Good Eats

It's no secret that I like to cook, and just looking at me tells you that I love to eat. Years ago in high school, a science teacher said something that always stayed with me, which was:

Cooking is chemestry.

Everything that happens when you cook is either a chemical process or the catalyst for a chemical process, and that includes mixing, heating, blending, baking... all of it. We use recipes to control those chemical processes in a way that leads to (hopefully) edible food.

Alton Brown has a show on the Food Network called Good Eats. In it, he digs deep into the why of cooking, and he's entertaining as hell doing it. If you haven't had a chance to see it, you really should. His shows generally focus on one narrow theme - for instance, fish & chips - and as he cooks, you get the story on what's really happening to the food as you prepare it. And knowing the 'why' of things helps you to understand why certain things are done and to avoid potential problems.

J-Walk Blog pointed out a nice feature about Alton Brown in Wired. It'll give you a better idea of why this show is one of my favorites on television.