GoodReads Review: I'm Just Here For The Food

I'm Just Here for the Food: Food + Heat = Cooking by Alton Brown
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is not a cookbook: it's a mad-science exploration of cooking. Alton Brown explains the chemistry, physics and processes of the foundational methods of cooking food, breaking them down with hilarious commentary and consistent precision. Throughout the book, he explains the inaccuracies in home equipment and how to combat them ... at an extent that is frankly ridiculous for any but the most neurotic, but it certainly is entertaining to ponder - and that's the point. But no, I won't be melting ice cubes on my grill any time ... wait, I don't have a grill. I digress.

This book is accessible and laugh-out-loud funny, and also a little disturbing - anyone who gets just a liiittle lackadaisical about kitchen sanitations practices will no longer feel that way after seeing the breakdown of hazards in actions we take for granted. And as I said above, it is not a cookbook: while there are recipes, explained with the same clarity and precision as the text, they tend to be fairly standard and iconic - blueprints rather than the specialty products of Brown's kitchen and cookery.

This is definitely a sit-down-and-read book rather than a flip-through book, and it holds up very well to this kind of intensive review. Recommended.

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