That said, there is plenty of flavor to be found in AB's baking book, I'm Just Here for More Food: Food x Mixing + Heat = Baking, just not the extensive range of old and new combinations that you might find in a book from a professional pastry chef - and if you're not looking to emulate cutting-edge, five-star at home, you shouldn't have any problems here. Alton is precise, thorough and very accessible, due to a generous use of entertaining illustrations sprinkled throughout the text. His recipes and methodology are well explained and will provide the reader with a solid base of knowledge of the hows and whys of baking. On top of that, they always turn out good results (barring technical difficulties, of course), so you have a built-in way to reward yourself after learning a new lesson. Recipes include topics from scones and cakes to custards and candies.

At the beginning of the year, we mentioned that a special celebrity chef episode of Iron Chef America would be airing in fall and it looks like the week has finally arrived! This Sunday's episode of Iron Chef America will feature both Rachael Ray and Giada de Laurentiis, pairing Rachael with Mario Batali and Giada with Bobby Flay, in what is sure to be an interesting showdown, to say the least.

Who will win the battle of food network personalities? Rachael is primarily self taught and most of her cooking experience comes from actually teaching others to cook, aside from a stint as the chef at Cowan & Lobel market in Albany, New York. Giada, on the other hand, studied at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris and worked at several well-known restaurants, including Spago in Los Angeles, before starting a catering company. This isn't to say that all professionally trained chefs will do better than home schooled ones, but it is the really high-end, innovative dishes that "wow" the judges on ICA and it seems like Giada would be more likely to turn them out than Rachael. Bobby and Mario will have a big part in this two, of course, so based on previous episodes and the personalities of all four "Food Network All-Star" participants, I'm rooting for Bobby's team.

When I mentioned back in December that Alton Brown was working on a new show called Feasting on Asphalt, there was little information available other than the topic. A look at the updated information on Alton's website reveals that the show now has an air date: July 29th. The show will be a four-part series in which Alton eats "every kind of road food available," from Georgia to California.

While Alton said that he would "forage in the forest" as well as visiting homes and fast food joints on his journey, he probably didn't actually plan on "feasting on asphalt" along the way. The Food Network Star broke his clavicle during a fall from his bike in the Nevada desert. Ouch!

Alton Brown is hitting the highway in 2006 to bring the food network a new show, Feasting on Asphalt. The show will chronicle Alton’s road trip across the US on Route 66. According to the Food Network, he will be riding his motorcycle and stopping by “secret hamburger hideaways” and “delicious truck stop diners.” By adding Alton as the headlining food celebrity on yet another non-cooking travel show, perhaps the Food Network is trying to convert some of his Good Eats fans to the new network format. Personally, while the food at some of these places might be good, I don’t think that the “culinary heritage of America” will be found there. With a good dictionary, the network might discover that “heritage” means an inheritance or tradition passed down through the generations. It seems unlikely that the country, having been around far longer than biker bars, would have gotten the bulk of its “good eats” from them.