Last Thursday’s Serve and Protect event for the Tennessee Aquarium was my 13th Alton Brown event. Yeah, lucky 13. I’m not that superstitious, however after the whole summer of AB being on Twitter and crap with things there, and reason for writing and flack he received for the Fanifesto, I was a bit nervous attending this one.

The evening started off with an odd incident. I was in the Aquarium’s office purchasing a copy of Good Eats 3 to beat the rush later at the gift shop and after securing said copy I turned to exit the room. At that moment, a group of people came through the room from the stairwell. As I turned, I almost ran into one them. Then I realized it was Jim, Alton’s assistant. He stepped back and I stepped forward and at that moment I looked up to see none other than Mr. Brown looking right at me!

He looked a bit surprised. And I know I did as well. He said, “After you.” I giggled and and said, “Are you sure you want me to go in front of you?”

He tipped his head, extended his arm and said, “Yes ma’am.” I giggled like a schoolgirl and went ahead of him and the group. As I thought about it, I wasn’t certain if Alton didn’t know me or was just surprised that we ran into each other in the office.  I know I was extremely surprised.

After AB entered the event, he went to take photos with people in the courtyard and spent most of the appetizer and cocktail portion of the evening outside.  While AB posed and talked with those people, I tried some of the appetizers.  The catfish taco was the best.  And I tried a chorizo slider that was good but a little odd to find at a seafood event.

Shortly before the end of the appetizer and cocktail part of the evening, AB emerged from the garden and mingled with the rest of the people at the event.  At this point, I started trying to get photos on my iphone.  Most of them were blurry because of the horrible backlighting by windows looking out into the garden.   When Alton moved away from that area, the photos still didn’t do well because of the low lighting elsewhere.  I tried to get a word with him, actually I wanted to ask what was on his bowtie, so I him followed around a bit.

That’s when the next usual thing happened.  I felt a tap on my shoulder.  I turned to see a woman, someone from the Aquarium, and she said to me. “You need to back off and give him some space.”  I looked at her in complete shock.  I wasn’t sure what had just happened.  So, being a little upset, I rushed away from the area to figure out what to do next.

My feet were hurting, I made the mistake of wearing new shoes.  That coupled with walking around the Aquarium and parking building didn’t help either.  Because of this, I tried to get a seat in the IMAX theater but the ushers weren’t letting people in yet.  I stood at end of the entrance to the theater trying to figure out what to do.  I didn’t even know where AB was at this point, I lost him when I walked away from the woman.

Not being able to get into the theater and not wanting to find Alton for fear of being chewed out again, I figured staying at the theater entrance until they started letting us in as the best bet.  In the process of waiting, I checked my photos to see if any of them were tweet worthy and to text my dear friend who wanted to know how the evening was progressing.

Being totally engrossed in my phone, I was completely unaware of everything going on around me.  That’s when the next oddity struck.  I heard a soft, low “Hi” in my general direction.  Looking up from the phone, I saw Alton standing in front of me, grinning.  He continued, motioning toward the elevator, “They want me to go downstairs now.”

I manged to eek out, “Ok” and nodded, watching him rush off from me.  For a moment, I stood there wondering what had just happened and why on Earth Alton decided to acknowledge me.  After all, I wasn’t even looking for him at this point.  Strange.

Because I dilly-dallied my seat wasn’t the typical front row, dead center, that I get for the demos.  But I think what happened before hand made up for it.  The demo itself was informative, funny, and typical Alton at his best.  More on that in a later report.

At the dessert/book signing part of the night, I waited until near the end of the line to talk with Alton.  And, in deed, I was the next to last person in line to talk with him.  When the man in front left, I tried to hand my camera to Jim but he was still talking with the man.  At this point Alton saw me, grinned, and started poking his Shapie at me.  He made a writing gesture and beckoned me over.  Finally, Jim grabbed my camera and I headed toward AB.

I made some lame comment that I wanted him to use my silver Sharpie on the Feasting on Asphalt boxsets I brought.  He looked at them and asked if they were mine and where I got them.  I told him I bought them when they came out.  When Alton started to sign them I saw him write “To Lisa” without the use of a post-it note.  Then he paused.  I joked, “Are you running out of things to say?”

He said, “No. I just don’t see these very often.”  After that he signed: “Don’t eat burgers off the road.” I agreed that was nasty and he said, “But I would.” And signed FOA2: “Don’t eat asphalt.”  He again added an aside, “It’s poisonous.”

Next came the new copy of Good Eats 3, Alton slid it across the table, opened it and promptly wrote the following:

I made some kind of dazed fangirl comment of “Oh really?”  And he replied, “Yeah. It’s going to be this big,” making an indication of a small size with his thumb and index finger.  I laughed and told him that was great to hear.  We chatted a bit more.  I gave him a gift, a 75th Anniversary edition of a Fiestware disk pitcher.  I forgot to tell him, I stood in line for three hours to get him one!  Finally, we took the requisite photo.  My hair was a mess from the overly hot room and I looked completely dazed in it!