible reason for the bank to deny them a mortgage. Today, the food speaks for itself, but a current fan who’s prejudices once kept him away sums it up well: “They put out a good product and they have good service and the rest doesn’t matter.”

True, the A1 Diner is a splendidly preserved example of the Worcester Lunch Car Company at its peak, but without the owners, staff and patrons who have brought it to life, it’s just another building, and buildings don’t necessarily tell the best stories. Rolph has captured everything that a great diner--and especially the A1--is truly all about: history, food, and its role as the heart and soul of a community.

Buy this book at Amazon.