Have you seen this cooking freak?!

Alton Brown has a really good show called Good Eats on Food Network.

Sure it's fun, it's informative, educational but most importantly almost everything he makes is from scratch. Using basic components he teaches how to make food and at the same time why it becomes food.

Most of his recipes are aimed at fun, tasty or popular recipes but almost all of them include concepts that are useful for a prepper, how to use yeast and why it works, how to make pickles, making soup stock, BBQ, smoking foods, brisket... I could go on but you just need to go check it out if you haven't had the experience. Shoot, he even understands sourdough and cast iron pans, I'd love to show him how to cook nettles and cattails, he's already familiar with dandelions though.

While I love to learn things, Good Eats is one of the few programs on TV that entertain me at the same time I learn things.

There was a recent post on LifeHacker about Depression Cooking, I'd love to see his take using today's concepts and locally sourced foods. I think it would have to be about 4 episodes to do it justice, though I could easily see a full season. Bread(again), cheese(again), jerky(again), sausage(again), sprouts, yogurt; well maybe he's been in our back yard all along and we just didn't see it.

Honest, his brisket recipe (while traditional and not innovative) really works like a champ, it's what worked for 100+ years and he's right to push it, screw the health issues for a treat. His clay pot smoker works great here and while I have my own food dehydrator, his box fan dryer would be an awesome addition in the summer when I have the fan on anyway.

Rick