Alton Brown

Alton Brown (born on July 30, 1962 in Los Angeles, California) is the creator and host of the television show Good Eats, a cooking show on the Food Network. He is often described as a culinary version of  Mr. Wizard or Bill Nye because he brings a scientific and humorous approach to his cooking shows. Bon Appetite magazine named him "Cooking Teacher of the Year" in 2004. He also is the commentator on the show Iron Chef America, an American adaptation of the Japanese series Iron Chef.

Prior to his cooking career, he received a degree in drama from the University of Georgia. He then worked in cinematography and film production. In that field, he is probably best known for his work as the director of photography for the R.E.M. music video "The One I Love".

At some point, he noticed that he was very dissatisfied with the quality of cooking shows currently airing on American television, so he set out to produce his own show. Not possessing the requisite knowledge, he enrolled in the New England Culinary Institute, from which he graduated in 1995. Brown states that he had been a poor science student in high school and college, so he began to study the subject as he took cooking training and felt the need to understand the underlying processes of cooking.

The pilot for Good Eats first aired on the Chicago, Illinois PBS member station WTTW-TV in July 1998. The show was picked up by the Food Netwook in July 1999, and as of 2005, new episodes are still airing on that network. A self-professed nerd, he has quickly warmed the hearts of food lovers and nerd lovers alike. Brown seems to take particular delight in making tongue-in-cheek references to pop culture in his episodes such as an episode on hamburgers in which Brown lectures an actor dressed as cartoon character Wimpy (although not named as such for copyright reasons).

Many of the Good Eats episodes feature Brown building makeshift cooking devices in order to point out that many of the devices sold at conventional "cooking" stores are simply fancified hardware store items that are sold at grossly inflated prices, and are not as effective as his "homemade" gizmos. For example, in the episode "Flat Is Beautiful", Brown uses a flat quarry stone purchased at a hardware store as a substitute for a much more expensive pizza stone sold at a cooking specialty store. In an episode on barbecue, he made a barbecue smoker out of an electric hot plate, a pie pan, a flower pot (with basin), and a thermometer . In an episode devoted to coleslaw called "The Long Arm of the Slaw", Brown makes a more convenient shredding device by attaching a cheese grater to a folded cardboard pizza box. He has also expressed a penchant for items that are "multi-taskers" as opposed to "uni-taskers." For instance, in the episode "Choux Shine", he suggests that casual cooks should avoid purchasing a piping bag for applying a batter and instead use a plastic bag with a corner cut out. Brown repeatedly states that the only uni-tasker in his kitchen is a fire extinguisher.