Alton Brown wants you to stop spending so much on your stupid kitchen tile

Alton Brown was in town tonight – on tour promoting his Good Eats 3.  

As always, he was patient, entertaining, and generous with his time. Bullet points, because after a year and a half-long truce, whatever it is that floats in the air in these parts that hates my eyes has gone to war again.  And they just want to shut. 

• As Brown fans well know, Good Eats is done except for a few specials in the can.   Repeats are now the highest-rated programs on the Cooking Network (not to be confused with the Food Network.) He’s trying to get FN to reach agreement to stream them on Netflix – and any and all fan encouragement is..encouraged on that score.
• He’s got a new series in the works called Alton Brown’s Food Files.  He’ll also continue with the Iron Chef franchise.  He remarked that his one appearance on The Next Food Network Star – during which he was (after the fact) accused of being “mean” to contestants  -  was so popular that he’s been asked to work on all the episodes of the next go-round of that series.  Not a surprise – that program is so wretched and the potential “stars” are so weak that Alton’s presence lifts the whole sad affair up almost enough notches to watch it.  Sometimes.
• He might write a book about his diet.
• He’s a licensed pilot and drives (?) his own plane around the country to these events.
• He answered a question about what his favorite vegan recipe was with a lengthy discourse about how vegans were pretty easy to bag because they are tired all the time and ended the answer with “spit-roasted.”
• He was very patient with the endless series of questions about what’s your favorite…….?  or who’s your favorite…….?  
• He’s a fan of bourbon.
• Said he’d thought he might do an international version of Feasting on Asphalt, but ultimately decided that Anthony Bourdain has cornered that particular market. I don’t know about that – they are quite different personalities, and I could enjoy both men exploring the exact same cultures, knowing that both would emerge with slightly different takes and emphasize different aspects.
• Brown took some online heat for his Fanifesto - setting out the limits for Alton-Fan Interaction and the reasons for them. But it’s really very reasonable – and especially so since he is so generous with his fans. He wants to be fair, to give everyone some time – and if a few monopolize that time with excessive demands, then it’s harder for him and for everyone else.  People with younger children (ahem)  and women who were pregnant were brought to the front of the signing line, and – as he said – he’d sign anything that wasn’t a body part or wasn’t alive.
• Oh, and in answer to a question about kitchen renovation he told a young couple to not waste their money on fancy tile and such, but to spend that money on a really boss stove.
• And then he fought Godzilla.

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