GOOD EATS

[fifi]

Corn Dogs!

AAAIIIIEEEEE...

*running from the room*

[Schielke]

Corn dogs are wonderous.

[Jason Perlow]

Corn dogs are wonderous.

Yeah, I totally agree with that. Corn Dogs are a sign of summer and evocative of happy childhoods at the county fair, which I never $%^&* went to as a kid because I lived in the suburbs of NYC and not rural America.

[Mayhaw Man]

Corn Dogs!

AAAIIIIEEEEE...

*running from the room*

Homer Simpson

MMMMMM, Corn Dogs.

If they're good enough for Homer, they're good enough for me

[fifi]

Corn dogs are creepy and evil. This was the beginning of the Incredibly strange cravings thread.

On my way home from the office, I was thinking about what I needed to pick up at the store and what I was going to eat this evening. I was kind of wool-gathering on the subject when "it" popped into my head.

Corn dogs. I have to have corn dogs!

As I drove, the idle thought became a ravenous craving. I bought a box of 12 and just finished number 2.

I NEVER eat corn dogs. Not even at fairs and such. What is this all about? Does this ever happen to you? Did someone put an evil subliminal message on the car radio?

[johnsmith45678]

There seems to be no official Good Eats thread (but many exist with various topics), so I'll dig this one up...

Alton seems to be violating his "unitasker" rule lately - first the milling machine in the barley episode, then the "48 Blade Meat Tenderizer" in the "Cubing the Round" episode.

[FoodMan]

There seems to be no official Good Eats thread (but many exist with various topics), so I'll dig this one up...

Alton seems to be violating his "unitasker" rule lately - first the milling machine in the barley episode, then the "48 Blade Meat Tenderizer" in the "Cubing the Round" episode.

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but you can mill so many things in the miller

Actually he also breaks the rule using his bean frencher. I think the "non-unitasker" is his ideal, but it is not attainable.

[Anna N]

I have even persuaded hubby to watch Good Eats with me - but then it comes on just before some goofy sci-fi thing on the Space channel. I have learned a fair bit from Alton but I also take some of it with a grain of salt - kosher of course - as any cook knows.

[Grub]

A geek is a sideshow freak who decapitates bats with his teeth... Now, you could argue that he does put on a bit of a sideshow fer sure, but the word he really should be using is "nerd," damnit...

I think America's Test Kitchen's obsessive testing, and Alton's nerdy ways are excellent approaches to culinary education. The no-nonsese approach. Maybe it removes some of the alluring, mystical aspects of cooking that might appeal to us all, but I'm happier if I feel that I'm well informed and doing things efficiently, than following old traditions and rituals.

That being said, some GOOD EATS episodes are just entirely pointless. Like Scrap Iron Chef. Or the one where he cooked pizza by running the oven through its cleaning cycle with a bunch of bricks in it, and carried these extremely hot bricks into the garage and "built" a pizza oven with them... I was thinking to myself, "Jeeeebus, now he's just completely lost it! -- Not all oven have cleaning cycles -- and not everyone has a garage. And not everyone would feel comfortable carrying a bunch of super hot bricks around!" At the moment I had that thought, Alton exclaimed (witch such enthusiam, it seemed as if he thought this insane approach to cooking pizza was the singlemost greatest culinary idea ever) that there was actually enough heat in this assembled brick oven to cook TWO pizzas -- if you were quick about it...

[fyfas]

When all is said and done, I DO like the program; I DO learn something from most episodes.

That said, Alton is - I'm sorry - a bit over the top, now. He tries too hard to be "entertaining' and further his persona. That's all good from a strictly commercial point of view but it gets in the way of my personal respect/appreciation for the man, the program. Maybe he needs to fire a couple of producers.

Causes me to wonder how would I "feel" if Stephen Hawking started doing product endorsements, say for an i-Pod, a MAC, Windows XP, Starbucks...

[johnsmith45678]

There seems to be no official Good Eats thread (but many exist with various topics), so I'll dig this one up...

Alton seems to be violating his "unitasker" rule lately - first the milling machine in the barley episode, then the "48 Blade Meat Tenderizer" in the "Cubing the Round" episode.

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but you can mill so many things in the miller

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Such as? Serious question - I have no idea and no experience with milling. I'd bet that milling machine aint cheap.

The meat tenderizer is $22 on Amazon. I'd bet one of those pizza dough perforators could do the same thing.

[johnsmith45678]

I love Good Eats. Some of the recipes suck though - on his power bar show the recipe recommends using UNSHELLED sunflower seeds. I deferred to his better judgement, despite my thinking otherwise, and made the first batch that way. They were unbearable to eat. One of his pizza recipes also took forever to get the dough to "window pane." But the great majority of the other recipes I've tried have been satisfactory.

I dig Alton's and the show's sense of humor. I still laugh when I think of Paul's toaster that "goes to eleven" on the snowed-in special, and many many other moments. Good Eats sure cut through the typical cooking shows where the chefs acted like cooking is mystical alchemy.

[jsolomon]

I love Good Eats, but I must agree. It seems to hold a niche similar to Dirty Jobs and MythBusters. There are only so many things AB's treatment can do justice to. He keeps surprising me by finding new ones, but he does surprise me less and less.

Impressive dude, Alton Brown, though. I'm glad he came along.

[Bombdog]

Is it just me or would you blow off the birth of your first child if you knew that a new episode of Good Eats was coming on?  Am I alone here???

Have you ever seen a baby being born? It'll completely ruin your appetite.

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Jeff Foxworthy said it best "It's like watching a wet St Bernarnd trying to come in through a doggie door"

I'm staying in front of the tube

[Bobby 2 Shakes]

I love Good Eats, but I must agree.  It seems to hold a niche similar to Dirty Jobs and MythBusters. 

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Alton skews well with the coveted "silly" demographic. Coveted because they spend so freely, because they're... well, silly.

One of my life's big regrets is that Thomas Dolby had only one hit with "She Blinded Me With Science." Maybe this is God's way of making it up to me/us.

[Chris Cognac]

The whole "cardboard box smoker thing" he swears by....I have been pestering him to join up w me for a memphis in may BBQ team and he says that the cardboard box will really do the trick....Let hope he will agree to do it some day and we can all find out!

The guy is really "that smart"....I can only imagine how hard it must have been for him to pitch "good eats" to food network those many years ago (in TV land years).

by the way Thomas Dolby had a great minor hit with "europa and the pirate twins: here in L.A....whaty a cool song!

Edited July 1, 2006 by Chris Cognac (log)

[Joisey]

I'm going to go against the grain here and say that there are medical procedures besides childbirth I'd rather witness than watch Alton Brown...watching a festering boil get lanced, or maybe seeing soldiers in WWII get treated for the clap. I guess I'd prefer to just learn something rather than have to sit through a vaudeville routine to acquire the knowledge.

[jsolomon]

I'm going to go against the grain here and say that there are medical procedures besides childbirth I'd rather witness than watch Alton Brown...watching a festering boil get lanced, or maybe seeing soldiers in WWII get treated for the clap.  I guess I'd prefer to just learn something rather than have to sit through a vaudeville routine to acquire the knowledge.

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Watching them get treated is a snap. Watching them get diagnosed is not so neat. Imagine a nasty-looking, sterile toilet-bowl brush going where it doesnt' belong...

There's nothing wrong with appealing to the silly demographic. I am a card-carrying watcher of Monty Python's Flying Circus. But, they spent much more time "on" in their careers and less time "reaching". Unfortunately, AB seems to be reaching a lot this season. Although, "Eat This Rock" was an amazing bit of Good Eats.

And, CC, it's good that AB is That Smart . Smart people get the shaft way too much in our current American Life. I do think that the cardboard box trick will work.

[Joisey]

--Watching them get treated is a snap.--

Didn't they used to just shove a syringe of penicillin up there and push the plunger? I had a teacher in Jr. High who was a WWII vet and he loved to regale us with neat stories like that.

Way OT, sorry.

[johnsmith45678]

I guess I'd prefer to just learn something rather than have to sit through a vaudeville routine to acquire the knowledge.

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For a straight, no-nonsense, dry, uptight, humorless cooking show, I recommend Martha Stewart.

[Terrasanct]

I love Good Eats and AB but, given the likelihood of catching the show in reruns, I think I'd be at the maternity ward.

Now, if I had the chance to meet Julia Child in person . . . I might have to think about it.

I've met Julia Child and I've been in the maternity ward several times giving birth, so I think I'd watch the show. I love Alton Brown.

And I'm getting the Food Network for the first time in two weeks, yay!

[Grub]

... I guess I'd prefer to just learn something rather than have to sit through a vaudeville routine to acquire the knowledge.

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Can't fault you for feeling like that -- in fact, I agree with you. But the food network's other alternatives involves routines that are at best equally assinine, and at worst just fucking mind-numbingly idiotic -- and they offer you the opportunity to aquire absolutely no new knowledge whatsoever...

And yeah, Alton HAS made Python references in his show, and dagnabbit, be he e'er so vaudevillian, I reckon that gentles his condition.

[Jaden77]

I love Alton Brown and Good Eats. If it weren't for him, I'd still be carefully washing and rinsing individual mushrooms instead of just soaking them to clean them. But, then again, I also love Myth Busters and Dirty Jobs, so I fall right into that demographic.

[Lan4Dawg]

I enjoy AB & Good Eats (esp. since he is a good Georgia boy--GO DAWGS!) and much of the reason is b/c I enjoy learning why certain foods, preparations, means, methods, &c work and others do not. That stuff fascinates me but it can get very tedious and he makes learning it entertaining, albeit silly.

Now having said that I do get some what frustrated when he spends an entire show preaching about how terrible canned broth is and how easy it is to make the real stuff and then in another show lauds the ease of using canned broth in a receipt. Add to that some times you just have to say, "why? why are you going to all of the trouble of doing this? It is not as if building a brick oven in your garage is going to make the pizza that much better or who would go to all of the trouble and expense of putting together a card board box smoker?".

But then again some of the bizarre twists and turns are sheer genius--using the ironing board for making pasta (the only problem is explaining to some one why there are holes in the ironing board cover and it is coated w/ flour.....)

[FoodMan]

I've never seen the build a pizza oven in your garage approach! That is nuts. I do however run my oven through a cleaning cycle with bricks in it (actually the bottom is always layered with bricks), I stop the cycle midway through and then bake my pizza. The best pizza crust outside of Napoli IMHO.