Driving Hungry

May 25, 2015
In this uneven memoir, Mosler, an aspiring tango dancer and freelance food writer, writes about her move from San Francisco to Buenos Aires after giving up on her initial dream of restaurant ownership. Somewhat aimless in her approach, she at first studies tango with Joaquin, a smooth-talking lothario she falls in love with until one night she loses his attention to “a green-eyed girl in an emerald dress.” After a taxi driver advises her not to “get mixed up with those guys at the milonga,” she soon stumbles upon a new quest: “What if I hopped into a random cab every week and asked the taxista to take me to his favorite place to eat?” As she documents her journey in a blog, Taxi Gourmet, cabbies introduce her to delicious food at hole-in-the-wall restaurants she wouldn’t have come across otherwise. Others balk at her request. After attempting to repeat her Argentine adventure in New York City, she discovers that New York cabbies are not quite as amiable, and a reversal in approach leads her to become a cab driver herself before she later sets off to Berlin. The unusual and interesting concept is better as a blog; in book form, Mosler’s narrative tends to fall flat.

May 1, 2015
Building on the success of her blog, Taxi Gourmet, Mosler recounts the story of her transcontinental search for a vocation, which propelled the author into dancing in tango clubs in Buenos Aires, becoming a cab driver in New York City, and falling in love with the city of Berlin. Initially, the author's love of food led her to believe her destiny involved running a restaurant. But while working on the line at a San Francisco French-Asian fusion restaurant, Mosler faced the fact that her competence in the kitchen wasn't up to the requirements of her dream job. Yet as her friends began settling down and buying homes, Mosler embarked on a different track. The author departed for Buenos Aires, intent on writing about food from a different perspective while indulging her love of Latin dance, especially the tango. After a disastrous night on the dance floor, Mosler flagged down one of the thousands of taxis trolling the city and requested the driver take her to his favorite restaurant. At first, her desire sprang from a growling stomach and the embarrassing tango episode. However, following the charming gustatory experience, Mosler pondered the idea of repeating the experience: "What if I hopped into a random cab every week and asked the taxista to take me to his favorite place to eat?" Soon, the author was blogging about her taxi-culinary adventures for family and friends, and her ask-the-driver technique provided her with a unique route into the life of the city, its foodways, and its people. Mosler delightfully conveys her nervousness and other feelings she experienced during her excursions-e.g., during the first days of driving her own cab or her surprise at the success of her Kickstarter campaign funding her move to Berlin. Mosler's lively and accessible writing style joyfully captures the satisfaction gained by trusting your instincts and seeking out new places, food, and people.

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July 1, 2015
Mosler let her foodie instincts lead her to Buenos Aires, where, after a tango lesson, she asks her taxi driver where he most likes to eat with friends or family. Soon she is posting her gastronomic forays on a blog she calls Taxi Gourmet, which attracts a growing number of avid followers and paves the way for this engaging memoir chronicling several years of her unique and nomadic life. Next, she moves on to New York, where an abundance of Puerto Rican, Middle Eastern, and African restaurants provide fodder for her blog. A female cabbie convinces her to enroll in taxi school, a crazy idea that makes Mosler feel like a lunatic taking over the asylum. After several exhausting and stressful months producing little in the way of take-home pay, she feels the familiar pull to move on, this time to Berlin, where she's read that cab drivers know as much about Nietzsche as they do about sausage. Mosler's memoir is an invigorating read, a paean to taking the serendipitous road to wherever it happens to lead.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

February 15, 2015

Disconsolate one night after a disappointing spin on the dance floor of a tango club in Buenos Aires, Mosler asked her taxi driver to take her to his favorite restaurant and found herself eating the best steak she'd ever had. The result: from Buenos Aires to Berlin to New York, she asked cabbies for their restaurant recommendations, and her experiences became the basis of her popular blog, Taxi Gourmet. This fun memoir is beloved in-house, where it's seen as Eat, Pray, Love without the spirituality. Also recommended for fans of books like Bill Buford's Heat, Gabrielle Hamilton's Blood, Bones & Butter, and Julie Powell's Julie and Julia.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2015

"Food is a wonderful way to see the world. Hop online and have curry delivered or hop in a cab and ask the driver where to get a great steak." So begins this blog-to-book title, by food journalist and blogger (taxigourmet.com) Mosler, whose journey starts in Buenos Aires, where the author asks her taxi driver to take her to his favorite eatery, and jumps back and forth across time and place (including New York, where she drives a cab herself, and Berlin), in search of the perfect bite. This tome could fit easily in with Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love, but may actually have more in common with Tom Parker Bowles's The Year of Eating Dangerously because it shares the same adventurous spirit. One sour note: Mosler's peripatetic narrative will not work well for those who prefer a more linear description. VERDICT A literary dim sum, this book provides nice little bites out of the author's life.--Stacie Williams, Lexington P.L., KY

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.