How I talked with Alton Brown
I talked to him.
I talked to him!
So I went to see Alton Brown at the Artsch center (is that how you spell it?!) and as soon as we got in we were directed over and got our seats vastly improved. Apparently, they hadn't sold out. We got moved so very close to Alton!
But that's not the best part. Oh no!
A lady asked me if I wanted to ask Alton a question. I thought, "oh shit, what can I ask him, I don't know?"
But then... OH FATES! How you smile upon me! This morning, at our DnD session, we were talking, and Rev Mike asked a ponderous question: can you think of a food that would not be improved with the addition of cheese or chocolate? Truely a ponderous question!
But, can you imagine? The coincidence! The question sprang to mind. It was perfect. Just silly enough, yet culinary and based in truth. A difficult question! I wrote it down and handed it to a lady, seated at a table.
She looked at it and laughed, and immediately added it to the "chosen" pile.
HOLY SHIT.
Alton Brown is one of the funniest men alive. No doubt. There wasn't a moment when the audience wasn't laughing or cheering or shouting out answers to his questions or more questions of their own, and he made the interviewer blush several times. Brilliant man.
Then he went and made crepes suzette, and squeezed some oranges, and threw a refridgerator full of bottled water on the floor.
And then they came and got me! I saw them lining people up, so I stood and told them I was here, here I was, they wanted me, surely.
And I asked my question, the very last one. They wanted to finish with my question!
I walked up, and my heart was pounding, and my mind went blank. "I'm Alex," I said. AUGH, I SOUND LIKE AN IMBECILE. Well, always start with your name, as Geoff says. It's one thing you can't screw up.
Then my mind went blank. What was my question? Oh god, what could it be?! SHIT SHIT SHIT. Panic.
And then it came back, and I asked it, awkwardly, with way too much hand gesture. I was on two enormous screens. Oh lord. There I was.
And he stared right at me. And he was smiling! But then I asked it, and he thought for a while. Thought and thought. He repeated the question.
"Truffles." A pause. "Foie gras," he said, and then "lobster." And he thought some more, and laughed, and said something like, "yeah, that's... it's hard." And I sort of mumbled some sort of half commiseration, like, "yeah, they go with everything..." and then he asked me if I knew of anything. And I mentioned that I had had pickles suggested to me. There was a slight grone of acknowledgement from the audience.
And then he said, "but, I have made deep fried cheese pickles." And everyone laughed. "They were good!"
It was crazy. I nearly died. I can't believe it! I thanked him a million times and walked off, and the show ended after he let a little kid in one of the balconies ask a question, what his favorite episode was. The garlic one.
Oh, it was brilliant. He is funny and full of information and very geeky and the internet! Oh how he mentioned the internet.
It was a wonderful time. I feel like the belle of the ball, or Dick Clarke on New Year's Eve, or something like that.
I can't believe it! Shit. In five years, perhaps we will meet again, and I will bring him a copy of the picture I took with him when I was still overweight and awkward and will remind him of the question I asked, and maybe he will remember. Maybe he will say, "oh yes! That question was great." Who knows? Perhaps we will meet again!
Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. I am inspired.
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