Book Review: Alton Brown's Gear for Your Kitchen

This is a book I purchased back in 2011 when Alton Brown made his way to Cedar Rapids during his "Inside Out with Alton Brown" tour. So, it is actually a signed copy. Kind of cool!

When I had him sign it, I told him how the boys and I had been watching his show "Good Eats" quite a bit. At one point, one of the boys gave Kristen a hard time as she was cooking, and said "That's not how Mr. Brown does it!" He chuckled a bit, and said I better straighten those boys out.

I already had his three books from the "Good Eats" TV show, so I had to buy something that he could sign, and I chose this one. I figured it would be good to have a book going over all the ins and outs of various cooking tools. And by golly, what man does not like having more tools!

So you might be asking, why are you reviewing this book now? Well, I started on the book waiting in line to have Alton autograph it. But then never got much further. I just finished the rest of the book today.

Me and Alton Brown, 2011

The book itself is the distillation of all the tips, tricks, philosophies, myths and favortism towards the equipment Alton uses, basically as seen on the show "Good Eats". It doesn't have the same whimsical feel as when he visits "W" on the show, and is more just about the facts. Honestly, there is so much good information, I will probably have to refer back to it often.

I haven't gotten around to going through the kitchen to purge un-needed items as he suggests in the book (for example, eliminate all uni-taskers such as a garlic press), but is it tempting. But if I really tried to follow his guidelines, I think Kristen would ban me from the kitchen. I guess I'll just keep finding ways to store more stuff via reorganizations and clever hacks.