Over the years, people have gotten to know Alton Brown the Performer: As the Bill Nye of food in Good Eats, the fast-talking host of Iron Chef America, the mischievous devil-on-a-chef's-shoulder in Cutthroat Kitchen—even a smarmy fish on Spongebob Squarepants. But, with his latest cookbook, EveryDayCook, the Food Network star promises that "this time, it's personal," and he means it.
In recent interviews with The New York Times and Wall Street Journal, Brown showed the side of his life that isn't carefully scripted for cable TV, openly discussing the death of his father when he was in sixth grade. Brown lived in Los Angeles until he was 7, and his family moved to northern Georgia. His dad, Alton Brown Sr., owned a local newspaper and radio station, and would bring his son advance copies of albums, which helped him cope with the shock of moving to a new town, and adjusting to life where he felt different than everyone else.
"Some of the kids didn't wear shoes to school, and I got beat up a lot because I couldn't keep my mouth shut," he wrote in an essay in the The Wall Street Journal. "I never made the transition and never fit in. I made some friends, but by and large, I knew I had crossed some cultural divide. When I look back on my childhood, my memories are surreal and framed like Wes Anderson movies."
On the last day of sixth grade, Brown's father was found dead in his family home with a bag taped over his head. The police ruled it a suicide, the The New York Times reported, but Brown feels differently. "In addition to owning the radio station, he owned a small newspaper in the next county that wound up pissing off the wrong people," he wrote in WSJ. "They never figured out if it was suicide or murder, but my dad was hardly the suicidal type."
Those experiences may have led to Brown's intense work ethic, which includes doing about 140 performances a year in his music-meets-cooking tour, Eat Your Science. Aside from being on the road for the shows, he divides his time among his home of Marietta, Georgia, and America's two entertainment hubs, New York and Los Angeles. That bustling pace doesn't leave much time to sit and stare at the clouds—or dwell on anything.
"I think I've built a life that's based on running away from my life," he told the Times.
In a sense, the cookbook has been a way Brown's working out life's big questions. As he went through the recipes that have been a large part of his daily routine, he struck something deeper than a listing of his favorite foods or what he eats in a day.
"It's 'Who the heck am I?' time," he said. "I've spent years projecting and presenting this thing, but in the end, what am I? I thought it was important to put something on paper."
Brown admits he's not where he thought he'd be at this stage of his life, but he feels far wiser. It's wisdom hard-won—the kind that comes in between takes, that isn't punctuated by a laugh track or a round of applause.
Recipes may be easy to follow; real life is far from it.
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