Andy Chase

...And a new refrigerator, and a dishwasher, and a few more kitchen appliances - practical ones that will be used all the time; I'm not talking about salad shooters.



I've been watching Good Eats religiously since my friend Jason clued me in to the show, and I've made a few of the recipes featured on the show. It's a testament to Alton Brown's excellent research and communication skills that each one has been a success on the first attempt. (A note to anyone considering making the "40 Cloves and a Chicken" recipe - you may want to go easy on the actual eating of all those cloves of garlic unless you've got at least 8 people there to split the dish. That's all I'm going to say.)



Just the other day I found that Alton Brown has a web site apart from the recipe section at FoodTV.com. Not surprisingly, this web site can be found at AltonBrown.com. It relies a little bit too heavily on the cryptic icons, sliced graphic table layouts, and popup windows for my tastes - after half a year spent at Stan Lee Media, all I can think of when I visit a site like that is what a pain it must have been to build, and what a pain it would be to update. But unlike many such eyecandy sites, there's some good stuff there - and it definitely leaves you wanting more.



In particular, I was excited to see that they're selling (or will be, once they can catch up with demand) a salt cellar very much like the one Mr. Brown uses in just about every episode of the show. I've taken to using kosher salt for cooking, and pouring it out of that big square box is really cumbersome - I'm looking forward to that wide mouth and flip top.



I'm also looking forward to the 'plunger' style measuring cups they're promising later this year; talk about your union of form and function!



I like cooking, and the more techniques I pick up from FoodTV (mostly Good Eats, but I glean stuff from other shows now and then) the more adventurous I'd like to get... but our kitchen is so cramped and bereft of core appliances (mixer, food processor) that there's only so much you can do in the space provided.



It doesn't help that our refrigerator, which came with the building, is about 30 years old and has a hard time keeping anything frozen come summertime; you can't freeze meat you haven't used yet, nor can you freeze leftovers. Plus it's probably responsible for about 50% of our outrageous electric bill.



:::sigh::: In the meantime I can watch and file nuggets of information away for the future. The kitchen of wherever it is we eventually move to will receive careful scrutiny.