Books like Alton Brown's Gear for Your Kitchen

Alton Brown has smoked a salmon in a cardboard box, roasted a prime rib in a terracotta flower pot, cooked onion soup in an electric skillet, used a C-clamp as a nutcracker, and a binder clip to hold a probe thermometer in place. While his machinations may border on the Rube Goldberg-esque, it is among Brown's missions to present the best - and often the simplest - tool to get the job done. Following an introduction that discusses a little bit of kitchen history and some advice on room layout and organization, the book is divided into 9 chapters: Big Things with Plugs, Pots and Pans, Sharp Things, The Tool Box, Small Things with Plugs, Storage and Containment, It Came From the Hardware Store, Surfaces, and Safety and Sanitation.