Rating: 
Summary: Wealth of Knowledge - High on Wit...
Review: 'If you have to ask, you won't understand,' is a phrase that might very well apply to this, Alton Brown's literary Maiden Voyage. Host of 'Good Eats', the Food Network's most eccentric (and best, in this reviewers opinion) cooking show, Brown is not here to teach you how to make a fine, delicate Veloute (though one gets the distinct impression that he could teach us), or how to utilize the trendiest ingredients, techniques, and garnishes. Instead, he takes some of the basic, classic dishes and methods, explains why they work, and shows us not only the best way of doing something, but also, perhaps more importantly, how to avoid disasters. It's here where Brown really shines as a writer...his descriptions (aided by clever pseudo-1950's-pop-culture-kitsch artwork and diagrams) really spring off the page, and are often quite humorous. What better way is there to show us why we shouldn't bring water near hot oil than to show a little cartoon guy exploding, for example? It's funny, and it gets the point across. Sure, most 'seasoned' cooks/chefs/gourmets/food snobs know most of this stuff already, but never before has is been shown to us in such a fresh, original, witty way. I defy you to not learn a thing or two while also laughing yourself silly while reading this book! Highly recommended!
Rating: 
Summary: Brown brings a healthy irreverence to cooking
Review: I was amused to see that Publisher's Weekly says Alton Brown "brings an MTV style to food and cooking." Isn't it funny that anything that appears even slightly irreverent gets labeled as MTV style? In this case, the MTV reference is wildly off-base and ill-considered. Mr. Brown is plenty reverent. His approach is to define--albeit in a concise, readable manner--what makes food cook. In spite of the goofball book design (rendering some pages all-but-unreadable and dropping this to a 4-star volume), there's a lot of good stuff here, which is more than I can say of MTV during the past few years.Anyhow, what Brown does so well in this book (and on his TV program) is to remove a lot of the pretense in cooking to ensure that his reader really does understand the elements of the craft. I find his self-effacing approach refrshing, and it is in sharp counterpoint to so many of the current hoarde of cooking program hosts who throw off so much jargon and inside information that their "instruction" becomes just so much self-congratulatory noise. Kudos to Alton Brown, who seems to say "nuts to pretense--let's just get the job done!" Brown takes great pains to disseminate a LOT of information in this book. At first, I was a little offput by the spare and poorly edited text. If you can ignore the sloppy design work and the numerous text errors, and get into what Brown is actually writing, his prose is elegantly to the point and thorough. I never found myself wanting more information, and I found his explanations pretty much in line with real world cooking (while some techniques are decidedly for experts, he manages to make them doable for the majority of amateur-yet-serious cooks). This is a fun book and, in spite of its bizarre design--and several glaring mistakes in the text--it deserves a spot on any serious cook's bookshelf.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book
Review: Alton Brown does and outstanding job of explaining and illustrating how things work in the kitchen or grill. His illustrations are humorous and easy to grasp. Learn how heat is really transferred to your food via different cooking methods and what that means to the outcome. The knowledge presented in this book will make you a better cook if you apply it. For example, the frying section provides great tips on how to keep your foods crispy and relatively low fat. It's simple science and it makes sense easily when presented in this book.
Rating:
Summary: Buy this for your son
Review: Worried that when your son leaves home for college or his first apartment he will live on pizza, beer, and leftover garbage heated in a microwave? This is the book for him. It teaches him what cooking is all about and how to do it. It tells him what equipment he needs. It gives him receipes for good food that he can actually make himself and the knowledge to be able to prepare food even without them. And it does all this in a form that will interest him and, more importantly, that he will not be embarrassed to have. The same can be said for old codgers who never learned how to cook except that, as other reviewers have alluded to, the book's design was clearly intended for those too young to need reading glasses.
Rating:
Summary: If you read cookbooks like others read novels...
Review: you'll love this book. Recipes in this book are used more as examples of techniques than as a quick resource for a particular recipe. (The ribs are super by the way!). REALLY enjoy Alton and his show and this is the perfect continuation of that. Hope his next book is in a recipe-book format with the scientific explantations along side. That would be the best of both worlds. I'm happy to add this to my Favorites Collection and will get his next book (when?) as soon as it comes out!!
Rating: 
Summary: Better On TV
Review: I have only recently discovered Alton Brown on the Food Network and was an immediate fan. Brown brings much of his likable television persona to his first book (and that's good) but he also brings an unnecessary dose of political correctness and some tricky graphics (and that's not nearly so good). If you can bypass the welding gloves (for barbeque safety) and the inference that your kitchen should be maintained like an operating room, there is a lot of good information (and good eats) here.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book on Cooking Techniques
Review: This isn't really a cookbook, it's a book on the science behind cooking. There are recipes, but they aren't the focus of the book. The point of the book is to teach you cooking techniques so you can build your own recipes. If you're like me and rarely follow recipes exactly as written, this is the book for you. There is also some info on what kind of things to look for when buying cookware. The only problem I have is that when I want to find one of the recipes in the book it is very difficult to do so. The book is arranged by cooking technique and the recipes usually have humorous names. If you can remember the name it's no problem, just look it up in the index. It would be great if there was a cross-refence arranged by food types to help you find recipes. I love the author's TV show, "Good Eats" so I thought I would get this book. If you like the show you will like this book. It has all the things I love-- cooking, science and humor.
Rating:
Summary: Great book for the curious and the knowledge-hungry
Review: Reads more like a science text than a cookbook, but everything is well explained and fun to read. I find myself reading it for entertainment. I consider myself a good cook, but there's a lot in here I didn't know or thought I knew but was wrong. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: every kitchen needs this book
Review: Every kitchen should have "Cookwise" and this book. Even if you are not into the science thing, understanding how and why things work, make you a better cook. Alton Brown makes it fun, sort of a cooking/science for dummies approach. In addition, Alton's quirky attitude and sense of humor make this more that just a cookbook. This is not only "Good Eats" it's a "Good Read."
Rating:
Summary: A cookbook that respects your culinary intelligence
Review: You can trace a picture, but can you draw? You can play a chord, but can you compose? You can follow a recipe, but can you cook? Most of us know very little when it comes to why cooking works. To truly answer that question would require an advanced degree in bio-chemistry... I'm Just Here for the Food is the next best thing. This book provides readers with knowledge... and then lets them go. Be warned if you do not like to experiment, this may not be the book for you. But if you want to arm yourself with a sword of heat and charge into the battle which is the kitchen, there is no one who can better get you there than Alton Brown.
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