Alton Brown

Host of The Food Network's "Good Eats" and author of I'm Just Here for the Food.

ABOUT Alton Brown

Raised in his mother's and grandmother's kitchens, Alton Brown worked as a cook throughout high school and college. But he never considered a career in food until, after a decade working as a cinematographer and video director, he realized that he spent all his time between shoots watching cooking shows, reading cookbooks, and, yes, eating.

After this epiphany, Brown and his wife left the film business and moved to Vermont so he could pursue his first love: food. Brown attended the New England Culinary Institute in Montpelier, Vermont, but during his years as a culinary student and throughout the restaurant and catering jobs that followed, he couldn't forget about television. Visions of comedy sketches, film noir and grilled beef filled his mind. He started to conceive a new kind of cooking show, one that would entertain and inform with wit and humor, something for his sitcom-and-fast-food-junkie generation. With that in mind, he started writing "Good Eats," a show that combines his passion for food with quirky pop culture. Brown not only writes the shows but also stars in each offbeat episode on The Food Network. He's also just released his first book, I'm Just Here for the Food: Food+Heat=Cooking.