A lot of people are fans of Alton Brown because he teaches them how to cook. I'm a fan of Alton Brown because he has taught me not to cook. Every time I get the urge to spend more time in kitchen preparing what I eat, I have only to watch a couple of his videos to remind me that I don't know what the hell I'm doing and probably never will. He's also very clever with how he uses the media. Would that everyone who knows more than I do — which is, like, everyone — could teach in such an entertaining manner.
I have a special interest in his videos about cooking turkey because roast turkey just might be my favorite food and it's not that easy to get it where I live. My attempts to roast them myself years ago did not go well and I never even attempted to fry one because, as we've probably all seen, people attempting to do that often end up burning down their garages.
Mr. Brown has invented what seems like a relatively sane/safe way to fry a turkey but I'll probably never try it. My confidence in my cooking abilities is so low, I have to muster up all my courage to bake a potato in the microwave. But I'm fascinated by the subject so here's the first in a series of videos Brown is releasing to promote his method. As he tends to do, he veers a little into Mad Scientist Mode…