As promised, the report of Alton Brown's Miami cooking demo in December from my correspondent on the scene. Ok, I just got lucky, but I'm excited she wanted the share this with us! Just wish I was there too. So without further ado AB in Miami... Hi there. My name is Holly and your gracious webhost and resident fangirl has agreed to let me share with you my recent Alton adventure. THE SECOND I saw the posting for Alton Brown’s demo in Miami I scored myself a sweet (front row) seat, which included a VIP food tasting and a meet-and-greet with the man. I jumped on a plane, got a bitchin hotel room and made a weekend of it.
The event was at the beautiful Arsht Center for the Performing Arts,
right across the street from my hotel. I arrived embarrassingly early and was greeted at the door by a smiling usher with a clipboard. She asked if I’d like to ask the chef a question and gave me a sheet of paper. I jotted my question down and turned it in, including the stub from my ticket and my name. Proceeding to VIP registration, I got the skinny on how the meet and greet would work and was given a green bracelet to show that I was legit. Once the doors opened and we were allowed to head in, I had to restrain myself from actually running to my incredible front row seat. My knees were honestly 6 inches from the stage, my neighbors joked about us being in “the spit zone”. I quickly made friends with the folks sitting around me, trading stories of seeing Alton before and of our favorite episodes of his shows. The fantastic couple sitting right next to me was an absolute riot. He asked me if I had brought anything for Alton to sign. Honestly, I am more of a picture-getter than an autograph girl, but I figured I’d have him sign my ticket and call it good. I asked what he had brought and he said “my Shun bamboo butcher block from my knife set.” Terribly impressed, I asked if they were the Alton’s Angles and he said yes and that he loves them. I looked over at his wife and her purse is this giant bulging leather square clearly housing the full size butcher block. She knocked on it and gave a fantastically funny thumbs up, “you’re a good wife” I said. “Well, it’s his Christmas present” she said with a smile. “It’s mine too,” I replied. I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned around to find the same usher smiling at me. “Are you Holly?” yes I am “you have been selected to ask the chef your question” WOW!!!! I could hardly believe it. She told me that she would come get me at the halfway point and we’d go to the right area for the questions. At this point it didn’t occur to me that I would be spending any length of time away from my seat. As it turned out, I was in a much lesser seat for the entire second half of the show. Sadly, I missed the opportunity to have Alton cook 10 feet away. Make no mistake, it turned out to be worth it.
Alton was introduced and humbly walked on stage to REM’s “The
One I Love”, a very nice touch as he directed that video. The first hour of the show was hosted by Michelle Bernstein, a noted Miami chef and James Beard Award winner. She also appeared on season 2 of Iron Chef America in battle onion and, according to Alton, “smoked” Bobby Flay. The first portion of the show was an interview-style conversation and they obviously like each other quite a bit. Their rapport was fun, comfortable and friendly; teasing often and laughing easily. This segment addressed most of the frequently asked questions concerning all things AB. How long do you prepare for Iron Chef, how long it takes to film Good Eats etc. Alton was funny and candid and shared some great stories about his shows and his life in general. Mentioning that he was initially offered the Chairman position on ICA. “Could you imagine?” he did the allez cuisine gesture and it was too funny, “I’d be booted after one season.” Included was the awesome tale of his decision to go to high school homecoming wearing, rather than the more popular powder blue tuxedo, a lime green leisure suit. “It was a crossroads; my life would never be the same.” Clearly dancing to the beat of his own drummer early on. They talked for about an hour and when it was time to cook, the usher came and collected me and we went to the other side of the auditorium.
I watched the cooking segment from a much lesser seat for sure, but I was so absorbed by the goodness that I hardly even noticed. Truth be told, I didn’t even take any pictures during this part, I just watched and enjoyed. He made Crepes Suzette, citing a wonderful memory of his mom taking him on a train trip out of California and being served the crepes by servers in white gloves who finished the dish tableside. He mourned the disappearance of the “lost art” of graceful and gracious, professional food service. I happen to be a gourmet food server who takes serious pride in the high caliber of service I provide so this sentiment definitely spoke to me. His executive chef at Be Square, Tami, assisted and proved to be a great co-conspirator for the duration. They laughed and teased each other, flinging undesirable crepes to all corners of the stage, even tossing them to the two Johnson and Wales culinary students on the stage. As it turned out, those poor kids took some serious ribbing, having to catch flying measuring spoons and oranges mid-air while fielding some rivalry from the Cordon Bleu students in the audience. The CB crowd drew a comment from Alton in response to their shouts of “we love you!” “You’ve been drinking” was all he could say. He joked and grooved through 45 min of cooking, even cracking an egg on what he recognized as an “$80,000 camera,” making orange supremes with a pocket knife and drinking Grand Marnier from the bottle. Tami quickly asked “did you just drink from that bottle?” a hasty shake of the head and a simple “no” followed. The whole time, he was fielding audience questions that were lobbed at him. He talked a bit of smack about only 2 people. When a guy near the front mentioned Rachel Ray, he asked him if he cooked her recipes and when he said that he does his comment was “are you alright?” When someone shouted out “Gordon Ramsay” his head snapped up, he dropped everything in his hands (I’m talkin' skillet, spatula, towel, everything) and marched to the edge of the stage. Tami muttered “oh Lord, don’t get him started”. He said, QUITE PASSIONATELY, “If you are one of the 5 best chefs in the world, YOU’D BETTER ACT LIKE IT! There is NO REASON to be mean and nasty to people just to be on television. End of lecture.” and walked back to his station and picked up the food right where he left off. Too cool. When someone asked with whom he would like to work, Alton said he would be “honored to work anywhere with Mario Batali or Bobby Flay.” Iron Chefs clearly do reign supreme.
The cooking segment wrapped up and the ushers collected the small handful of us that were selected for questions and moved us to the side of the stage. I was first and was directed to an area of the audience floor that was right in front of the stage (ironically just feet from my empty seat). Alton walked to the edge of the stage and said hi. Michelle Bernstein handed me a microphone and he asked where I was from. When I said Las Vegas, he asked if I had won my trip to Miami. I told him that no one wins in Las Vegas and he laughed out loud. He asked what my question was and I said “Is there any one thing that you think America has contributed to the cannon of world cuisine?” His answer was “in that there is one true form of American music… Jazz, I think that the one true form of American food is barbecue.” I asked “regardless of the region? Texas, Kansas, Carolina, Caribbean?” He answered with “it’s all Caribbean. That’s where the Europeans first landed and wiped everybody out.” We bantered for another minute and I said thank you, he said thanks for the question and I headed off. The next person to ask a question was this very cool cat named Frank. He asked about nontraditional mixing of ingredients (i.e. chocolate and wasabi) and AB’s response was “respect the ingredients and let the cards fall where they may.” Frank came off the floor and stood right next me, both of us giggling like kids. We became friends immediately. When the show ended, we decided to head over to the VIP reception together and chatted with the others walking with us. It became clear that I was the winner of the Who Came the Farthest to See Alton contest. No one could believe I would come all that way, ha!
At the reception we had a couple of complimentary cocktails and ate one of everything that came by us on a tray. Crepes Suzette, a savory crepe with spinach and chicken, scallop mousse in filo dough and salmon with mushroom in puff pastry were the selection of AB’s recipes offered. All amazing, period. After about 10 minutes, AB entered the room (huge applause)
and camped out at the front near a table and started signing things for people. Frank and I finished our plates and drinks and headed over to get in line. There was no real organization to the line, just sort of a semi-circle with people edging in where they could. Alton would work one row of the crowd and then start over at the beginning and make another pass. When it was my turn, he asked if he could sign something for me and I handed him my ticket. He asked who he should sign it for, I said “Holly”, he looked up at me, recognized me from the show and said “oh, you’re THE Holly” yes I am. I told him that I loved an obscure song that he had listed on his itunes playlist posted on his website this summer and that I thought that no one else liked it. He laughed, “Well, it’s just you and me.” I agreed. We took a great picture, Frank included, and we stepped out of line. Alton then moved to the other side of the line and was taking pics with the people I was sitting next to, so I wanted to get some shots of those folks. He went on to sign, photo and chat with everyone in line. Graciously accepting compliments and sincerely thanking everyone for their copious praise. The crowd was about gone and it occurred to me that, no offense to my new friend Frank, I really wanted a pic with just AB and me. I walked back up to Alton and asked if I could have a picture with just the two of us. He cheerily said “yeah, get in here!” I snugged in next to him, he squeezed me good and I squeezed him right back.
The venue was gorgeous, the show was fantastic, the food was amazing and the photos are treasured. My Miami adventure was absolutely incredible and is something I will, no doubt, be talking about for a very long time.
The thing that resonates with me the most from this whole experience, even more than the photo, is the fact that about 15 minutes into the meet-and-greet the director of the event came up to Alton and said “let’s start wrapping this up.” AB looked at all of us holding cameras, books and salt cellars to sign; all eager to have just a moment with him, and said simply “I’m not going anywhere.” He stayed for another hour. It was this moment of humility, grace and CLASS that defines my experience with Alton Brown. As we were about to leave, Frank went back and thanked him for what he said to the director and for staying longer. His reply was “if it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have a job.” I think that says it all.
When I first saw "Three chips for sister Marsha," the chewy version immediately jumped out and I had to make them. And this is one of the first recipes I tried from Good Eats.
If you can't see it, they suggest:
