This was me, to a T, except I hated cooking. A gourmet meal was spaghetti with sauce from a jar, and super gourmet included frozen meatballs added to the sauce.
Today, people seem to love my cooking, but they’re always disappointed when I can’t provide a recipe, because, well, I just improvise. This has the unfortunate effect that I never really make the same dish twice, in that I have no consistent method of measuring. Except baking, of course, which is chemistry and requires exacting standards.
The number of cooking science books that I have now takes up quite a bit of shelf space, including, yes, the famously expensive Modernist Cuisine. A.B. is my culinary hero.
(Funny thing: he’s often quoted as having said his least favor episode is “Scrap Iron Chef” from season 5, but this is the first episode I ever saw, having randomly landed on the otherwise stupid Food Network while channel surfing. It hooked me instantly.)
I think ‘old skinny Alton’ is scary looking. Like the ‘Breaking Bad’ guy. I have heard IRL from gossip from somebody who worked on the show that he isn’t Mr. Nice and doesn’t have much sense of humor/isn’t exactly laid back. Religious, maybe.
I’ll watch his new show, for sure. Mr. Salinqmind is enamored of Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, but he used to watch the original GE with me in the past, I think he might watch the new episodes.
As an example, his chocolate chip cookie episode showed how changing the ratio of certain ingredients would give you different results. He essentially gave three different recipes for three differently textured cookies.
steak tartare, latkes, chicken parm, ancient grains, Oyster Poor Boy, Immersion Circulator cooking (sous vide), Shakshuka, Sauces part 2, Sourdough, Icebox cakes, Dates, low ABV cocktails for the holidays, and a one hour turkey special.
Not a bad line-up. I’ll skip the bolded episodes since they are: a) stupid, b) dealing with an ingredient I hate and c) involve a kitchen toy I have zero interest in. But the rest look interesting to fascinating. I really want to see AB’s spin on chicken parm and shakshuka.
That was true about any number of the original shows. The brewing show was just flat-out wrong. But these aren’t designed for people who already know how to cook so much as the next generation that is still learning.
Yep, partially. Some of the things Alton does changes my mind about how I cook certain things. So it’s for people who are learning to cook, but also some shows involve taking sides in an argument about how to cook something for those that do.
Also interesting to see the science behind cooking techniques.
There are also plenty of little things you can learn even if you know the big stuff. Like, crushed vinegar potato chips in chicken breading? I had’t heard of that before. It’s worth checking out.
The old ones are on “The Cooking Channel” (in very heavy rotation), the new ones are on “Food Network”. So as long as your DVR lets you select what channel as long as what show, it should be straightforward to only get the 2019 episodes recorded.
He is allowed to bring back the Lady of the Refrigerator, and possibly that nutritional anthropologist lady with the annoying voice, because she always had something interesting to say. I can do without the rest.
Okay, also the guy in the episode that played Johnny Appleseed, wearing a pot around on his head for the entire show. And other roles. You can have him. But that is it!
