It took a transpacific flight, but finally last night, "The Next Iron Chef" deviated from its status as a "Top Chef" also-ran and finally started getting ... weird. Or maybe it was just the goofy opening montage of our four remaining cheftestants standing in the busy rain-slicked streets of Tokyo, crossing their arms in slo-mo and acting all alpha-dog dominant.

In any event, the show is finally getting down to its high-stakes, high-drama Japanese roots after an extended period of trumped-up, low-stakes challenges in Los Angeles. Our trio of alternately grumpy and spunky judges have come along for the ride, and eyebrow-cocking "Chairman" Marc Dacascos is no longer beamed in via satellite to bark oblique commands to the chefs -- now he can do so in person!

This week's mission was the pursuit of umami, the Japanese concept of a so-called fifth flavor -- something beyond savory -- that seems to be everywhere these days. The word was mentioned about a zillion times in the course of last night's episode, and -- surprise! -- it just happens to be the current marketing catchphrase of "TNIC" sponsor Kikkoman, whose umpteen varieties of soy sauce were littered around the challenge kitchen. The umami theme also allowed host Alton Brown a moment to do what he does best: Explain all the geeky details of how soy sauce is made.

That food chemistry lesson out of the way, it was up to our remaining pro chefs to get down to the flavor at hand, a challenge made all the more confusing in the Hattori Nutrition College kitchen, replete with weird can openers, stoves operating in celcius and ice cream makers that seemed to deep-freeze their wares to a glacier-like consistency. Asked to fill five spots of a bento box each with a different rice-based dish, the foursome didn't need to engage in the usual reality-show sabotage -- the people who arranged the kitchen seemed to do that for them.

Marc Dacascos. Photo: Food Network.

Not enough tension in your cooking competition shows? Do you find your blood pressure leveling out to near-normal readings during "Top Chef"? Do you wish that "Chopped" had more creepy smoke-machine fog piped into the set? Would judges' decisions be more exacting if only they were accompanied by loud, metallic wooshing sounds?

You're in luck. Last week brought the return of "The Next Iron Chef," one of the Food Network's variations on the legendary Japanese cook-off show, and with it a heaping helping of adrenalin-fueled, hacksaw-edited mania. After just two episodes, it's clear the show isn't going to give us a moment's peace, whether to pour ourselves a nice glass of sherry or grab our anti-anxiety meds -- or both, should it ever come to that.

Next time you have the urge for English muffins, try this homemade version from Alton Brown and bake up your own batch.

Hungry for a little bit of behind the behind the scenes dish from The Next Iron Chef before tonight's premiere? Host Alton Brown chatted with our friends at AOL Television about culinary pattern recognition, his chances of competing and yes -- his favorite multitasking tool.

Read Slashfood's interview with The Next Iron Chef contender Nate Appleman.

When you're snacking on edamame, part of the experience is freeing the beans from their green pods. If they're for a dish, however, there's a quicker way to shell a soybean.

When baking, lots of recipes require a greased and floured pan. Luckily, there's a time-saver.

The best and easiest way to take your turkey and amp it up from tasty to epically wonderful is a good brine. If you're new to the world or brining, follow Alton Brown's technique below. If you're not big on the flavors of ginger and allspice, try something like a Simon and Garfunkel flavor combination.

Alton's Good Eats Brine for a 14-16 pound turkey:

* 1 cup kosher salt
* 1/2 cup light brown sugar
* 1 gallon vegetable stock
* 1 tablespoon black peppercorns
* 1/2 tablespoon allspice berries
* 1/2 tablespoon candied ginger
* 1 gallon iced water

Combine all brine ingredients, except ice water, in a stockpot, and bring to a boil. Stir to dissolve solids, then remove from heat, cool to room temperature, and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled.

Early on the day of cooking, (or late the night before) combine the brine and ice water in a clean 5-gallon bucket. Place thawed turkey breast side down in brine, cover, and refrigerate or set in cool area (like a basement) for 6 hours. Turn turkey over once, half way through brining.

Remove bird from brine and rinse inside and out with cold water. Discard brine.

Continue on for roasting instructions.

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The above video, which I originally posted back in October, is a perfect top to your tasty brine. See Gordon Ramsay's whole recipe printed out at FoodTVBlog. Adding one truffle to the mix won't break the bank, and it will give you lots of foodie cred.

But for roasting, I still love Alton Brown's technique, with a few adjustments*:

A few minutes before roasting, heat oven to 500 degrees.

Take the brined, rinsed, dried, and truffled turkey and place it in the roasting pan, on a solid layer of whole small onions and quartered carrots. (This will give you insanely delicious roasted vegetables as a side.)

Loosely pack stuffing into the cavity, and create a mound in front (you must have stuffing crispies!).

Tuck back wings and coat whole bird liberally with canola (or other neutral) oil.

Roast on lowest level of the oven at 500 degrees F. for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and cover breast with double layer of aluminum foil, insert probe thermometer into thickest part of the breast and return to oven, reducing temperature to 350 degrees F. Set thermometer alarm (if available) to 161 degrees. Let turkey rest, loosely covered for 15 minutes before carving.

*The bird WILL be stuffed!

When I was in high school, I had a love-hate relationship with science classes. Geology was fine, biology was okay, and chemistry...well, chemistry was hell. Mrs. Olech, the troll who taught the class, regularly flunked half her students and had a teaching manner that made Alan Greenspan seem bouncy and exciting.

Ironically, while I flunked chem, I aced my cooking classes. Even at the time, I thought that this was a little weird; after all, what is cooking if not a chemical process? The subtle adjustment of flavors, the cultivation of certain bacteria, the measured combination of leavening chemicals are all, basically, a mix of applied chemistry and biology. However, cooking class captured my imagination and attention in a way that chemistry didn't.

Reading a recent profile of Alton Brown, I realize that the problem lay with Mrs. Olech and her ilk. The simple fact is that science can be a lot of fun, if it is applied in a way that is relevant and exciting. I was surprised to learn that, like me, Brown found his science classes "boring beyond words." Even now, as he has built his own store of scientific knowledge, he admits to having discarded academic journals and scholarly papers because of their inability to engage his interest.

Alton Brown, one of my absolute favorite culinary personalities, is helping GE to help make your life easier. He's worked with the company to develop a line of Trivection ovens, which combine microwave, convection, and thermal heating methods.

According to Cnet's Kitchen and Appliances blog, Alton worked with the engineers who designed the line of ovens to help them figure out how to create a better oven. He even taught them how to cook so they'd understand better what was needed.

He must have done a good job, because the trivection oven line looks great with cool features, like a glass cook top on the ranges and several different cooking modes (including "proof" and "Sabbath" modes). I guess most of the features are pretty standard on high end ovens at this point. Check out Alton's demo video for more, and pretty entertaining, information.

My boyfriend doesn't like blueberries, particularly baked goods with blueberries in them. He had an unfortunate encounter with a blueberry pancake when he was a kid that has left him permanently scarred and so he now avoids them entirely. This means that if I bake items with blueberries, I am responsible for the entirety of the batch and so I've all but completely given up making blueberry muffins and cakes (I will make up batches of things with blueberries if I know I'll have a crowd who will help me eat them up).

However, I am happy to ogle blueberry treats whenever the opportunity occurs, and so I was delighted to discover this gorgeous image of blueberries muffins in a basket from Ariela of Baking and Books. She uses Alton Brown's recipe and says that they've saved her marriage.

Thanks Ariela for adding your image to the Slashfood Flickr pool.

Are pretzels a "healthy" snack? Probably depends on what you mean by "healthy." They're certainly better than chips and they're low-fat, but they're also carb-heavy and have a lot of salt.

But if there's one day you should go crazy and eat lots of pretzels, let it be this one. It's National Pretzel Day! I like all kinds of pretzels. When I was a kid I loved the little pretzel sticks, and then when I got older I liked the pretzel rods (you can put them in your mouth like a cigar!). I like the twists too, and all the incredible flavored pretzels (mustard

Here's a recipe for Soft Pretzels from Alton Brown, and here's one for New York Pretzels, from Gourmet. If you like your pretzels sweet, here are recipes for Pretzel Turtles, from Rachael Ray, and one for Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Stuffed Pretzels from RecipeZaar.

It's official folks, Nintendo is releasing Iron Chef America: Supreme Cuisine for the Wii and DS systems. Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of details available. Added to that, the promotion video doesn't have any game playing. We're left with very little information.

Some people are speculating that you'll be able to play as the Iron Chefs, but I don't know. I would think you'd be playing against the Iron Chefs and try to take their titles. As long as Alton Brown does the play by play I would be happy.

[via Serious Eats]

Today I'm featuring a book that isn't even out yet, so I don't actually have my hands on it and can't tell you about my personal experience with it. But I am really excited for it to arrive, mostly because I LOVED the show that it is accompanying. Have you figured it out yet (as if the title of this post and the picture to the right didn't already tip you off). I'm talking about Alton Brown's Feasting on Asphalt: The River Run.

What excites me so much is that this book will contain not just the recipes from the trip, but also lots of images of the towns they stopped in, the food they ate, the people they met and the mighty Mississippi that they road along for the entire trip. I love cookbooks that tell stories and I'm even more thrilled if those stories are accompanied by lots of vivid images and so I know that I'm going to love this book.

I don't normally ask questions in the Cookbook of the Day post, but I'm curious. Is there, or has there ever been, a cookbook that you've found yourself really looking forward to?

One of my goals this year is to eat more oatmeal, so I'd like to thank the Official Food Holiday Naming Gods for making the very first month of the year National Oatmeal Month.

Quaker has a bunch of great recipes, including Banana Bread Oatmeal and Berry Almond Crumble. Alton Brown has a couple of recipes, Steel Cut Oatmeal and Overnight Oatmeal. Or how about trying this Crockpot Apple Oatmeal?

Of course, you could put the oatmeal in cookies, as in these Black and White Oatmeal Cookies, these Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies, and The Best Cookies in the Galaxy.