'Good Eats' creator Alton Brown brings book tour to Sewickley
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Alton Brown: eatin' good -
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His Food Network show, "Good Eats," has ended, but you can still lay eyes on Alton Brown in person at a speech and book signing Oct. 5 at Sewickley Academy.
Mr. Brown's zany show won an enthusiastic following with its silly characters, including burping sock puppets and such nemeses as the mad French chef who made dire predictions when Mr. Brown didn't cook by the book. And the plots always involved something crazy -- kidnapping the pizza delivery guy so the audience would learn to make real pizza or convincing a possessed child to eat peas.
But the show also was innovative because Mr. Brown incorporated science lessons into all his episodes. Making bread dough, he taught about the chemical reaction that yeast produces. Making paella led to lessons on why some rice types are sticky and some are firm. Barbecuing ribs led to a lesson on pig anatomy. (OK, so maybe that last one was a little too much information.)
Alton Brown
When: 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 5
Where: Rea Auditorium, Sewickley Academy, hosted by Penguin Bookshop of Sewickley
Cost: $45, including a signed copy of Mr. Brown's new book, "Good Eats 3: The Later Years" ($30 for companion ticket without book)
To register: penguin bookshop.com
Often, he made homemade versions of items people would typically just buy at the store: cottage cheese, dill pickles, marshmallows, graham crackers.
Mr. Brown studied theater in college and spent 10 years in the film industry before he got serious about cooking. Before "Good Eats," he claims to have cooked in college only to try to get a date.
But when he cooked up the idea for "Good Eats," he knew he'd need some culinary street cred. So in the mid-1990s, he dropped everything and hauled his family out of Georgia to attend the New England Culinary Institute.
"We really rolled the dice," he said, noting the family pretty much hinged their entire lives on this idea they hadn't even sold yet.
First Published September 29, 2011 12:00 am
