Here’s a recipe from Texas for chicken-fried steak if you’re brave enough to try it. (Note that our low-carb diet friends will not be joining you.)

And, if you’re feeling very brave indeed, here’s a recipe for chicken-fried chicken that purports to be from Southern Living magazine, but clearly a yankee snuck in the reference to blue cheese dressing.

We google so you don’t have to!

Jason would know. I believe he and Margaret arrived at some sort of consensus on what can be chicken-fried.

Neil: I think you’re channeling Tom Robbins. (There’s a great Shambhala Sun interview with Tom Robbins in their July 2008 edition. )

Clearly, you’ve developed yourself something of a niche. For one, you can assemble yourself a motorcycle gang of fashion models whose careers on the Italian runways have ended (from runway to roadway), and then you can tour your gang of minute models (in the sense of minute steaks) around the country giving speeches on weight loss (sort of like Tony Robbins, but more like ‘Tony Ribbons’). And if you get hassled by the fuzz, the whole gang can turn sideways and hide behind each other.

Keep on truckin’!!

Actually, these have nothing at all to do with coolers, or space constraints, but are mandatory road food. Sure, it’ll kill you…but did you expect to live forever? Besides, travelling the nations clogged arteries with, er, unclogged arteries is patently un-American. Do you want the terrorists to win?

Another option: don’t eat. Seriously. Research suggests the only effective way to extend the human lifespan is to eat less…not just less than the average American gourmand, but really a lot less than your hunger requests. I eat once every other day. I also weigh approximately eight pounds and can play the xylophone on my ribcage. The nicest part of this diet, after space savings and musical ability, is that any food of any kind induces feelings of euphoria. Single kernel of dry rice? An ecstasy of excess! Dandelion leaves plucked from the roadside? A gourmet salad the likes of which you can scarcely recall! (nota bene: infrequent eating may reduce your ability to recall things).

Sure, you may periodically lose consciousness, but, hey, where are your priorities? Also, weight loss that allows you to see the outline of your spine through the drum-taut skin of your emaciated abdomen converts directly to fuel savings on the road, so do your part.

That’s just my tasteless two cents; as always, your mileage may vary.