Alton Brown, host of Food Network's Good Eats, is not your typical TV cook. Equal parts Jacques Pépin and Mr. Science, with a dash of MacGyver, Brown goes to great lengths to get the most out of his ingredients and tools to discover the right cooking method for the dish at hand. With his debut cookbook, I'm Just Here for the Food, Brown explores the foundation of cooking: heat. From searing and roasting to braising, frying, and boiling, he covers the spectrum of cooking techniques, stopping along the way to explain the science behind it all, often adding a pun and recipe or two (usually combined, as with Miller Thyme Trout).

I'm Just Here for the Food is chock-full of information, but Brown teaches the science of cooking with a soft touch, adding humor even to the book's illustrations--his channeling of the conveyer belt episode of I Love Lucy to explain heat convection is a hoot. The techniques are thoroughly explained, and Brown also frequently adds how to augment the cooking to get optimal results, including a tip on modifying a grill with a hair dryer for more heat combustion. But what about the food? Brown sticks largely to the traditional, from roast turkey to braised chicken piccata, though he does throw a curveball or two, such as Bar-B-Fu (marinated, barbecued tofu). And you'll quickly be a convert of his French method of scrambling eggs via a specially rigged double boiler--the resulting dish is soft, succulent, and lovely. But more than just a recipe book, I'm Just Here for the Food is a fascinating, delightful tour de force about the love of food and the joy of discovery. --Agen Schmitz


From Publishers Weekly
Known as the successful host of Good Eats currently airing on the Food Network Channel, Alton Brown brings an MTV style to food and cooking. He applies his winning formula of pop culture combined with history, science and common sense to his first cookbook. He offers his formula of food preparation ("food + heat = cooking"), explaining each process and food element in quirky sound bites. Starting with searing and taking in grilling, water and eggs among other elements, he uses diagrams, captions, sidebars and footnotes. Each module has a master recipe that applies the tactic explained to a dish and is followed by several others to emphasize the lesson. He carefully integrates his recipe to produce a comprehensive repertoire, whether it's Skirt Steak: The Master Recipe, Chicken Piccata or Lamb "Pot Roast." Despite its unconventional style, this is a solid volume presented in a lively, fun manner guaranteed to put cooking in the reach of just about anyone: Alton Brown + Cook = Success. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


Book Description
As host of Food Network's Good Eats, Alton Brown entertains and informs viewers with a lively mix of wit blended with wisdom, history with pop culture, and science with the kind of common cooking sense that our grandmothers took for granted. In this, his first cookbook, Brown presents readers with an instruction manual for the kitchen, combining 60 wide-ranging recipes with a wealth of culinary information that allows anyone--at any level of expertise--to understand the whys and wherefores of cooking.


About the Author
Alton Brown began his television career as a cameraman and eventually became a director of commercials and corporate films. When he wasn't shooting, he was cooking and watching cooking programs, which he constantly criticized as dull and uninformative. Tired of the griping, Brown's wife (and now producer) DeAnna suggested that they do something about it. They moved to Vermont so that Brown could attend the New England Culinary Institute. During the years of study that followed, Brown concocted a new kind of food show, one which he would write, direct, and star in. It came to life as Good Eats, now one of the top-rated shows on Scripps-Howard's Food Network. This is Brown's first book.

FROM OUR EDITORS

Food Network favorite Alton Brown began his career as a cameraman and learned quickly that most of the food shows served up on television are boring, boring, boring. His own half-hour show is as splashy as his sport shirts, blending common sense, cooking wisdom, with sprinkles of spicy irreverence. Whether Alton is ranting about chef-induced cooking anxiety or discoursing about the "before and after" of flavoring, he is an education in himself. I'm Just Here for the Food, his first cookbook, is composed in the same jaunty spirit. The recipes are ravishing and the descriptions of cooking techniques are guaranteed to increase your repertoire.

ANNOTATION

Winner of the 2003 James Beard Foundation Cookbook Award: Reference

FROM THE PUBLISHER

With I'm Just Here For the Food, Alton Brown has created the cookbook that his fans have been waiting for -- an instruction manual for the kitchen that combines more than 80 recipes with wit, wisdom, and common cooking sense.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly