If you could ask Alton Brown a question, what would it be?

My husband and I, owners of The Spice House, are very excited to have been invited to do a Pod Cast with Alton Brown tomorrow. And while he is actually interviewing us, not the other way around, I would like to come up with a really great question I could ask him as well. We do so many interviews, and I am always so pleased when someone asks me a innovative or creative question that is not on the regular tired rotation of spice questions. So what can we ask Alton that will make him say, Wow, what an interesting question, no one every asked me that before?

How did the show go?

Thank you for being the one person to inquire. I guess my assumption that anyone on this forum would be interested in Alton Brown was sadly mistaken. We had an amazing conversation.

I couldn't think of a worthy question

I'm anxious to see the episode; I'm a fan of Alton Brown, and a bigger fan of The Spice House. But I couldn't think of any non-obvious questions, either.

Yeah, I had a vision of you asking some question I suggested & Alton just staring at you in frozen silence ... not pretty. But I enjoyed his TV show very much, especially the "Snowbound" episode. So, how'd the show go?

I've been offline for a couple of days, so I couldn't respond in time but I would have asked him something about his experiences working in Chicago back in the day.

The only question I could come up with seemed to be of the nature of one that is "on the regular tired rotation of spice questions." Namely, if you were shipwrecked on a tropical island with ample edible flora and fauna, what 5 spices would you hope washed up ashore with you (assuming salt is available in abundant supply)?

Of the top of my head, I think mine would be black pepper, smoked (hot) paprika, granulated garlic, a good chili powder, and maybe something green like some herbes de provence.

Just out of curiosity, Cinnamon Girl, is this a type of question you frequently get in situations in which you are interviewed? I just assume people in specialty markets (food, music, drink, etc.) probably get the "desert island 5" type of question frequently.

Like the others, I didn't think my questions were that worthy. However, I always like to know what people are reading. So I might ask what he's reading now, his favorite book as a child and the book that had the most influence on him...

We always ask the What are you reading now question when doing job interviews. When the applicant gives you a blank look, it is a bad sign. Food lovers tend to consume all literature of a culinary nature. One person even said, I am not reading anything because my glasses are broken! Hmm, might be difficult for you to work here without being able to see.

Alton can be described as an intense person, I almost felt as if we were on a roller coaster! While we had emailed some subjects for discussion, we were kind of thrown when he asked us to come up with answers on the spot. "Time to disseminate, what five things would you like people to know about spices that they absolutely do not?" Of course, later on, we thought of some really terrific answers! Also, "Are there any spices you could get for me that no one else in the world has?" Ummm, no. We were scheduled there for 45 minutes, but we actually conversed for a half hour beyond that, which we believe to be a good sign.

And Matt, the question we get asked the most often, is do we travel all over the world sourcing our spices? While the concept presents us with lovely fantasy images of spice plantations the world over, from a small business perspective, we have neither the money nor the time to do this. So that is a tough question, because it takes away the exotic myth that we are the modern day Marco Polo that our customers like to imagine we are.

Can you give us a link to where we can find this podcast for download or streaming?