I'm Just Here for the Food: Version 2.0
by Alton Brown
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Book Reviews of I'm Just Here for the Food: Version 2.0
Book Review: Hate I Waited So Long
Summary: 5 Stars
I'm not a fan of purchasing Food Network personality cookbooks since you can usually get the recipes online for free. I did buy a signed copy of AB's Gear for the equipment info and I dearly love it. When I found a signed copy of this one (Crate & Barrel) I couldn't pass it up.
This book is all and more of the food science in the show. It's organized by cooking method. There are chapters on brining, sauces and eggs. The appendix is substantial, which I love. There are the famous meat diagrams with the quirky magnets. The Basic Culinary Toolbox is a very, very condensed version of Gear. The notes on sanitation are good, I don't think I 've seen them in a cookbook before. Top Five Activities, A Selected Reading List,resource guide and metric conversion charts round out the section.
This book is dense. You don't have advantage of the easy-to-follow, cool, teach-by-quirky-demonstrations method of the show. No wonder it won a James Beard award. This doesn't mean the material is incomprehensible; you just have to concentrate more. As with Gear, I could care less about the recipes. The book's worth is as a reference guide. I hate I waited so long to buy this.
This book is for the curious cook. If you aren't interested in the "why" and just want recipes, you'd probably find it frustrating.
Book Review: Excellent. Learn how to cook. Or improve your technique.
Summary: 5 Stars
Having been a long-time Good Eats viewer, I knew that this book would be a fun gift for my foodie geek spouse. And it was so good that he lent it back to me.
If you have little to no previous knowledge of cooking, or are unsure of your techniques, this book will teach you how to cook the correct way from the start. Lots of information, theory, science, and humor make this book easy to read and incredibly informative. For example, if you ever wondered where the Boston Butt came from, there are diagrams (on refrigerator magnets) displaying where each cut comes from on a pig, lamb, chicken or steer.
If you already have been cooking for years, have only previously worked in professional kitchens or are confident with your technique, this book will help you hone your style to the home kitchen. You will likely come away with the book with a better appreciation for ingredients you may never have considered. And you might also finally make peace with certain techniques that may have plagued you in the past.
The recipes vary in difficulty but the comprehensive instructions make the book fantastics for cooks of all levels. It's a great addition to any home kitchen, or perhaps even as an elementary level text on basic cooking technique.
Book Review: Too much like a cook book
Summary: 4 Stars
As with most people who bought this book I enjoy the show, particularly the explanations of the science of cooking. The central theme of the book is heat: how to get heat to foods and how it affects the food. Unfortunately for me Mr. Brown spends a lot more time discussing getting heat to the food than the effects of the heat (I have an engineering degree and have taken advanced classes in heat transfer). I really would have liked to see more discussion of the effects than little snippets scattered throughout. Let me add one more aside: most of his explanations of the science are nicely simplified, but a couple of them are just plain wrong.
Overall however, my biggest disappointment (and with a four star rating you can see it's not a huge disappointment) is that Mr. Brown spends too much time telling the reader exactly what to do for a recipe and not enough time explaining the why. He does a lot of explaining why, but still spends too much on the what. In other words, the book is good, but still too much like a regular cook book.
A final note on humor: There's some good humor here. Not quite as good as the show, but still good.
Book Review: Fun, Interesting, Insightful, and Entertaining!
Summary: 5 Stars
I have always been a fan of Alton Brown. However like another review had said, am against buying merchandise from "sell-out" chefs... I got this book as a gift from a friend. Lucky Me!
An interesting read, from which I learned a lot more from then expected and reinforced/corrected a lot of the fundamentals that I already knew.
From the point of view of a home cook, this book would be a great aid.
Working in a professional kitchen, this book is great for filling in details that might not be fully understood.
I have tried a few of his recipes... well I haven't, but using the concepts have led to great results or desired effects. I have tried a couple recipes online (brined turkey - great by the way) so I trust his writings, but most likely won't try many of them, but definately will use the techniques and knowledge gained.
Plus the book is just fun to read. The writing captures his tone while keeping it interesting with side stories and introductions. The organization of the book is easy to follow and the fridge magnets are funny.
Book Review: Fun way to learn how cooking works
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this book to educate myself about how to cook for myself so that I wouldn't have to depend on restaurants my whole life. There's not much skill in paying another person to cook for you, but luckily, Alton Brown created a book to teach people the skills needed to cook food and how to understand what's really happening when you put your uncooked food through certain processes. I feel that this is a great educational book about cooking for beginners, however, even skilled cooks might not know the science behind cooking, so I recommend that everyone at least take a look at it if they like or are interested in cooking. I have been very satisfied by his humor and scientific insights (the free magnets that come in the second edition are nice bonuses).
I gave it 5 stars because not only is it rich in information about cooking food, but it is also rich in information about cleanliness, cuts of meat, the tools you actually need to cook,... you get the point.