Alton Brown Delves into Fashion with New Bow Tie Collection

That's right, Alton Brown is moving into the celebrity fashion world with a new set of bow ties in partnership with hook + ALBERT. The bow ties will be a limited edition run for the holidays in five reversible colors. Look for these on their website soon.

Also, check out the Alton Browncast podcast series available on iTunes.  And follow Alton on Facebook.

Alton Brown Live: Edible Inevitable Tour

Alton is hitting the road again, but this time it will be a much larger production.  Alton's Edible Inevitable Tour promises to feature comedy and music as well as cooking. It is billed as an international tour, but so far only US dates have been announced,  The good news: there are already 35 dates listed!  Check here for the current list of cities and venues. The tour kicks off in October and stretches into 2014 so far.

I'm excited.  I haven't seen AB in a couple years and haven't really been following his ventures as a FoodNetwork personality lately. Between the tour, which has three stops relatively near me in Michigan, and his upcoming podcasts I'll have a reason to be an Alton Brown fan once more.

Alton Brown Meets Up with Anthony Bourdain on The Layover

Alton Brown will be meeting up with Anthony Bourdain for a new episode of The Layover in Atlanta. The new show will be airing Monday night on the Travel Channel at 9PM. Finally, the two ABs meet! Even better, they meet up with a stripper; not something I'd picture Alton doing but definitely up Bourdain's alley. This should be interesting to see how their personalities mesh, or don't mesh. Also interested to see if they''l just be shooting the breeze or actually talking food. I have respect for both since they got to this point through their own hard work.

During his 36 hours in the ATL, Tony meets up with Alton Brown, has a drink with a legendary stripper, takes down a plate of BBQ and cruises the city in a muscle car. Here are a few more preview pictures on the Travel Channel website.

Alton Brown Mythbusters Episode

In case anybody missed Alton Brown on MythBusters here is the full episode!  Cooking an entire Thanksgiving dinner under the hood of a car is the perfect marriage of the three minds. I would love to see Alton team up with Jamie and Adam again on some crazy cooking experiment.

Alton Brown's Twas the Night Before Good Eats

I wish Alton had done more dedicated Christmas specials along the way with Good Eats since there are so many recipes and culture to cover. Twas the Night Before Good Eats showcases Alton's talent for mixing cooking and entertainment, and also some features of the show's regular character actors. Bart Hansard was my favorite and I love him as Santa. Always entertaining!

Enjoy

Alton Brown's Chocolate Coconut Ball Cookies

From Food Network's listing of the 12 Days of Cookies:

Alton Brown's Chocolate Coconut Ball Cookies

Ingredients

• 1 cup toasted chopped Macadamia nuts
• 1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk
• 1 1/2 teaspoons almond extract
• One 7-ounce bag sweetened shredded coconut
• One 12-ounce bag semisweet chocolate morsels, melted
• 1 tablespoon shortening

Directions

In a bowl mix together the nuts, condensed milk, almond extract and coconut. Using your fingers, press the mixture into balls about 3/4-inch round. Place onto sheet trays and let rest at room temperature for 4 hours or in the refrigerator for 1 hour.
After the balls have set up, melt the chocolate and shortening until smooth. Dip into the chocolate to coat evenly and lightly. Place onto a parchment or foil lined sheet pan to dry.

Good Eats: School of Hard Nogs

Time to whip up some classic eggnog with Alton Brown!

Feasting on Asphalt: The River Run Hardcover only $12

Looking for a quick and not too expensive Christmas gift for a fellow Alton Brown fan? Or maybe you just want an extra copy of the cool map. Put together by Alton Brown and Jean-Claude Dhien, Feasting on Asphalt: The River Run, chronicles the second FoA adventure as the culinary bikers traveled along the Mississippi river from New Orleans to its source in Minnesota.

Available on Amazon now for only $12!
Click the image below and stock up!

Turkey Tips from Alton Brown

NPR radio recently sat down with Alton Brown to talk turkey. Alton, of course, goes over some of his long standing methods: start with brining and stuffing is evil!

Audio and transcript link

Audio and transcript for mobile users

Enjoy!

Alton Brown to Speak at Clarke University Mackin-Mailander Lecture Series

Alton Brown will be the featured speaker at the Clarke University in Dubuque, Iowa as part of the Mackin-Mailander Lecture Series on Sunday, September 30th. Tickets go on sale Friday, August 24th. $15 general public and $5 for students of the university.

Revamped Alton Brown Website

The long awaited revamped AltonBrown.com is finally up. Just glancing at the main page it looks great, even on my iPhone. I'm on vacation in Michigan wine country now, so I'll check it out this weekend on the big screen.

Good Eats Reruns Back on FoodNetwork

Good Eats reruns will resume Monday in a new timeslot: 11:00AM.  That's right, Good Eats in the morning.  I can't remember ever seeing Alton Brown before dinnertime.  Of course, this goes along with FoodNetwork's trend in recent years of killing any and all actual cooking shows during prime time to make way for more reality shows.  I'm surprised they moved GE to a weekday schedule instead of during the weekend cooking show mix where Alton's quirkiness seems more at home.

In other news, Alton posted on Twitter today that the new, yet temporary, revamp of his AltonBrown.com will be up on July 1st.  I'm hoping he plans on bring back the Alton Shop, yet with a better selection of Alton Gear this time around.  I'm also hoping for some more info on the upcoming Good Eats BBQ special soon.

Good Eats 3: The Later Years available for pre-order

Good Eats 3: The Later Years available for pre-order on Amazon for $24.25!

I'm looking forward to this final volume in the Good Eats compendium, though it makes me a bit sad to see the series fade out.  Typical Alton Brown humor int he cover art through, especially with the yeast puppet eyeballing the broccoli.  I can head their little burps in the background.

Alton Brown's Spiced Bread Pudding

This week I made Alton Brown's spiced bread pudding from Good Eats: The Proof is in the Bread Pudding.  My first challenge was finding an appropriate loaf of bread for the project.  In keeping with Alton's method, I wanted to bake the mixture in a large boule.  Surprisingly, the bakery in my local market didn't have anything to fit the bill and the dough for the mini boules I make at home does not have enough structure to form a large enough loaf.  In the end, I took a drive to the closest bakery and found what I needed.  Well, at least it was close.  It is an Italian bakery, same as my local market, and despite outside appearance, the boule was nothing more than standard Italian bread inside.

Once I had the bread it was time to get to work.  I assembled all the ingredients with only one change, I substituted the rum with butterscotch schnapps; my wife's secret weapon for chocolate chip cookies.  As I pulled out the hardware I realized my second challenge; there's a reason Alton mentions using an 8 cup blender.  My classic Oster Beehive looks great in all it's candy apple red glory, but it has a mere 5 cup capacity and only one speed: high.  No where near the size of AB's commercial grade behemoth, I had the fun task of trying to create an emulsion while working in batches.  There was also a good deal of foam towards the end from the high speed mixing, though it settled by the time the bread was ready for soaking.

Alton's cross cut method of disemboweling the bread worked like a charm.  I set the bread sections in the oven to dry while I assembled the software.  The bread was fresh and had a good deal of moisture to release, so I left it in the oven for two hours.  Rotating the pieces every 15 minutes helped to speed the process.  Finally, I added the liquid to the bread for a good soak.  I used a large Pyrex baking dish instead of a roasting pan and it was sufficient to hold everything.  I was surprised that the bread soaked up nearly all of the liquid and it was well worth the long 2 hours.  Meanwhile, I toasted the shell in the last half hour.

The bread/custard mix fit perfectly back into the boule shell and I set it into the oven perched in a cast iron skillet as recommended.  I poked a roasting thermometer into the loaf and set the alarm for 165F instead of going by time.  I would estimate that it took around two hours to bake.  It took some serious willpower to let the bread pudding rest for half an hour since my whole house smelled delicious at that point!

So, the big question, how was it?  Definitely well worth the time and trouble.  The Italian bread boule I used lacked structure but still held up with the density of the custard.  The shell was also too tough and needed to be picked up by hand after the interior was scarfed down eaten.  Next time I'll likely just bake the bread pudding in a casserole dish and definitely use a more substantial bread; such as the challah used in the chocolate version.  The cherries and raisins were a good pair, though you could let your imagination run wild with different combination since the custard itself is rather neutral in flavor.  An extra dash of cinnamon and nutmeg, vanilla extract, or even hazelnut syrup would make a good addition.

The verdict: definitely Good Eats.

Everything but the Boule

I was glued to the TV watching Alton's latest installment of Good Eats since, like AB, I absolutely love bread pudding.  It's also something I've never attempted to make at home since my wife, generally, is the baker/dessert queen.

I picked up everything missing from my cupboards for this application except for one: the boule.  I shop at a local Italian market with a wonderful bakery, though the only bread they make is the standard Italian loaf and some rolls.  They did have three large boules from an outside bakery, but for some odd reason they were all sliced.  The rest of the specialty bread was whole grain, rye, etc.  So, no bread pudding today :-(  I'll have to venture out to another Italian bakery down the road to try my luck or, if that fails, take a a bit of a drive over to Panera Bread or any other bakery I can find within reasonable distance. Another option for future testing is to use the small boules I make every week.  They're only about 6 inches, but could make a perfect dessert for holidays.  But that's another post :-)

p.s.  It was sad when Alton and Thing pulled out the giant binder of categories for 'another show.'  You never now though, AB might run another series some day; even if only from behind the camera.

Alton Brown Signs a New Three Year Deal with Food Network

Alton Brown has signed on for another three years with Food Network.  The contract includes continuing on as host of Iron Chef America and The Next Iron Chef as well as guest appearances on other FN shows.  As for Good Eats, my suspicions have been confirmed as there is only a Thanksgiving Special on the slate for now.  I can't say I'm too surprised as GE has been running for over 10 years and FN has been moving further and further away from quality production cooking shows.  Enjoy the last few Good Eats episodes while you can!  The good news I see in this is an open door for Alton to pursue some new outlet for his talent.  We've seen what he can do with specials like Feasting on Asphalt.  Let's hope for more!

p.s.  I noticed in the lasagna episode he points to his wrist when talking about 'time' and for once in his life he doesn't have a watch on!

New Good Eats: Chicken Pot Pie

Alton Brown will tackle three variations of chicken pot pie in A Bird in the Pie is Worth Two in the Bush Monday night at 11:30pm on Food Network.

Here are the three recipes from this episode:

Medieval Game Hen Pot Pie

Individual Chicken Pot Pies

Chicken Biscuit Pot Pie


This episode is available on iTunes.

New Good Eats Monday: Devil's Food Cake and Red Velvet

Alton Brown reverts from healthy to dessert this week with a show on Devil's food cake and red velvet cake.  Yum!  After a mostly straightforward show last week, I'm hoping for some more entertainment to go with my Good Eats this time.  I expect a certain Good Eats devil to at least make an appearance.  Once again, the new episode does not air until 11:30pm.  I'm starting to wonder what, if any, plans Food Network has for Good Eats in the future.

New Good Eats Monday Night: Chickpeas

Finally, a new Good Eats airs Monday night, but not until 11:00pm.  Chickpeas is the topic and I'm looking forward to this one.  We eat a good bit of hummus and falafel at my house; both of which are covered in this episode.  As always, it will be interesting to see Alton's take on these recipes.

Alton Brown Appearances

Alton Brown is currently making the rounds at a few fundraisers and other speaking events.  Yesterday he gave a presentation at Georgia State University.  College students are great with cameras, so there are probably some videos on YouTube already.

This weekend:
Alton will be doing a fund raising appearance at the school his daughter attends; the Walker School in Marietta, Georgia on Saturday.

Coming up in March:

Alton will be at the Hippodrome Foodie Experience in Baltimore, Maryland March 19th.  Tickets start at a hefty $94, but does include an aftershow tasting event.

Alton will also be making an appearance at a gumbo cookoff which is raising money for people affected by the Gulf oil spill and for the Dauphin Island Sea Lab in Dauphin Island, Alabama.  The March 26th event tickets range from $125 - $130.