I'm Just Here for the Food_ Version 2.0 - Alton Brown [137]
Good Eats is now in its eighth year on Food Network. TIME magazine recently named Good Eats as one of the “6 Food Shows Worth Their Salt.” It should be noted that the other Food Network show mentioned in the list was Iron Chef America, on which Brown serves as host and commentator. Coincidence? Probably.
Brown’s first book, I’m Just Here For The Food, won the James Beard Foundation award for best reference book in 2003, although the Nobel committee ignored the significance of the work. Ditto Alton Brown’s Gear For Your Kitchen, which was nominated for a Beard and an IACP Cookbook award in 2004. Certain that neither award would come through, Brown booked work on the west coast so as to not face the shame head-on.
But 2004 wasn’t all bad. Bon Appétit named him “cooking teacher of the year” in May and his article for that publication called “Thanksgiving Starts Here” was nominated for a 2004 National Magazine Award, which isn’t shabby when you consider the fact it was his first article. Brown’s third book, I’m Just Here for More Food, was published. And of course 2004 was the year when Food Network began production of Iron Chef America. Brown has emceed and served as lead commentator since the Food Network began production on their reincarnation of the much-loved Japanese game show in 2004. It’s a sweet gig, if he does say so himself.
Then came Feasting On Asphalt, Brown’s 4-hour love letter to the American road…and food…and motorcycles. Although short, the show was Food Network’s huge, smash hit of the summer of 2006. (Although Brown doesn’t actually have any data to back this he feels pretty confident on the point.)
Let’s see, what else…oh, while Be Square Productions (which Brown co-owns with the aforementioned wife) continues making Good Eats, which Brown’s mother has called “the best little half hour of food on television,” their other company, Food Simple, is starting to produce equally educational and entertaining media projects for the corporate sector.
The Browns reside in Georgia, have a daughter in first grade, one dog, one cat, and three motorcycles. I could go on and on about motorcycles, the one thing that I . . . I mean, Brown loves even more than food, but that’s another show . . . I mean, book.
For more information on Alton Brown, visit www.altonbrown.com and www.foodtv.com.
Published in 2006 by
Stewart, Tabori & Chang
An imprint of Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
Copyright © 2002, 2006 Be Square Productions
All illustrations are based on sketches by Alton Brown. Illustrations on pages 14-15, 18-19, 26, 29, 46-47, 58-59, 88, 97, 108-109, and 240-245 copyright © 2002 Campbell Laird. Illustrations on pages 19 (right), 39, 47 (bottom), 137, 169 (right), 173, 202, 256 -267 by Eric Cole. All other illustrations by Allyson C. McFarlane, Branda E. Rasmussen, Galen Smith, Paul G. Wagner, and Jed Weinstein.
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.
Edited by Marisa Bulzone and Trudi Bartow
Designed by Galen Smith, Allyson C. McFarlane, and Nancy Leonard
Graphic Production by Anet Sirna-Bruder
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Brown, Alton, 1962—
I’m just here for the food : food + heat = cooking / Alton Brown.—Version 2.0.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN-13: 978-1-58479-559-9
ISBN-10: 1-58479-559-X
1. Cookery. I. Title.
TX651.B728 2006
641.5—dc22
2006052584
The text of this book was composed in New Century Schoolbook and