Making the Chef

Thank you, Alton Brown

I don't think I've ever met a cook or foodie that doesn't love Alton Brown. If you're not familiar with him, he's the host of a FoodTV program called Good Eats. Good Eats is something of a culinary phenomenon that offered the right thing to the audience at the right time.

Previously, cooking shows had consisted, for the most part, of the chef in front of the camera and explaining their dishes . Some were better than others. Julia (do I really need to say her last name?) and Ming Tsai were two of my favorite solo flyers. But when FoodTV launched sensation Emeril Legasse, they used an audience format that worked well for Emeril and created a national sensation. America was primed to learn more about cuisine and Emeril presented it in a way that was friendly, fun and unintimidated. As much as modern chefs pan Emeril as being nothing but a "fuzzy little ewok" (the words of Anthony Bourdain), he brought a whole generation of people who were raised on microwaved food and TV dinners back into the kitchen.

Good. They're in the kitchen ... but what do they do?

That's where Good Eats came along.

You see, with America being the land of prepackaged convenience, many people's exposure to cooking in their young lives involved nothing more than opening a box and following instructions. A lot of the "why" and "how" of basic culinary knowledge got lost. Sure, you could go out and read Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking, a book that explains the science of cooking, but for most people it's a dry read. Brown's show takes the "why" and "how" of culinary science and puts it into an entertaining format.

And entertaining is putting it mildly. One of my favorite episodes is "The Man Food Show" which starts off with a shot of Brown with a breakfast tray and a large glass of OJ. He begins to explain that the episode is going to be devoted to teaching the men in the audience how to make breakfast in bed, but that the women need to leave the room so it will be a surprise. Once he's confirmed the women are gone, he proceeds to pull a bottle of beer out of the OJ and lifts the cover of the tray to reveal some mini-burgers and corn dogs, saying:

Let me tell you something, fellas. The last thing on Earth you want to go messing around with is breakfast in bed. You want to know why? Because all it does is raise expectations. Pretty soon, you're going to be expected to share and cuddle and take out the trash. Nope. What we really need to spend time doing is working on our man food skills! Now why did I run them out of the room? Simple. They want you to watch what you eat. They want you to watch your cholesterol intake, your sodium intake, your fat intake, your intake intake! They want you to watch your waist. And that's all fine and good. But you know, sometimes a man has got to eat what a man has got to eat. And I'm here to tell you that these guilty pleasures, besides tasting good, really are good eats.

Yes, a cooking show that makes you laugh and teaches you something ... you gotta love the guy. Later on in the show, he goes on to explain why you buy the right deep fryer, the science of frying and why deep frying, when done right, leaves food that isn't greasy. That's right, even junk food can be done well.

All of the stuff that he teaches can be used in the real world. Today, I was using a technique he discussed for taking corn off the cob (made a nice spicy black bean and roasted corn soup today) and I also used one of the best tricks I've seen from him. In one of his episodes about sauces, he explains how you can use a thermos to hold a sauce at temperature for service. Very important for sauces like hollandaise, which can curdle when held at the wrong temperatures.

And hey, we have a benedict on the menu ;)

So, every morning when I make hollandaise, I also go to room service, get a coffee thermos, prime it with boiling water, and then store my hollandaise in it for service. It stays pourable and delish throughout service ... no lumps, no mess, no fuss. And it also means that I'm not scrambling to make hollandaise on the fly when an order of benny is done and I've found that my hollandaise has turned into a giant lump.

Thank you, Alton Brown.

posted by LindyChef @ 8:38 PM