I was doing a search on Iron Chef when I came across this thread and saw the quoted comment. You dare speak badly of Alton? Have the Kitchen Gods struck you down yet?
The only thing Alton ever did poorly was his Filet O’ Foo which being a recipe for fried tofu tasted like, well, ummm, tofu. I think perhaps Alton was drinking when he came up that recipe but beyond that, never slander the name of one who has given us so many good eats!!
Has nobody seen Lidia Bastianich’s show, “Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen”? I’ve never seen a cooking show where I’d want to make everything that’s ever been presented. Her enjoyment of good food is obvious, but there is her inimitable, come-eat-with-us-all style that is infectious. Her presentations are very simple, much better than the, what I call “tortured”, plates presented on most cooking shows. You know the ones I mean, gravity-defying, stratosphere-reaching ensembles complete with flying buttresses and hideous color combinations. And what’s not to like with ALL that EVOO?
First a disclaimer: I love Good Eats, and I’ve made more Alton Brown’s recipes than any other tv chef’s. But, whenever I’m watching him I’m always reminded of the Phil Hartman character “The Anal Retentive Chef”.
Thank you! Exactly what I was going to say. Yes, he’s entertaining and informative, but I can’t take him for a whole show. I find his campiness rather distracting. I feel like he’s talking down to me, as if I’m not worthy of being in my kitchen just because I don’t have fourteen different kinds of rolling pins.
Alton Brown is great. He got me interested in homebrewing when I saw that episode late last year (I still haven’t had time or money to give it a go.)
And there is another show on PBS, done by an Italian woman with short hair, but I can’t think of the name, which I enjoy a great deal. Somebody’s Kitchen, I think. Can someone come up with the name from that painfully vague description?
I find Alton Brown funny, but I think he’s a bit of a food snob. I keep expecting to turn on “Good Eats” one day and find him making his own yogurt. “Sure, you could go down to the grocery store and spend 59 cents a tub on pre-made yogurt, but once you’ve grown your own bacterial cultures you’ll never go back to the store brands.”
And what the heck is his problem with stuffing a turkey?
Two words: Tyler Florence. That boy is easy on the eyes. And both his shows, Food 911 and Tyler’s Ultimate are fun to watch. Like Alton, whom I also like, he makes food that you aren’t afraid to try yourself. I like that they don’t edit out goofs, instead showing you how to correct minor mistakes we all sometimes make when cooking.
Actually, there’s a huge school of thought that considers stuffing a turkey to be a really good route to food poisoning, because the stuffing inside the turkey doesn’t cook as thoroughly as the turkey itself and can harbor bacteria.
I know my husbear never stuffs the turkey. He makes the stuffing separately and puts apples, onions and sage in the turkey cavity to add flavor and juice.
Food 911 is all about the horny housewife; I thought the woman on the arroz con pollo episode was going to mount Tyler on the kitchen island.
I went to a Tyler Florence appearance and book signing for his Real Kitchen, and witnessed a young woman break down into heaving sobs and incoherent speech when she met the man. He was sweet about it, came out from behind his desk to give her a hug, and took a picture with her. He called me “sweetie,” though. Not to rub it in or anything.