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Took my 13-year-old granddaughter Hallie to the Capitol Theater to see Alton Brown's "The Edible Inevitable Tour" Friday evening.
I know what you're thinking: "Who in hell is Alton Brown?" That's exactly what I thought when Hallie asked me to arrange a meeting with him.
Me: "Honey, is this Brown guy someone I'll have to kill later?"
Her: "No! He's a food guy on TV. Everyone loves him."
I wouldn't say everyone. After all, I didn't even know who he was. And neither did any of my loutish friends when I asked them. Except for Sonny, who not only is a great cook but demanded to know why I didn't take him to the show instead of my granddaughter.
"We could've asked Alton to manage our food show about cooking with artillery," he said. "Remember the cannonball casserole I made at Tavaputs?"
Long story short, Alton Brown "is an American television personality, celebrity chef, author, actor, and cinematographer. He is the creator and host of the Food Network television show Good Eats, the mini-series Feasting on Asphalt and Feasting on Waves, and host and main commentator on Iron Chef America and Cutthroat Kitchen." Thanks, Wikipedia.
You know what else Alton is? He's nuts. He's even a little bit dangerous. I say that with great affection because after Friday's show, I am also a huge fan.
Anyone who can make chocolate ice cream with just a couple of office cooler water jugs and a 25-pound industrial-grade cat frightener (aka fire extinguisher) is someone who deserves homage from people like Sonny and me.
In addition to being a celebrity chef, Alton is also talented musically. He shouted rap, twanged country and sang a ballad about the Easy-Bake Oven of his childhood.
Among his many insightful food tips for idiots were "Chickens Don't Have Fingers (or Nuggets)," "Don't Forget the Salt," and "Never Eat an Airport Shrimp Cocktail."
I'll leave those three to your imagination, but I would be remiss as a temporary food critic if I didn't caution the public about "Trout Don't Belong in Ice Cream." Close your eyes now if you are easily upset.
It seems that a famous Iron Chef from Japan made some normal ice cream in a blender, then added an entire raw trout and pushed "frappe." With TV cameras rolling, a dollop of the gray mass was presented to Brown for sampling.
Brown described the taste so eloquently that it triggered a mass gag reflex in the audience. It sounded like a choir of goats. Not me, though. I've eaten Sonny's "Rifled Raccoon Ratatouille." It's not bad if you can get past the sulfur.
But the two most stellar parts of the Inevitable Edible tour are when Brown presents the modern descendant of his Easy-Bake Oven — the Mega Bake.
The size of an SUV and powered entirely by stadium lights, the Mega Bake cooked a pizza in three minutes, as Alton proved with help from a member of the audience.
He also did the ice cream fire extinguisher thing. I won't provide the details here because anyone who reads this column is almost certainly strange enough to give it a try. And Sonny and I have first dibs.
The show lasted more than two hours and was worth every dollar and minute. Hallie got her picture taken with her Food Network hero. A seriously nice guy, he signed a spatula she brought.
Even better, I came away with a status approaching godhood in my granddaughter's eyes for arranging it. And a sudden interest in gourmet gunnery.
Robert Kirby can be reached at rkirby@sltrib.com or facebook.com/stillnotpatbagley. Find his past columns at http://www.sltrib.com/lifestyle/kirby/