a profile in the minnpost characterized dregni's writing career as suggestive of a man on "an endless (and sometimes endlessly weird) vacation." he has written a number of guidebooks to the american midwest, the product of a series of road trips. his book "in cod we trust," came out of a fulbright fellowship that funded dregni to spend 2003 in norway with his wife and their newborn son. "never trust a thin cook," was written after a series of extended visits to italy, culminating in a year-long residence in modena in the 1990s.