The cartoonist Lisa Hanawalt is preparing to release her new book, Hot Dog Taste Test. Hanawalt’s insouciant, irreverent drawings and stories regularly grace the pages of Lucky Peach, and a number of the book’s longer pieces appeared there first, including her illustrated tour of the New York City street-food sceneand the James Beard Award–winning “On the Trail with Wylie,” in which she shadows chef Wylie Dufresne for a day: One dish he prepares contains “the most delicate sea scallops basking in almond oil and a single ravioli made from carrot. I eat the ravioli too fast to see what’s inside, but based on the flavor I would describe it as ‘sex cheese.’ ”

The restaurant critic Jonathan Goldhas called Hanawalt “the Matisse of the buffet line, the O’Keeffe of the fish ball and the Vermeer of the pigeon with a hot dog in its beak.” We’re pleased to present excerpts from Hot Dog Taste Test, and we can, from firsthand experience, vouch for her advice about Merlot. —Nicole Rudick 

Catch Lisa Hanawalt on tour for Hot Dog Taste Test.