Alton Brown is a Genius!

My friend Suzy and I went on an adventure last night to see Alton Brown at Buffalo State College. Suzy took tons of notes and I took tons of pictures and we are proud to offer this incredibly long and packed full of hilarity post on Alton the Awesome....

Suzy:
"I haven't been on Facebook much in the recent past...but thankfully the one day that I did happen to check out my Newsfeed, I saw my friend Annie's post about Alton Brown coming to Buffalo State for a lecture he calls "10 Things I'm Pretty Sure I'm Sure About Food".

And (thankfully) someone in the Universe really wanted me to go, because I already had my schedule for April when I saw the post on FB, and I was figuring I'd have to switch shifts with someone but I had tonight off, and I don't start work until noon tomorrow. 

It was meant to be!! W00T! :D So I headed to Buffalo around 5:30ish, to have dinner with Annie and her family. 

TACOS!! I effin love tacos...and these were really good tacos. Ideas for next time I make tacos at home... guacamole, and cilantro. Yummy! 

We headed to Buffalo State about 45 min before the lecture was to start...and we got okay seats to the side of the stage. But about 15 min before it all started, a huge chunk of "This Section is Reserved" seats opened up and we got much better seats right in the middle! Awesome!!

Alton Brown is AMAZING!! So funny, and sarcastic, hilarious and knowledgeable

...and awesome!! (When he first came out on stage though, I thought maybe he had gotten sick recently, cause he has lost quite a bit of weight...turns out he had been working on losing the weight, and had lost a total of 50lbs. He looks great!!)

I was taking notes during his lecture, so I'll list his "10 Things"...and a few of my favorite things that he said during the evening 

So..."10 Things I'm Pretty Sure I'm Sure About Food" (This Week)
1) Chickens don't have fingers
~ Chicken fingers are found on every 'Children's Menu' across the country. 

And it was the Children's Menu that was the start of the apocalypse...we gave children power that they shouldn't have! lol

2) The most important tool in the kitchen is the kitchen table
~ Without a table to gather around and eat on, there is not much point in cooking food.
~ The fabric of family life started to fail when people stopped eating together
~ The emphasis has changed from the sharing of food, to the preparing of food.

3) Raw isn't always fresh

~ The definition of Fresh: the state most like life.
~ Things that are picked across the country and spend more than 5 days to get to your table are not fresh, and can have lost up to 2/3 of their nutritional value.

4) The best cooking school is...eggs.
~ If you can cook eggs, you are good to go.

~ They are cheap, and even if you mess them up, someone will still likely eat them.

~ They are basically liquid meat. (Which is totally true, but gross to think about...lol)

5) You might as well embrace the pink slime
~ He talked a lot about that picture of pink slime that has gone back and forth across the internet.
~ He says it's not what everyone thinks it is. It's not what Chicken McNuggets are made out of, which is what I was told it was.
~ But it is gross meat product that is added to other ground meat to make it cheaper.
~ He says if you don't like it, to get a meat grinder and grind your own meat.
~ Until people stop wanting more for cheap, stuff like that will continue happening.
6) Nobody feeds you better than someone who loves you
~ Exception to the rule: Your Mother-in-law

7) People will eat more vegetables...

just as soon as someone grows some that taste better than Little Debbie's Nutty Bars

~ People need to start training themselves on how to taste real food.
~ Everything is fast and ready made, and full of fat, sugar and sodium.
~ During this section when a mother admitted to feeding her kid Little Debbie Brownies...Alton says "Why don't you just roll him a joint?!" Amazing!

8) Eating something the size of your head is probably a bad idea


Craziness!

9) Calories...plain and simple
~ And I quote: "If you put more of them in your pie hole than you burn...guess what is going to happen"

10) Everything tastes better with gratitude
~ He made a good point. It takes a lot of people to get the food on the plate in front of you...and you should start thanking more people for it. 

Some fun quotes:

"Wegman's isn't a grocery store! It's a vacation!"

"If nature couldn't do it, we probably shouldn't" (Talking about GM Foods)

"Why is it that people that always complain about stuff, don't know what they are talking about?" (In regards to people in the audience trying to explain what pink slime is...and all being wrong)

"Three things, and three things only that were the inspiration behind Good Eats (his show): Julia Child, Mr. Wizard, Monty Python"

I had SUCH a good time! I'm so happy I was able to go!

Alton was SO much fun! Witty and sarcastic, which made him totally more awesome, and he had no qualms about who he poked fun at. If you said something stupid, he poked fun of you, even if you were a kid!

I seriously can't believe how much I laughed during the lecture! I would definitely go to see him again if I ever could!"