Alton Brown live on Youtube

Alton has posted on his site that there's a live lecture on Thanksgiving Thursday the 19th @7pm.  I was just looking at the Youtube Holiday channel, but haven't seen mention of the live video yet.  Hopefully they'll post something soon.

http://www.youtube.com/holidaysolutions

Monday Poll: How do you like your turkey?

OK Alton fans, Turkey Day is coming up fast.  My question for you today is: How do you like your turkey?  Fried, roasted, etc.?  Vote away!

Also, has anyone attempted to make an Alton Brown Turkey Derrick?  I'd love to see some pictures or hear your stories.

And those Good Eats pocket pies I made the other day?  Delicious!  The crust is great.  The typical Michigan Cornish style pasties I'm familiar with tend to have a softer, but dryer, crust.  AB's version had a little more of the flakiness of a pie dough, but was still soft and pliable like a biscuit dough.  Good job Alton!  Being that I only have three cherry pies left, I need to think up some new fillings.  I'll take any suggestions.  I took some action shots while making the pies.  I'll have to post them soon!

ThinkGeek Waffle Iron Cookies

I received a Tweet from ThinkGeek.com a little while ago asking why Alton Brown isn't on Twitter.  I get this a lot on my @altonbrownnews account; at least a couple times per week.  Well, it makes perfect sense that he would be on Twitter, being the scientific pop-culture junkie way in which he presents himself.  In fact, he used to post to his personal website, but then there was a flood of internet garbage that flowed in when he had asked for submissions for refrigerator artwork.  Here's his final post if you're interested.  This may have turned him off before the big social media explosion, but I still hold out hope that he will return.  If anything, his posts were great and it opened a little window into the mind of Alton Brown that few of us get to experience.  Anyhow, onto the cookies!

A few adventurous souls over at ThinkGeek tested out prepackaged cookie dough with a waffle iron.  Surprisingly, it looks like it turned out well.  Enjoy the video!  Good Eats fans will recognize the cut scene sweep sound effect.  I also noticed they are using an iPhone timer app like AB switched to recently.

Alton Brown to Continue as Welch's Spokesperson

Well, Alton Brown is continuing on as Welch's grape juice spokesman.  The new ad campaign focuses on the fact that their grape juice is natural and will feature actual vineyard locations from some of their associated growers.  Welch's originally picked up AB to talk about the science behind grapes, which played directly off his Good Eats background.   I'd say that, with his passion for getting back to food basics, sustainability, and local growers, Alton is the perfect choice to front the new series of ads too.
There are several clips of Alton interviewing grape farmers at Welch's website.  Enjoy!

p.s.  In case you're wondering, it's the 'new and improved' skinny Alton sporting his short hair in these ads; not the long-haired dude of old.  Here's a picture so you can see what losing 50 pounds and getting a ahircut can do.  I'm teasing here, don't take me too seriously.

Good Eats Fry Hard I: Chips and Fish Recipe Tested

Looking through my copy of Good Eats: The Early Years this morning, my stomach growled as I flipped past the Chips and Fish page.  "Hmmm...I do need to make something for dinner."  I didn't need any more convincing and cod just happened to be on sale at the market this week.  I printed off a copy of the recipe from Food Network's site and noticed the FN version makes a slightly larger batch of batter and calls for double the potatoes.

There was no question I was going to test the recipe, but there was some pondering about the cooking vessel.  I'm cursed with an electric stove.  The two times I tried to make fried chicken I burned it to a crisp and swore a heck of a lot, ... I just don't want to talk about those days.  That's another Fry Hard show anyhow.  My only convenient option was to dig my cheap crappy Rival deep fryer out of its dusty box in the basement.  I told myself that if the fish and fries turn out well I'll finally break down and buy a good deep fryer.

 For once I followed Alton's directions without any substitutions!  Setup was a snap since there aren't too many ingredients and only a few pieces of hardware involved.  I don't have a V-slicer or restaurant style potato cutter like Alton' mentions in his book, so I took care of the potatoes the old fashioned way, then dumped them into some cold water while I whisked together the batter.  I used nearly a whole bottle of Palmetto Amber ale for the mix though only a cup was called for.  In reality, I probably could have used the whole bottle.  Just for quality control's sake, I sampled another bottle for myself.

The frying only required presetting the temperature levels for the three phases of cooking and keeping an eye on things.  I'm still a novice when it comes to frying, so I took some cues from times mentioned in the book and guessed a bit.  I don't know if it was the size of my potato sticks or temperature control issues with my deep fryer, but the chips could have gone for an extra minute (3-4 range) for the initial phase and longer, maybe 5 minutes, in the Golden Brown Delicious phase.  The fish was nearly right on target, despite the first test piece getting stuck in the deep fryer's basket.

Overall I'd rate this dual application a success.  With a few timing adjustments, and a better deep fryer, everything should turn out perfect next time.  It was easy to prepare and cleanup was a breeze.  Just for fun I also battered and tossed in a couple pickled okra as a reminder of the South to go with my last bottle of Palmetto ale.

Marsha Brown-Brady Video Compilation

Thanks to a post from @powerbook_pete on Twitter about Alton's 'sister' Marsha being in a Pepto Bismol commercial, I went looking on the ol' internet to see if I could find it.  Still looking for that one, but I did find a great compilation of Marsha Brown-Brady appearances on Good Eats posted on Youtube by Merrilyn Crouch herself!





Enjoy!

p.s.  If anyone finds that Pepto commercial, feel free to frop the link in the comments section here or post to @altonbrownnews on Twitter.  Thanks!

Alton Brown Live Lecture and New Good Eats

The Where's AB listing on Alton's website says he has a live lecture coming up on Youtube November 19th @ 7pm EST.  "Thanksgiving: 10 Things I Know About Food"  I wonder if this is a take off of the '10 things' speech he's been covering at recent lectures or if it will all relate to Thanksgiving?  Not sure on the details of how to get to the lecture, such as a link, but I'll keep my eyes peeled and post it here and at the @altonbrownnews Twitter account.

P.S.  Don't forget Pantry Raid XII: Turning Japanese is coming up Monday night at 8pm!  He should have Iron Chef Morimoto as his sidekick :-)