I'm Just Here for the Food: Food + Heat = Cooking by Alton Brown
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Book Reviews of I'm Just Here for the Food: Food + Heat = Cooking
Book Review: Experimentation encouraged
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is perfect for the inquisitive food geeks of the world. (My husband and I cook every day, and we've been to some of the best restaurants in California, and we certainly fall into that category.) If I do say so myself, I make the Best Chili Ever, and my recipe is my own hybridization of the basic recipe in this book and the method described in the chili cook-off story. My husband cooks some of the most consistently perfect steaks I've ever had (I like them seared crisp on the outside and rare and juicy on the inside), based on this book's "searing method" section and the steak episode of "Good Eats." AB's baking book is also good, but I cook more than I bake, so this is my favorite. Because this book is so much about appropriate technique and so little about recipes (as dozens of others have noted, this book has no photos, which I like -- glossy photos of dishes that have been painstakingly manicured by food artists set up unrealistic standards of food beauty) one can cook many excellent meals without having to pull out the book itself, once the key ideas have been absorbed. The diagrams on cuts of meat and their most appropriate cooking methods are extremely useful -- I use those for reference prior to shopping trips.
This is not an all-purpose cookbook, there are relatively few recipes, and some people seem to find the graphic design a bit much. If you are the type of person who wants to read cookbooks the way some people read novels (for example, if you're a fan of Cook's Illustrated) this is the book for you.
Book Review: Perfect read for the "Aspiring Food Scientist"!
Summary: 5 Stars
There are plenty of great reviews for this book, but I like it SOOOOO much I'm throwing my 2 cents' worth in so I can help get it up to a full 5 stars. The biggest complaint seems to be from people who were looking for a big book of recipes--but A.B. has never billed himself as a creator of exotic or unusual cuisine. A.B. has always been more about the science of cooking techniques with the food being happy by-product of your lab experiment. I can get all the great recipes I want from my other many-dozen cookbooks. What I get with A.B. are how's, why's, out-of-the-box ways to use equipment I already have in the kitchen, and a dare to do insane things with things normally not found in the kitchen IN the kitchen, for instance, building a brick oven inside my real oven. (Working my nerve up for that one still.) And even though you may not be getting "Alton's 1,000 Greatest Meals" you will still get to do some nifty cooking nonetheless, like dry-aging your own beef and poaching probably your first-ever succulent, moist chicken. (Having "mastered" the world's dryest chicken, this one alone was worth the price of the book.) It also has a FANTASTIC food safety section. If you're interested in doing more than just recreating a celebrity chef's latest hits (and probably learning some techniques you need to REALLY re-create those recipes), buy this book. It's everything you would have learned in Home Ec if your teacher had been even 1/10th as cool as A.B. "Good Eats" groupie or not, this is one great book!Book Review: This books makes curious people better cooks
Summary: 5 Stars
If you better understand *how* when you know *why*, and you learn best when entertained, I'm Just Here for the Food is your cookbook. It's actually better stated as a how-to-cook book organized by method of heat transmission, with some exceptions such as the chapter devoted to eggs. All the publishing details are done right here also, such as the index, bookbinding, color, readable typeface, and useful appendices and equipment and safety.Using sound science sugar-coated with humor, I'm Just Here for the Food aims to fulfill the adage that if you give a man a fish, you feed him for day; teach him to fish, and you've fed him for a lifetime. Alton may not teach you how to fish, but count on learning how, when, and why to grill, braise, fry, bake, poach and more.
This book is a perfect companion to his "Good Eats" TV show, as he uses and recommends the same techniques and tools throughout without being redundant on the recipes. Unlike some of his TV chef counterparts, Alton generally employs ingredients and utensils found well within a modest budget, and he doesn't clown around with flashy but impractical dishes meant to delight barking-seal audiences.
Beyond an excellent introduction to the culinary arts, this book is a flat-out milestone achievement in creative interdisciplinary education. If food and science were taught like this in US schools, America would be a nation of genius gourmands. Most importantly, however, it will arm you with the knowledge to cook up some seriously Good Eats.
Book Review: No Pictures?!? BAH!
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is an excellent introduction into the "how and why" of cooking. In a nutshell, it's a book devoted to understanding the "basics" behind searing, roasting, frying, boiling, braising, brining, and microwaving. What type of heat is used? What foods are best suited to the technique? What sort of pan works best? You get the picture.This is NOT a recipe book chock full of colorful pictures of prepared food, like you might see in a magazine. The book contains recipes, but these are provided mainly as illustrations of the cooking techniques described. The idea is to understand why recipes ask you to do the things they do, not to provide step-by-step instruction on "1001 Ways to Cook Chicken".
True, there are more in depth books out there discussing similar issues. This book doesn't require a degree in chemistry to read, and can also be quite entertaining. If you're new the science of cooking, I suggest reading this and then moving on to one of the more in-depth sources Alton happily provides in the back of the book. If you already know a thing or two about the science of cooking (or have a degree in chemistry), you might want to check it out at the bookstore before you buy to make sure it's what you want.
Finally, to those who incessantly complain about the absence of pictures. I'm sure if you can snap off a few arty shots of convective currents and the interaction of meat with 500 degree iron surface on a molecular level, Alton would be more than happy to include them in the second edition.
Book Review: Alton Brown Is The Smartest Man Who Ever Lived
Summary: 5 Stars
Well, give or take.
This book rules!!!! Food Network god Alton Brown, the 167th coolest life form in the galaxy, takes the same formula that makes his TV show so much fun to watch and turns it into a book that I just had to own the instant I saw it. Brown is so excellent because he not only cooks and creates among the greatest recipes anywhere, he also delves into the really neat science behind the culinary arts and in the process amazes, fascinates, entertains, tickles the funny bone, and gives the reader's brain a full scale workout.
HOW DID THIS MAN GET SO SMART?!
I think he's from outer space. I seriously do. No human being could possibly know all this stuff.
However this kitchen master came to possess the scientific know-how he does, he should be rightly praised by anyone who appreciates good eats (reference intentional) and the awesome processes that go on in what is seemingly the most mundane of culinary tasks. This book takes off where the TV show ends and...
...and I give up. I may be one of Alton's would-be groupies but I'm a mere mortal and I can't describe the cool things Brown does. Watch his show, read this book, bow down before the superior talents of this bespectacled uber-diety of kitchen nerds and chemistry geeks everywhere.
Somewhere far, far away in the galaxy, a planet that regards chefs and scientists like we do rock stars is missing its reigning superstar...and it's our gain!