Mr. Brown

If you're a fan of food (and yes, I'm a fan of food....just ask my ever expanding waistline...), chances are you've watched The Food Network. If you haven't...well, you should.

If you've watched the Food Network, then chances are you've heard of Alton Brown, an extraordinarily entertaining guy with his own show ("Good Eats"), a host of books and one of the most creative and innovative presentation styles you've even see on a cooking show. If you think of Rachel Ray or Paula Dean when you think cooking shows, you should give Alton a try...I've never seen anyone else make use of Ken dolls, football plays or sock puppets in their recipe presentations. Alton is fun because he shows us how to make better versions of the foods that a lot of us grew up on or love to eat and feel guilty about (pizza, burgers, cake, cookies...stuff like that...), and shows us ways to prepare them that are both a) new and unique, and b) oddly familiar and traditional. Essentially, he's presenting "high food snob" ways to prepare corn dogs and donuts, which, in my book, is just awesome.

(As a side note, I'd like to mention that "Good Eats" is one of my 5-year-old son's most oft requested shows to watch. It's also the reason that he's always in the kitchen, trying to add "2 cups of flour" and "1 cup of sugar" to anything and everything that is being prepared for any given meal. My son's enthusiasm for Alton's show is also why he and I prepared peanut butter waffles this weekend, and why we had chocolate waffles on Christmas morning...after all, the episode "The Waffle Truth" is one of his all-time favorite things to watch. How many 5-year-old's do you know who are obsessed with a cooking show?)

Recently, my DW located a second show of Alton's called "Feasting on Asphalt", an enormously entertaining chronicle of Alton's motorcycle trek from one end of the continental U.S. to the other, tasting non-franchised, "mom & pop" food every step of the way. Alton & his crew took the back roads of America to, quite literally, get a taste of Americana..and man, did it make me hungry. From cracklin' cornbread to the swinging steaks to old fashioned breakfast diners to speciality biscuit shops, watching Alton's trip made the entire family go and get some "road food"...instead, we wound up at Krispy Kreme, but it was a guilty pleasure he rarely allow ourselves, so it was a real treat. We're seriously considering taking a road trip later this year, to get a little slice of Americana ourselves. ;)

In any case, if you're at all a fan of food, or of "back roads Americana" literature and television in general, you should check out Alton's stuff...you'll be glad you did.

(Oh...I almost forgot to mention that Alton also hosts the new version of "Iron Chef America"...another great show that I'll have to talk about another time...)