Alton Brown began his career as a cameraman when he was still in college, then followed with eight years directing television commercials before heading to culinary school in the early 90s with the goal of making food shows. Today, Brown has been on Food Network nearly 20 years, 14 of which he spent as the writer, host and showrunner of cooking/science/history/comedy show called Good Eats.

During that time, he also served as the culinary commentator and host of such shows as Iron Chef America and Cutthroat Kitchen, wrote eight books on food and cooking and toured two live culinary variety shows to sold-out houses around the country, as well as Broadway.

His musical trio released their first CD in 2016 featuring Brown’s original music from the stage shows and managed to make the Billboard charts not once, but twice. His trio has a holiday album in the works for 2019, which will pair perfectly with a new holiday-targeted stage show that will hit the road that same year.

There are two James Bead awards with Brown’s name on them in a drawer in his office, and somewhere in the world there’s a coveted Peabody awarded to Good Eats that was stolen out of his car back in 2013.

Brown is producing Good Eats: Reloaded, for which he’s shooting new material to “renovate and repair” classic Good Eats episodes, and plans to reboot the series in 2019 with The Return of the Eats on Food Network.

Although Brown is a pilot, scuba diver and motorcycle enthusiast his current hobby time is focused on brewing coffee, rejecting smartphone updates, and attempting to housebreak a rescued Boston Terrier named Scabigail. He shares a loft in Marietta, GA with designer Elizabeth Ingram and another dog named Franny, who seems to have the whole “going to the bathroom outside” thing worked out.

He watches a lot of movies (Brown has insisted on several occasions that Stanley Kubrick is, in fact, his father) and owns several vintage electric guitars which he plays badly. He also collects typewriters which he plays with considerable proficiency. He drives a 35-year-old car.

Oh, and he cooks.