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Alton Brown shares some of his life stories in his newest book, “Food for Thought.”
Shayan Asgharnia
If you’ve seen the Alton Brown-created Food Network series Good Eats, or Brown, 62, hosting Iron Chef America or Cutthroat Kitchen, among other shows through the years, you know he’s a bit on the quirky side. The fast-talking food-world star is known for his humorous food-science experiments, and as a witty, lively commentator who relishes the creative process of cooking even more than eating (“the joy is simply in the doing of it,” he likes to say).
Now Brown’s sharing some of his life stories in an entertaining new book, Food for Thought: Essays and Ruminations (Feb. 4), with tales from his childhood, which was divided between California and Georgia, where his family has deep roots. Then he’ll head off on his fourth and, he says, last big variety-show-style tour, "The Last Bite." An exhausting endeavor, he admits, with stops planned in at least 60 cities over the next four months.
The celeb chef recently talked to us from his home north of Atlanta, which he shares with his restaurant-designer wife Elizabeth Ingram, about his unique career and first memoir, what retirement might look like and more.
How does it feel to release a book that focuses on yourself more than food?
It scares the crap out of me. I spent years writing scripts and nine books, but never a book that necessitated the baring of private parts. So it’s frightening. I’m a critic first, so I’ve already gone through and redlined the book and written a negative review.
OK, I have to ask about one thing you wrote: Did you actually eat dog food as a kid, or were you joking?
Oh, no, there are no jokes there. Gaines-burgers dog food was a favorite of mine, and I have such fond memories that even now, talking to you about it, my mouth’s watering a little bit. I had a very, very odd culinary childhood. I would taste almost anything, and came to really appreciate very unusual things, at least for a kid.
You’ve been nice enough to let us share your biscuit recipe, and the description from your book of your grandmother Ma Mae’s biscuit-making in her Georgia kitchen. Was she a particularly good cook?
You know, people didn’t think about that. They would say, “Well, I’m just an old country cook.” And they meant it. Cooking was just a thing you had to do. So I’m not going to say that if she were alive today, we’d be begging her for recipes and whatnot, but there was something very genuine in her cooking, and I very much liked to be in the kitchen with her. She was a practical joker, and we would get into mischief, setting up elaborate pranks on people. So I remember mostly her laugh, and I remember this kind of sly, almost wicked sense of humor that she had.
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