Magnus Blog

Alton Brown has (to date) written three books. I’m just here for the food, Alton Brown’s Gear for your kitchen and I’m just here for more food.

Now, I’ve had the last one for a while (and expect a review for that one as well, but I’m doing these in order of publication), but for christmas I received I’m just here for the food version 2.0 (henceforth known as IJHFTF). It is called version 2.0 because it includes among other things 15 brand new recipes and a set of refrigerator magnets. Since I haven’t seen the first version of the book, I can’t really tell you which recipes are new. Sorry.

As for the book, it really is great. It kinda follows the spirit of Good Eats, it’s not just a plain cookbook with loads of recipes, it describes a lot of cooking methods and techniques very thoroughly (explaining how and why it works), and it also has good sections about certain food items, the most prominent example is the egg (but then again, who can blame him for having a big section on something as omnipotent as an egg). It also has a lot of recipes, and my testing of any recipe hailing from either Alton Brown or Good Eats has revealed that they do make good eats.

The book also has other sections that deserve to be read for example the “Reading a recipe” chapter, or perhaps the most important part in the book (and it is referenced a lot in the book), a section called “Cleanliness is next to…” which describes (you guessed it) sanitation, something that a lot of people (myself included) are sloppy with. For example, when you wash your hands to do your cooking, you may first use your finger to turn the water on, wash your hands throughly with some soap, and then turn the water of, again with your fingers, you might as well have skipped the washing, because the end result is that any bad bugs that were on your hands are still on your hands (you effectively contaminated the tap, cleaned your hands, and then contaminated them again).

If you however were to be able to operate your tap with your wrists or elbows (preferably the latter) you wouldn’t run in to a problem, because you don’t use your elbows for cooking.

All in all, IJHFTF is a very good cook book, which covers a lot of ground when it comes to cooking. Please note that it does not cover baking at all (that is covered by I’m just here for more food), and while it does cover some basics when it comes to tools I suppose (I have not yet read it, but I have ordered it, should arrive in about a week) that Alton Brown’s Gear for your kitchen is much much more through when it comes to tools.

My advice is for everyone to buy this book. The measurements in it is usually in avoirdupois (pounds and ounces, that is) when it comes to weight, and cups and the likes for volume (which is a bad thing to use for a lot of things, too many factors), which isn’t really a problem for me, cause I can pretty much convert that in my head, and there is a conversion chart to metric in the back of the book.