W was great, what’s wrong with you.
Agreed, followed by Lever Man.
What about the Dungeon Master?
Fun fact - Lucky Yates, who played the Dungeon Master and many, many other roles on Good Eats, is also the voice of Krieger, and the face of Ray, on “Archer”.
Chicken parm has to be among the least interesting dishes to make or eat. Of all the things they could have thought to make, that’s what they came up with for the first episode. :rolleyes: I’m a fan of AB and the show, but I do hope this was a warm up act.
Boy, I got lucky! Turned on the TV at 8:55, and was flipping through the channels when I ran across it.
First episode (chicken parmesan) - pretty good- I thought his criticism of the standard dish was on the money, and his altered version looks like it would be tasty as well.
Second episode (ancient grains) - meh. While the broccoli quinoa mushroom casserole looked tasty, I kept wondering if I could just do it with rice, since I already have it in the pantry. That chia pudding just did not rev my engine- I’m not a fan of avocado in the first place, and little I’ve had with chia has been particularly good.
That said, the shows themselves are pretty much on the money- maybe a bit long on the monologue and less on the props/silly acting than some of the older ones, but still the same “Good Eats” formula and still mostly the same Alton Brown- maybe a bit more serious than before or something.
I think a lot of it is he was originally doing an act to seem extra quirky and charming , and is now just just being his natural gruffer,crusty-er self.
In a recent interview he said it was the dish most often requested he do an episode on by fans.
I found that the recipes in the Reloaded series were way over-complicated. I liked the original series because the explanations were interesting and useful, and the recipes were (often - not always) something I was comfortable doing myself, and I got good results with some of them.
I particularly liked his method of using a cast iron pan to cook a steak. It was fast, simple and gets very good results. In the reloaded series, he re-visited the recipe and, in my opinion, way over complicated it with all that reverse-sear and sous-vide, and repeated heating and cooling stuff.
I cooked a Costco steak using his original method this weekend. It came out great. I intend to keep doing it that way.
I notice that he is using a lot of new ingredients and uncommon spices and things in his newer recipes. This isn’t necessarily a problem, I like new flavors. But some of them seemed unnecessary. I got the impression he was using them more to be different than because they added anything to the dish.
I will give the new series a chance, but I hope he doesn’t keep over-complicating things.
nm
Regarding the various characters:
“Italian” dudes with fake mustaches: not funny. *Insultingly *not funny.
Cortez: Well done. A good mix of despicable-ness tempered by a bit of humor. It’s a cooking show, not a history lesson, but points were made.
The lawyer types: Meh. Neither good nor bad. I barely remember them. But, wasn’t Alton playing the part of one of them? I don’t remember him doing that in the past.
Major disappointment: When I first saw the Medici lady I wasn’t wearing my glasses. Thought it may have been the Lady of the Refrigerator, escaped to the freezer aisle. No such luck. I will continue to watch in the hope she returns.
One more thing: what was up with the camera filming Alton’s reflection in a mirror, instead of the just the regular way?
I suspect that what we’re seeing there is a bit of market research on his/the show’s part. They probably found out that the majority of fans aren’t total cooking neophytes who can’t boil water, but somewhat accomplished amateur cooks who are more interested in better recipes , better technique and/or better science. That’s kind of what the Reloaded series was about- better versions of those original recipes for the more advanced among us.
It remains to be seen who the new shows will be aimed at- more toward relatively unskilled cooks, or relatively skilled amateurs. I wasn’t really able to tell from two episodes last night.
I liked it. It was the same actor who played a lot of roles in the original Good Eats - the agent for unpopular foods, the Cajun chef who was actually from Rhode Island (nice Emeril reference), Major Pepper, etc.
He always played the central USDA agent. He even talked about that in the first “Reloaded” episode.
They did a ton of that in “Reloaded” as well.
I wonder if the mirror on a swivel is to allow them to more easily do the Tasty-style overhead hands only shots while still allowing Alton to talk ‘to’ the audience.
Ah, I thought he looked familiar. Would it surprise you to know that the Cajun chef is the character I dislike the least, of the ones I remember? 
I didn’t see “Reloaded”, but I do remember his USDA agent role.
That guy selling the tomatoes was actually playing an old character- Koko Karl, the sleazy guy selling artificial chocolate products, only with a mustache this time and a silly accent.
Ok, that makes sense, we’ll see.
The problem is that at least a couple of the recipes in the Reloaded series were (IMO) pointlessly over-complicated. I am particularly thinking of the steak one. I think his newer variant of the recipe would turn out a lesser quality product, with a lot more effort.
Of course I am a geek. I built my own sous-vide cooker out of a raspberry pi an AC relay, an immersion heater and a thermocouple. My sous-vide cooker has a web interface, with graphics, sounds and all kinds of bells and whistles including wireless and bluetooth. After going through all the work to do that, I discovered that I don’t particularly like the taste of meat that is cooked that way. So it sits on a shelf, waiting for me to get back to it.
Well, what do you expect? I can’t really imagine raspberry-flavored steak is good. 
I’m not 100% sold on sous vide steaks - still haven’t landed on the bath temp that will let me sear the steaks and arrive at my desired medium-rareness. OTOH, it’s great with salmon - when it’s on sale, I’ll buy a whole fillet, portion it and vacuum pack the pieces with s&p, dill, and lemon slices. It’s also great for chicken - sv a bag of chicken legs for a couple hours, then toss 'em on a screaming hot grill to crisp the skin. Most of the fat has been rendered out so minimal flareups, and no risk of raw.
As for the newer crop of oddball ingredients, on his Reloaded mini-series, he touched on how the grocery world has shrunk in the past 15 or so years. What was once exotic, is now on the shelf at Safeway. The first time I made tom kha gai, I had to go hunt down lemongrass, galangal, and keffir leaves at Asian markets. Now it’s all at my neighborhood supermarket.
Actually, raspberry might go well with steak.
Whenever I tried to sous-vide a steak, it always came out tasting like pot roast. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, if you are trying to cook pot roast, but when you wanted a steak …
The other week, I was at one of those Portuguese roasted meat-on-a-stick places, and all the meat tasted like pot roast. I suspect they were keeping it in a sous-vide bath and bringing it out and searing it when it was time to serve. I wasn’t impressed.
I’ll have to keep an eye out for the spices. There is an H-mart (Korean) grocery near me. They have really good bulgogi.
As a big fan of the original show, I’m enjoying it as a return to form - I like the food history/science, humor, characters, etc.
As far as his recipes, though…there are a few that I think of as solid that have made their way into my repertoire over the years, but there have always been a significant percentage that I’ve thought of as unnecessarily “different-for-the-sake-of-being different”, if not downright unappealing (I love avocado, but won’t be making chocolate pudding using it anytime soon…)
Okay, before I go and watch the second episode, I guess I’ll say what I wanted to say. It seems that most don’t agree, but it seemed to me that the first episode just didn’t quite have the feel right, and seemed to have a more serious Alton in performance, if not in the actual script (which was delightfully silly). I found that the tone of Reloaded was better, even in the newer parts. Alton just seemed happier.
Now to go watch the second episode. I almost forgot they were going to debut two at a time. (I hope that isn’t a bad thing, like trying to get rid of this season quickly.)