Good Eats: Super Sweets (2002)
Review by Dindrane
Film:
DVD:

Starring Alton Brown

Features:

• 3 episodes from the Food TV series
• "Ask Alton" reader mail Q&A
• Recipes (on-screen and DVD insert)

Rating: NR, suitable for all audiences

Anamorphic: N/A

My Advice: Buy it--for yourself or someone who should be making you things

Another in the Food Network DVD series, Super Sweets includes three episodes from Alton Brown's comedy-informational cooking show, Good Eats. The three episodes are "The Art of Darkness," where we learn about chocolate from field to kitchen, "Three Chips for Sister Marsha," where Brown makes a variety of kinds of chocolate chip cookies, and "Churn Baby Churn," where Brown turns his hand to making ice cream, sorbet, and granita.

The recipes included on a fold-out sheet inside the disc case are as follows: three different kinds of chocolate chip cookies (The Thin, The Puffy, and the Chewy), Chocolate Mousse, Chocolate Lava Muffins, "Serious" Vanilla Ice Cream, Key Lime Sorbet, and Coffee Granita. Having the recipes here in the disc is handy and just a thoughtful addition to the package. In my opinion, that mousse recipe alone is worth the cost of admission, and the chewy chocolate chip cookies are simply awesome. Evil, even, as you may find yourself doing almost anything to get your hands on chocolate chips or fresh vanilla pods.

Overall, Good Eats is always a good show: blending the sublime with the surreal and the comedy with the comestibles, Alton Brown is a great host with a lot to share. His background in film-making shows in the extensive use he makes of camera angles, props, and other visual effects and aides. These three episodes are likely to be particularly interesting the average viewer, as who doesn't like a treat now and then? And chocolate, especially, which stars in two of the three episodes?

The instruction is top-notch, and watching Brown will teach you anything you need to know (and more) about cooking. His shows are more like hanging out with a knowledgeable, but not know-it-all, friend--you get the skills you need with a spoonful of laughter as the sugar that makes it go down easier.

The features list consists of two items: the "Ask Alton" segment, filmed in Hawaii, where Brown is preparing a FoodTV special. But as features go, it's a good one. Viewers of the shows' original air dates wrote in with questions, and Brown answers them. As these are likely to be the sorts of things we also are left wondering after watching the DVD, it's a thoughtful and useful extra. Besides, Brown answers the questions with his usual blend of irreverent humour that never stoops to goofiness or cutting sarcasm. The second feature is merely an on-screen reproduction of the recipes in the slipcase. Not particularly useful, unless you have a TV and DVD player in your kitchen.

Overall, Super Sweets is a great addition to anyone's kitchen arsenal. It will inspire you to spiff up old favorites, as well as maybe try something new. You'll learn why your cookies always burn or why ice crystals always appear in your store-bought ice cream three days after you buy it. Even old hands in the kitchen can learn from the kitchen science, if not the methodology, and will enjoy the process anyway. Any Good Eats show is simply as fun to watch as it is useful, and this Super Sweets disc is certainly no exception.