Instructions: I have seen this done on tv but have never tried it ... have any of you used this method to cook something?? If so ... was it successful??

A little road skill can feed the driver
Holly Ocasio Rizzo, Chronicle Staff Writer

In California, its illegal to watch television and drive at the same time. But it isnt illegal to cook. In fact, about a decade ago, Campbells Soup Co. predicted wed all be driving with microwave ovens by the turn of the century.

The century turned, and automobile microwaves didnt. Too bad, since PG&E lets the blackouts roll right about supper time, when it says computers are still on at work while appliances are kicking in at home.

Dont let a blackout foil you. And dont buy stock in propane or charcoal. Supper can be ready when you pull into the driveway. Just reach under the hood, and din-din is served.

All you need to fix a drive-around meal are a destination and a car or pickup truck with an engine that has space enough next to the manifold - the hot part - to hold the food you want to cook. Youll also need some practice, because each engine cooks differently.

Ive cooked for years on my Nissan Z24. Its a four-cylinder model installed in a 1986 pickup truck. It has given me ham steak and sweet potatoes in the Arizona wilderness, peppery shrimp at the beach in Southern California.

Why cook on an engine? Because.

Because it saves time.

Because as long as youre paying more than $2 a gallon for gas, you might as well harness that engine heat.

Because nobody believes its possible.

But it is indeed possible, in fact probable, if you start with prepared foods.

I started with a breakfast sandwich from the supermarkets frozen-food section, carefully double-wrapping it in foil the way I imagined Wayne Gretzky tucking away a hockey puck after a game. As the truck zig-zagged down a curvy mountain road, I imagined what it would be like to unwrap my special morsel at my desk and tell my desk mate, "I cooked this on the way to work."

When I got to the parking lot and opened the hood, there was no morsel. It apparently had escaped, perhaps jarred loose by a pothole.

The next time, I wrapped up two breakfast sandwiches. I snuggled each one against the manifold under some little black hoses that seemed to hold them in place.

I drove. I drove until, about halfway to the office, traffic stopped for a wreck to clear. Soon, the air vents pulled in the faint aroma of burned English muffin.

Those trials taught me two fine points of engine cooking: Fasten down the food, and shorten your cooking mileage if you get stuck in traffic.

Soon my luck changed. I treated my desk mate to shrimp with hot pepper sauce, a 35-mile recipe from one of the few engine-cuisine cookbooks, "Manifold Destiny," now in a revised edition (Random House, 1998).

A cookbook turns up a cooks inventiveness. Not that Im a big cook, but I was valedictorian of my class at McDonalds Hamburger High.

On a springtime trip to Albuquerque, I hankered for ham. It had been an all- day drive, wobbling over back roads from Peach Springs, Ariz., to the Grand Canyon. Was I sure hungry!

In Williams, Ariz., I pulled over for some ham, sweet potatoes and foil. With the food wrapped in small packages, I wandered to a campsite near Cottonwood.

Boy, did the engine smell good when I got there. A dog at another campsite howled as the truck passed. I pulled into my site, and - horrors! - there were other campers next door.

Would it gross out my neighbors if I took the oven mitt and tongs from the toolbox and plucked out the little foil packages under the hood? I waited for them to leave. I waited and waited.

Unable to wait longer, I lifted the hood and took out the bundles, unwrapping that delicious-smelling ham and sweet potatoes onto a metal camp plate. It was almost sundown. A fox trotted down the non-neighbor side of the campsite. It was followed by a neighbor, who never even noticed I was dining on hot food without benefit of campfire or stove.

Which just goes to show you people wont bat an eye, so dont be shy. As Yogi Berra said, "If you come to a fork in the road, take it."

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