Cooking Rules, You Idiots

Noticed a story about Alton Brown up on Wired today. I'm a fan of Alton Brown, although I don't go out of my way to watch his show. If it's on and I notice, I watch...even if I've already seen the episode, which is about as far as I take I take my fanaticism.

Anyway, there's nothing as satisfying as sitting down to a meal in a restaurant and being able to figure out how the dish you're enjoying was prepared so you can duplicate (or at least simulate) it at home. Understanding even just the basics of cooking will be enough to impress your friends, who probably eat mostly processed nastiness from boxes and fast food joints. I don't think my wife's "cooking" friend, who, upon witnessing me chopping onions and tomatoes commented, "oh I don't do any of that fancy chef shit, I just make Hamburger Helper," is that far removed from your Average American. A country where chopping onions and tomatoes for fresh red sauce is "fancy chef shit" is not the country my grandma grew up in, and frankly, is probably not a country where you can get a decent plate of spaghetti.