Giving new meaning to the term "fast food" Rest-stop grade F meat patty? Nah. Nuggets of reconstituted poultry bits? Pass. Deep-fried fish discus? No, really, thanks all the same. It's time to bid farewell to the roadside meal as you know it. Nearly twenty years ago, Chris Maynard and Bill Scheller opened the world's eyes to the beautym of car-engine gastronomy in the original Manifold Destiny . And now that another generation of both drivers and eaters has emerged, the cult classic is due for an overhaul. In this shiny, spanking-new edition, learn how to make s'mores in your Scion, poach fish in your Pontiac, even bust out a gourmet snack from under the hood of your Escalade. With step-by-step diagrams, crowd-pleasing recipes, and thorough instructions, now you can turn your car into a kitchen without ever crossing any golden arches. Hilarious, bizarre, and ultimately (seriously!) useful, Manifold Destiny is and always will be an unparalleled original. So, slap a ham steak under the hood of your car, hit the gas, and drive until you reach delicious -- which is in approximately fifty miles, depending on traffic. "[A] witty, cleverly conceived and actually workable guide." -- Los Angeles Times "You'll be the envy of everyone at the rest stop!" -- Missoula Independent "[A] witty, informative paperback by Chris Maynard and Bill Scheller, a couple of fun-and-food-loving guys who first published in 1989 to let chefs and chauffeurs know they can cook up a right smart snack or meal using the heat of the engine while driving on a reasonably long trip." -- Chicago Tribune Chris Maynard - founder of the YOYO School of Art, lives in Warren, R.I., across the street from a clam processing factory. He is also the co-author of The Bad for You Cookbook , along with Bill Scheller. Bill Scheller is an intrepid travel writer and journalist. His byline has appeared in numerous publications, including National Geographic Traveler , Islands, National Geographic World , The Washington Post Magazine , The Christian Science Monitor , Yankee magazine, and This Old House . He is the author of 33 books, including The Bad for You Cookbook , which he wrote with Chris Maynard, and is co-editor of the online travel magazine naturaltraveler.com.. He and his wife, Kay. live in northern Vermont. Manifold Destiny The One! The Only! Guide to Cooking on Your Car Engine! By Chris Maynard Simon & Schuster Copyright © 2008 Chris Maynard All right reserved. ISBN: 9781416596233 1 In Which We Get Started, and Ask the Question "Why Bother?" How many of the literary events of 1989 do you remember? How about blockbuster culinary trends? Automotive milestones? If you can come up with only one answer in each category -- and if they're all the same answer -- you're no doubt thinking about Manifold Destiny , and you're the reason we've turned up again. Not the only reason: we're also back because we're appalled by the exorbitant prices the two earlier editions of MD command on the Internet, a realm that didn't even exist (except in Al Gore's imagination) when we first put a pork tenderloin under the hood of a Lincoln Town Car. We could, of course, dribble our own supplies of the book out onto the auction and used-and-rare-book Web sites; as retirement plans go, it beats working for a major airline. But a new generation of readers deserves the right to learn the pleasures of car-engine cooking without spending more than the price of four gallons of gas. And that very issue -- the inflationary spiral that's put unleaded regular in a price bracket with luxury items such as milk -- is yet another reason why the world still needs Manifold Destiny . What better way to get every penny of value out of the pump than to make gasoline do two things at once? And think of how much less guilty you'll feel about your automotive contribution to global warming if, to use a lousy metaphor, you're planting two feet at once in the same carbon footprint. A lot has happened in the car and food worlds since MD debuted back in '89. The hulking Town Car, which we porkily referred to above, seems positively demure by comparison to any of a flotilla of SUVs that have since lumbered down the pike. And as those behemoths have come under attack, new species of automobiles -- the equivalent of the primitive little furry mammals that dodged the dinosaurs -- have turned up on the highways. Hybrids are all the rage, and even some hybrid SUVs -- the automotive version of furry dinosaurs, to stretch the analogy -- are now galumphing across the landscape, promising wonderful gas mileage if you use them only in the city, where you don't need them in the first place. Eating, as well as driving, has changed a lot in the past twenty years. Thanks to television channels devoted to nothing but food, we now have celebrity chefs, most of whom cook things that celebrity nutritionists tell us we shouldn't eat, thus feeding America's great