El Dorado Freddy's may be the first book of fast food poetry. In “Olive Garden,” “Culver's,” “Popeye's Louisiana Kitchen,” “Cracker Barrel,” “Applebee's (after James Wright)" and other poems, Caine “reviews” chain restaurants, taking on topics such as parenting, the Midwest, politics, and chicken fingers along the way. Caine's funny, deceptively accomplished poems are paired with Tara Wray's color-drenched photos. The result is a literary yet goofy book about American food and identity, set in a Midwestern landscape where people eat at chain restaurants, even when they know better.
