It's been 4000 miles since my last post, and H. and I have crossed America. From Nashville to San Francisco, the journey was populated by beautiful people and extraordinary lives. Some of the stories I heard I am getting around to writing down, though at the moment most people's words lie hidden in my notebook.

One of the things that made our trip special was our accompanying guide book, Roadfood, by a couple called Stern. Without it we would have missed out on some of the best food made by the most interesting people. The book is filled with loving overtures to odd barbeque joints, diners, tamale shops and cafes across the country, usually in towns where we would otherwise not have bothered to stop.

One of our big, and perhaps predictable, mistakes was to underestimate the size of everything, from the size of cups to the size of towns to the size of the country. What was an inch on the kitchen table in Clapham turned out to be a day's drive, something we found out on day one and which I carried with me as a mild panic until we were within spitting distance of the Pacific two weeks later. But the journey was often broken by a meal in one of Stern's joints, and something I always looked forward to as the miles ticked flatly by.

In El Paso, western Texas, we stopped at the H and H Carwash Cafe, a large forecourt with a small shop at the back. A man sat in a tall chair, almost like a throne, outside, waiting for customers to pull up for a boot shine. Mexicans and the (American) owner of the joint busied around the Sheriff's patrol car, wiping down the glossy black and white body, and we were shown inside the cafe at the back for a late lunch. The heat was stifling.

At the formica counter we cased the joint. A young security guard sat to one side eating quesadillas, and at one of the tables, two ladies chatted over plates of stew. An old Mexican woman asked us in Spanish what we wanted, and we ordered burritos stuffed with chorizo and omelette and tender beef, stew without the liquid. We enquired about the salsa that Sterns had described in the book with such enthusiasm, and were given a pot of it, green, zesty and dangerous, along with a basket of tortillas that the cook cut and fried, sprinkling with salt and serving with a shy smile as she set it down.

"Mexicans are wonderful people," said Mr H., whose father had opened the carwash in 1958 when he was just 12. "Many people have tried to poach my cook, and have offered her more money than I can. But she refuses to leave, she doesn't care about money, she just wants to be comfortable."