Alton Brown Live! The Edible Inevitable Tour
Last Thursday I got the chance to meet one of my favourite culinary heroes today: Alton Brown.
When I heard that the 52-year-old Food Network star was going to be in Toronto for his Edible Inevitable Tour, I was eager to get a ticket. Best known for his educational and entertaining show Good Eats, Alton has also acted as the main commentator for Iron Chef America and currently hosts the culinary game show Cutthroat Kitchen which airs on the Food Network.
He was just as personable and quick-witted as he is on television when I met him in person for a flash signing earlier on in the day. The show took place at the Sony Centre the same evening, and Alton’s yeast sock puppets kept the audience entertained before the show was about to start. Beginning promptly, Alton explained that the show was basically going to be an outlet for doing “everything I can’t do on TV”.
He opened the show with a catchy rap called “TV Chef” (complete with Adidas and a gold chain) which is a satirical look at his profession in the industry. Canadian floor commentator Kevin Brauch was also in attendance at the show that night as part of the audience (even got Alton a beer)! There were a couple other musical numbers, including a folksy number in which is played his guitar (what a multi-talented guy!). One of the funniest parts of the show (and they were many) was when he told his “Chickens Don’t Have Fingers” story about his disdain for the popularity of children processed chicken fingers. Trying to scare his young daughter and her friends by frying up some chicken feet was quite the prank. He also told a story about how he choked back some trout ice cream on Iron Chef.
A photo posted by Now You’re Cooking (@yourecooking) on
The most awe-inspiring portion of the show was seeing the “Mega Bake”, which was basically a grown-up version of an Easy Bake oven x 30, that harnessed stage lights to produce over 50,000 watts of energy. He then used said Mega Bake to bake a pepperoni pizza from scratch in 3.5 minutes with an audience member (who he miraculously converted from being a vegetarian… at least for that slice).
Using two fire extinguishers, water cooler jugs and duct tape, Alton brought up another volunteer from the crowd to make “Jet Cream”, which instantaneously produced some seemingly delicious chocolate ice cream (it’s a good thing they gave out ponchos for people sitting in the front rows. Besides the opportunity for the audience to go on stage, another thing I liked about the show was that he had us get involved via Twitter: if we had a question we can post it (with a selfie) via that social medium and had the opportunity to showcase it later on in the show.
Two and a half hours of pure entertainment. Tickets were well worth the money, even for people who might not have been familiar with the Food Network star. I’m sure each person in attendance walked away with some new nugget of culinary information, and at least a few laughs about Alton’s life experiences with food. Mad science + comedy show + food experiments.
Alton Brown is one talented and intelligent individual. Not only has the celebrity chef produced and starred in several successful television shows, but he’s also written several books, like “I’m Just Here for the Food” which combines the science of cooking with history and pop culture.
If you missed out on your chance to check out his tour, at least try to catch a few episodes of Good Eats. It’ll open your mind (and stomach) to the culinary world.