"Alton, well I'll just wait till after the tasting."

Two readers commented that they wanted to know what I was going to say to or about Alton Brown at the end of a post yesterday about him and coffee.

The actual plan was to do a paragraph or two in yesterday’s post berating Alton for suckering me into going to a store called Cool Beans where I suckered myself into spending a lot of money, as it turns out, unnecessarily. But the post was long enough as it was, so I quit while I was ahead.

(For those that didn’t read the comments to the coffee post, Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee, at $39.00 a pound, is, well, pricey. Good coffee, but too mild for my taste.)

That was pretty much it.

Now that I’ve explained that, I suppose I could critique Good Eats.

Before that I suppose I should do some prologue, as is usual:

"Prior to his cooking career, Brown received a degree in drama from the University of Georgia. He then worked in cinematography and film production. In that field, he is probably best known for his work as the director of photography for the R.E.M. music video "The One I Love." He also worked as a steadicam operator on the Spike Lee film School Daze."

Courtesy of Wikipedia.

I like the show, but less than I did a few years back. The show’s main hook is a geeky, scientific approach to cooking. I didn’t see as many molecule models in high school as I see on the show. It gets a little old.

The other theme is gadgets, lots and lots of gadgets. According to Alton, the only “unitasker” in a kitchen should be the fire extinguisher. He doesn’t really believe that, as evidenced by the probably twenty or so pots and pans that hang over the stove and the admittedly kind of cool “pushpop” measuring thing he uses to measure and plop:

"PLUNGER AND PLUNGER JR. Item: ABRN AB1001

Mayo. Molasses. Shortening. Peanut butter. Honey. Cooking with the really sticky stuff? – that’s when The Plunger becomes The Hero. Pile in the gooey ingredients to the perfect measure (cups, ounces, tablespoons, metric, whatever), and then squoosh out every last particle into your bowl by pushing on the base – no waste. The big guy is a 2-cupper, with Junior sidekick weighing in at 1 cup. Shipped as a two-item set, Plunger and Plunger Jr."

Senior and Junior are $13.88 for both. I didn’t look for S&H.

I do have the exact same colander he uses on the show.

And I want an electronic scale though I have no use for it.

I also want a “Pasta Express” shown on a late night infomercial. This handy item looks like a coffee press, it just costs more. You boil some water and pour it in and, magically it seems, in just about the same time pasta cooks in a pot, you have pasta cooked in the Pasta Express. After all “The Pasta Express features thermal conductivity, which allows the pasta to get thoroughly cooked while inside;” and that’s a direct quote from the website. When I saw the infomercial, I swear, my body contained no artificial substances, illegal substances or any combination of hops, malt, barley or yeast. I know this has nothing to do with Mr. Brown; but, like the scale and two plunger set, it is something that I want, but won’t buy.

For today, here’s my order of purchases, first a coffee conical burr grinder (yeah, I know I didn't talk about it, but I want one), then an electronic scale, only then the Express.

So, to sum up this review of Good Eats, I still watch it. That’s more than I can say for Emeril or Rachael Ray, without even mentioning Iron Chef, America.