The inaugural installment of the “Masters of Their Domain” series could not have arrived at a better time, been contrived for a better reason or commissioned for a better price.  The heart and soul of this project is an exercise in human social interaction. The goal of it is to test the distributive property of Personal Sweetness.  Because we all know: when you’re lying in the trenches taking grenades, you can always steal positive inspiration from the Kingdom of the Unquestionably Awesome.

Domain Master #1: Alton Brown – Host of the Food Network’s Good Eats

Ain't that a man!

If you were to successfully cross a Public Access chef with Bill Nye and leave the miracle conglomeration in a closet for three years with nothing but cardboard cutouts of food and poorly drawn sauciers, you might get a bastardized version of Alton Crawford Walter Brown and his all-but-1-man TV series Good Eats.  I mean, this guy is the MAN. His actual job title reads “American Food Personality;” can you imagine the size of the applicant pool for that job opening? Let’s go over the requirements:

• Gotta be American
• Gotta like food
• Gotta have a personality

We just narrowed the field down to about 200 million people and 3 Baldwin Brothers; sounds like a competitive industry.  Not for A.B.

Things tend to get a little out of hand when Alton comes around

I’m not sure when Food Network dropped that dynamite job listing on Monster.com, but I am sure of one thing: none of you stood a chance at stealing this dude’s spotlight.  Yes, little birdies, Alton Brown, notorious “Thef” (Thespian Chef), is a Master of His Domain.

Not fully convinced? Check these facts:

1.    60% of the second-half of Alton Brown’s name is BRO
2.    7 of the 10 letters of his name can be rearranged to spell BRO TOWN
3.    His daughter, Zoey, is referred to on the show as “Alton’s Spawn.” It is believed to be an allusion to A.B.’s affinity for reciting the complete life cycle of a fungus.
4.    He is one of the few known connoisseurs of vinegar.

Take all that in for a few minutes while I crumple my résumé up into a trashball.  Ok…back…and…next paragraph after this gem.

Alton Brown brings it because he knows what avid Food Network viewers want: an actual education. If you’re trying to watch Giada De Laurentiis simultaneously soothe and patronize you with her perfect hair, 5-minute crepes and childhood anecdotes about getting caught with her hands in the cake batter, then you’re watching the wrong kind of afternoon foodtube, my friends.  Every episode of Good Eats aims to lift the veil of culinary science, explaining the nuances of your everyday grub with a logical, step-by-step approach that even Nien Numb could handle.

Oh, did that concept about boiling point depression seem a little elementary and boring to you at first?  Don’t worry about it. There’s a 90% chance that little lesson is going to be followed up by a cheesily-hilarious skit involving a wacky foodie sideshow act with a fake French accent.   Why, you ask?  Because A.B.’s hell-bent on driving his points home.

So, there you have it; the first in the great line of the unequivocally unstoppable -- a middle-aged professor of food with an affinity for cheese and a knack for educational theatrics who has taken the “American Food Personality” industry by storm.  Alton Brown, sir, YOU are certainly a recipe for dominance.