Good Eats: September

​August comes to a close, but has brought with it the long awaited Good Eats: The Return. To honor this auspicious event here at Eating Normal, September’s cookbook of the month is Good Eats 3: The Later Years. When I ordered this  2011 cookbook from Amazon, I didn’t know what to expect. Good Eats was formative for my early cooking experiences, but its been so long. Let me tell you, this cookbook is a tome of knowledge.

Most of the books we have covered this year are equally as thick as Good Eats 3, but what matters is the condensed information. Each short section is broken down by season and further to episode. You get the recipes, but you also get all of the science-y goodness that Alton Brown brought to us during the Golden Age of Food Network. It’s packed tight with information that very well may make this one worth reading cover-to-cover in order to extract every bit of food science.

​Just holding the book fills me with deep nostalgia. On every page are frames of memorable film from the show. As a kid, I don’t think I ever tried to cook what Alton Brown showed me. Now, I have a chance. Which episodes will I focus on? Is there a specific, strong season I ought to highlight? The plan for our September Cookbook of the month is to do at least one recipe from each season for our cooks that month.

Speaking of Good Eats, did you know the premiere episode is on youtube already? If you’re a cable cutter like me, you’ll have to wait awhile to watch it all on Hulu, but at least they gave us the first episode on a free platform. I can tell you this much: it was like Alton Brown never left. The same jingle, the same format, and all the science we loved about the original. I was transported to the early 2000’s again for about 21 minutes, and it was glorious.

Of course, the episode was about chicken parmesan, which I won’t be able to replicate for myself and my husband. He hates tomato, and I shouldn’t have it anymore. Still, it was informative enough that even he sat next to me and watched the whole episode despite the content being a dish he doesn’t care for. That’s the power of Alton Brown and his food science vehicle, Good Eats.

Let’s celebrate this intense moment of food nostalgia together in the month of September with Good Eats 3: The Later Years. You can find your copy on Amazon, and if you haven’t seen the new episode yet, you can catch the premiere episode for free on Food Network’s youtube channel. Happy cooking!