Monday, July 31, 2006

time well spent

Did anyone else watch the first episode of Alton Brown's new show on Food Network on Saturday night?

It was a two hour bonus - first an hour of behind-the-scenes insights: how do they get all of those wacky camera angles? Who are the visiting faces - how many are crew, how many are friends, how many are actors? (His chiropractor appears on a regular basis, did ya know that??!) As a frustrated actor who did plenty of tech work, I like his line that "if you work on Good Eats, you appear on Good Eats."

Then the new show, Feasting on Asphalt - Alton and three other motocyclists, plus men in a support truck, drive about, sampling "authentic" cuisine. (Authentic cuisine sounds to me like the original Iron Chef, but no matter.) The definition eliminates any and all chain restaurants and I suspect that before the month is out he'll have eaten a vast amount of grease. Nonetheless, all of last week's food looked great - except for the pig's foot. From careful examination of the promos, next week's authentic cuisine all looks good too, except for the brain sandwich.

Hey Jason 266! Can you get Food network to play in the neonatal ward? Perhaps a little Alton Brown will inspire Jacob's efforts?

I've been working on the last class of the summer. I've thought of about eight hours of material, plus numerous musical, film and artistic images I'd like to show. The question is, which ones? Jacob seems to eat better when I've had a good teaching day, so in the traditional quirkiness that fuels my ambitions, I feel like I really need to make this last class as fantastic as possible.

7 comments:

John Burzynski said...

Whenever I am on the road, I eat almost exclusively at a 'mom and pop' restaurant, rather than at Mc Donald's or the like. Indiana has lots of great restaurants.

i do confess, however, that when i was in Indy Friday on business, I ate at 'White Castle'...a treat that we don't have around here inthe north end of the state.

Hugh said...

Yeah, the food was interesting and all, but did you notice the bike?! A Beemer!

Hugh (who will always have an unattainable dream of owning a BMW car or motorcycle)

Joe said...

Dude, that's not a bike, it's a small convertible tank.

-Joe (who will always have an unattainable dream of owning a Vincent Black Eagle)

Jason said...

I have Tivo set up to record every single episode of anything with Alton Brown. He's my hero. His road trip on Feasting on Asphalt has been a long time dream of mine. Except I'd be in an old Jeep or 50ish Chevy convertable. Or maybe a vintage RV.

Here's to you having a great class.

-Jason266 (who will always have an unattainable dream of owning a professional baseball team, a bourbon distillery, and a Cuban cigar factory but will instead settle for a nice Dominican and a Manhattan in front of a TV turned to WGN)

Anonymous said...

I watched it but was irked since Food Network thinks all we want is Americana. Tony Bourdain pulled the plug on Cook's Tour because the network wanted him to stop doing so many international shows and focus more in traveling the USA eating at mom and pop places. I love that he still eats at mom and pop places, just in, say Sri Lanka. Alton Brown annoys me just a little bit after a while.

torporindy said...

Thanks for the info. Alton Brown will now be tivoed.

Doug said...

I caught the show and really enjoyed it which is out of character since I have no passion for food. I really enjoy some things, obviously, but more often than not, eating is more of a necessary maintenance job for my body than something in which I revel.

However, I looove road trips.