Mini-Mart a la Carte: Tasty Recipes for the Convenience Store Connoisseur

A gleefully disgusting knife to the throat of the Sandra Lee school of convenience cooking, Mini-mart a la Carte is a gem of culinary satire, something which is honestly rather lacking in the food world. Where Sandra and her ilk try to pawn off corporate whoring and weird food combinations as real food, the authors Rouser and Traig (the latter of Judaikitsch and Retox fame) put together a list of recipes ranging from the moderately edible (Fish Sticks Amandine) to the in-questionable-taste (Spam Wellington, The Dirtbag) to the outright revolting (Thousand Island Iced Tea). Along the way they throw in some top-notch food photography (of highly questionable food) and a decent quantity of trivia about the history of the convenience store. As parody cookbooks go, this might be one of the best of all time. To the sort of foodie who regards the conflation of convenience and prefab as a cancer, this book is excellent therapy; to the sort of person who bemoans the reliance poor people have on overpriced convenience stores due to a lack of options, this book is a satirical call to action. The authors' imaginations are as twisted as they are creative, and the attention to detail is all the more attractive when you realize that someone actually had to cook and eat most of these recipes. In an era where the Internet has warped many peoples' senses of humor beyond recognition, this book is the culinary equivalent of a dead baby joke, and an excellent buy for anyone who's tired of people shoveling off crappy food on the public.

This book is disgustingly delicious. It is worth the price of the book just for the thought of mixing strawberry soda with malt liquer. This book is just plain funny. A great gift for people you like or dont like. If you have ever stopped at a convience store for any reason, this book is a must read.

OK, say you're getting old and have been doing the low fat, fresh veggie diet for years. The days you made Fluffy Wuffy in your college dorm fade from memory. A supper of 'Fish Sticks Almondine' from this madly creative cookbook brings the days of your youth crashing back. Typical guest comment: "God, I forgot how much I love these things." And after the initial shock, they laugh hysterically and say pretty much the same thing about the updated vienna sausages in 'Poop on a Pringle.' The truly transcendent presentation is the spam and cheese 'Trojan Horse.' Serve it on your best silver tray and have a camera ready to catch your guest's expressions. Alone,they're well worth the price of the book!