I'm Just Here for the Food: Cook's Notes (Journal) [Spiral-bound]

Alton Brown (Author)

Book Description

Series: Journal | Publication Date: October 1, 2003

Devoted viewers of Alton Brown's Good Eats now have the perfect place to jot down their favorite tips and quips--as well as their own food notes. This journal, which echoes the design of Brown's best-selling I'm Just Here For the Food, makes a great gift for any foodie.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Alton Brown is the host of the Food Network's Good Eats. He began his TV career as a cameraman and commercial director, but when e wasn't shooting he was cooking and watching cooking shows, which he thought were dull and uninformative. Tired of the griping, Brown's wife, DeAnna, suggested they do something about it. They moved to Vermont, where Brown attended the New England Culinary Institute. During the years that followed, he concocted a new kind of food show, one that blends wit with wisdom, history with pop culture, and science with common cooking sense. Alton and DeAnna live in the southern United States with their daughter, Zoey, "one worthless hound dog," and an iguana named Spike.

Product Details

• Spiral-bound: 104 pages
• Publisher: Stewart, Tabori and Chang (October 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 158479299X
• ISBN-13: 978-1584792994
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,263,094 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

281 of 304 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars This is not a book. Do not buy it., September 15, 2003

By 

B. Marold "Bruce W. Marold" (Bethlehem, PA United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: I'm Just Here for the Food: Cook's Notes (Journal) (Spiral-bound)

If Alton Brown saw this book at his local megamart, he would not buy it for all the reasons he recommends people go to hardware stores and restaurant supply stores to buy less expensive and more functional versions of high priced items. Do not buy this item. It is not a ?book?. It is simply a blank book with AB?s brand recognition mug on the cover. Must be the former advertising producer coming out. You will be much better served by going to the local office supply superstore and purchasing a small, inexpensive three (3) ring binder and a 3 ring hole punch to punch holes in all the recipes you download from the internet.

If AB really wanted to sell something for your 15 bucks, he would have:

1. Made it loose leaf bound instead of spiral bound, so that you could buy additional blank pages at the aforementioned office supply superstore, or even at the local drugstore.
2. Included a comprehensive set of unit of measure conversion tables.
3. Included tables of cooking methods and times for a wide variety of meats and vegetables. A perfect tie-in to the organization of the book whose success this item is milking.
4. Included tables of various flours and grains, and the things for which they are best used. For example, the best applications of: Bread flour, all purpose flour, cake flour, whole wheat flour etc. Similar things could be done for beans and lentils.
5. Included checklists of the best dry and fresh spices and herbs to keep on hand and the time it is safe to store them. The list should indicate which are best used fresh and which are quite acceptable used dry. Most sources, for example say that dry basil is a very poor substitute for the fresh herb while dry thyme is quite acceptable for almost all applications. A selected list of internet spice dealers would be peachy here as well.

I think AB should attone for this shameless marketing ploy by doing a ?Good Eats? show on how to economically store kitchen notes and recipes. If Martha Stewart can do it, I?m sure he can do an even better job.

78 of 82 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars blank journal, September 15, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: I'm Just Here for the Food: Cook's Notes (Journal) (Spiral-bound)

I would give a 5 star rating if I were looking for a blank journal. I am an avid Alton Brown fan and ordered this "book" months before it was published, expecting to get pearls of wisdom similar to his awesome book, "Food + Heat = Cooking" (which I would give 10 stars out of 5 if I could). I felt really foolish to find that I had ordered a completely blank journal. It actually is a nice one and contains a handful of quotes such as, "the least used utensil in the kitchen is the brain." I guess that is his whole point, "do your own cook's notes!"

169 of 190 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars It's BLANK!, September 13, 2003

By 

ciniminis - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: I'm Just Here for the Food: Cook's Notes (Journal) (Spiral-bound)

This is the last time I buy a book just because I had liked the author's other works. The description does say that it's a perfect place to jot down your favorite tips etc., but it didn't click in my head that this ISN"T A BOOK AT ALL because the title "Cook's Notes" means
Cook = Me
Notes = My Notes, not AB's

In short, this is A BLANK NOTE PAD with celebrity picture on the cover. A totally juvenile and 20th century merchandizing product. As much as I like AB's cooking show Good Eats, I would not have bought this had I known what it is. This is also not very much in the spirit of modern and scientific way of life/cooking for this day and age.

Recommended only for devoted Alton Brown fans who don't have a PDA.