Rating: 
Summary: Amazing Book for Cooks...
Review: I got this book after watching Good Eats on Food Network, and I totally fell in love with the ways food is explained here. The book is the TV show in paper. A true best buy for cooks and cooks wannabe.
Rating:
Summary: You've gotta love it!
Review: I'm a huge Alton Brown fan. I was hooked on his show the minute I tuned in. This book was given to me for my birthday and I believe it's the first cookbook that I've read through. It is filled with so much valuable information and, of course, the recipes are great. For those not familiar with Alton Brown, his show is very educational. He not only tells you what to use, whether it's an ingredient or a kitchen gadget, but he tells why to use that particular thing. It's all very scientific! My 6 year old daughter is a big fan too. I've been watching food network for a while and she never cared to watch it until her and I just happened upon Good Eats one night. The book is over her head but I've referred to it many times and have done a couple of recipes so far. BTW, the baked potatoes are perfect!
Rating:
Summary: OUTSTANDING!!!!!!!!!!!!
Review: Alton Brown's book is the first user friendly, how and why cook book I know of. The author takes a fun, slightly twisted but good natured approach to tell readers how and why things happen with cooking food. The Lucy/Ethel candy conveyor analogy is worth the price of the book alone. If you buy this book and learn its content, you actually might learn how to cook without a recipe. If you know how to cook, but didn't know about food chemistry, here's a great introduction to answer all those questions you didn't even know to ask. Readers should take note of safe food and equipment care threaded throughout the book. Food-bourne illness is nasty thing. Not many celebrity Chef's seem to talk about it. Thank you Alton for saying food can make you sick or perhaps kill you... here's how to prevent it.
Rating:
Summary: If you want to learn how to cook...
Review: If you want recipies, this isn't the book for you. Sure, there are recipies in the book, but the real focus of the book is on learning how to cook. Early in the book, Alton compares recipies to step-by-step directions to a location. But what do you do if a road is closed, or you can't turn left at a certain corner. If you don't already know the area, what you need is a map. This book is a map. Cooking is defined as appling heat to food. The organization of the book is around the various methods of heating foods. The central theme is to understand how different kinds of heat affects different kinds of food. If you love the Food Network's show, Good Eats (host, Alton Brown), you'll enjoy this book. Alton brings the same instructive nature and moves it from film to paper. But don't expect to find any of the recipies from the TV show here. It's all original material. (Okay... There are a couple of paragraphs that have been uttered on the show. But we're not talking recycled material here.) So, if you want to learn how to cook, this book is for you. If you want a recipe book. Go someplace else, and then come back here when you're ready to learn how to cook!
Rating:
Summary: very, very good
Review: I'm Just Here For The Food is very, very good.Like "Good Eats," it is informative, stylish, and occassionally hilarious.However, if you're looking for backstage dish about the program, you won't find much here. To me, that's NOT a drawback.This is a real teaching book, like Shirley Corriher's CookWise, and some of the matierial overlaps. However, while CookWise can go into detail (and usually fascinatingly so,) I'm Just Here For The Food might be compared to the Utne Reader. That is- it's smart, well written, and concise.The illustrations are well chosen and often amusing.This will be a classic food book, and a valuable look at the foodways of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Rating:
Summary: If you like the show, you will love the book
Review: This book presents it's information with a mix of humor and insights. This isn't a step-by-step recipe book, this is a 'why' book with recipes. From the etymology of barbecue, to equipment choices, this book covers a lot of ground. Alton Brown had me laughing out loud one minute, and saying "Oh! I always wondered about that" the next. (much like his TV program 'Good Eats') The design of this book also had a lot of thought put into it. Nice illustrations and interesting sidebars, good use of color and nice paper choices added to the pleasurable read. Pull up your chair, toss some kosher salt over your shoulder, and enjoy a great book.
Rating:
Summary: Alton rules
Review: This is the bible of cooking for anyone who is a Myer-Briggs type NT. Alton explains the why of cooking rather than the just what. While I don't dig every recipe, by know why I can make it suit me. Truly the best cookbook since the original betty crocker (circa 1950s).
Rating: 
Summary: Love it, love it, love it....BUT...
Review: Alton Brown is my television hero. Ever since I saw the first episode of Good Eats, I have been addicted tto his style and his blending of culinary science and up-to-date wit.
When he finally put out a book, I went straight for it. I bought it immediately, and read it cover to cover. Readers will learn a LOT about why and how their cooking happens, and will have a few recipes to try their new knowledge out on. But, the reason I can only give it four stars is the seemingly minimal amount of recipes per cooking technique. It just seemed a bit odd. Also, there was a very abrupt ending of the book before the appendix starts. Jumping between those two pages was like ending a relationship without having closure.
It almost broke my heart.
Rating:
Summary: FOR "HOW IT WORKS" NUTS!
Review: I'm very much into how things work and why. I seem to learn things better when I know the how's and the why's of things. Alton Brown is aparantly the same way. His book is informative and is written in such a way that it is entertaining and not at all like a text book. There are some good recipies in the book, but the whole idea of the book is to learn the basics of cooking so you don't need recipies. I definately recomend this book to anyone serious about cooking. If you like the show "Good Eats" you'll love Alton's book.
Rating: 
Summary: Alton Brown's reach exceeds his grasp
Review: In the interest of being objective I must disclose that this book is not what I expected it to be. It was my hope that the book would contain a large amount of information and recipes from the "Good Eats" television show. As anybody who has watched the shows and gone to the web to get a recipe knows - the recipes are just a series of steps that have none of the details from the show. This leads me to my main criticism of the book. All of the recipes are short and have little of the detail viewers are accustomed to getting. At the very start of the book Mr. Brown aspires to be a "culinary cartographer" laying out recipes as maps instead of just instructions so that followers can gain a deeper understanding of what is happening. In describing cooking methods he partially deals with this but not to the degree I had hoped. When it comes to the recipes readers are left without a compass. There are definitely some good parts of the book where experienced cooks can cull some extra information. I found the sections on cleanliness and the basic culinary toolbox very informative and wished there were more sections like them which brings me to my final point. These sections are different in that Mr. Brown shares wisdom that he has gleaned over the years as opposed to raw knowledge of what happens when you boil water in a microwave. If you are looking for a book that explains how recipes tick I would recommend "The Best Recipe" instead.
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