Let Me Help You Out

I have two suggestions for a couple of websites. I see no better way to voice them than my sparsely-visited blog, because surely word will get back to them somehow, right?

1. Alton Brown. Your personal website and the Food Network website offer no way to contact you. You seem like a personable guy, so I can only assume this is because you feel you would get too many comments to respond to personally, so you've left off a contact link to keep people from being disappointed.

That's too bad, though, because I have a really good show idea. I define "really good" as "I need the hell out of this information, and I think he's the right guy to present it." I mean, yes, it's full of self-interest, but...well, it's really just full of self-interest.

I (somewhat) recently moved to a location that is considered "high-altitude". All my life I've vaguely noted the high-altitude directions on the recipes that include them, but it never occurred to me that one day, I would be the one needing them. Baking here is a mess. Pretty much anything with a mixture of wet and dry ingredients seems to be affected, and nothing seems to come out quite right, even when you have high-altitude instructions. Cookies are flat. Brownies too. I haven't even attempted a cake or bread or something a little more complex, but I can only assume that they would also be affected by the curse of the mountains.

Yes, there are other sources that lay out the concepts behind high-altitude cooking, and I've tried to get into several of them enough for the information to sink in. It's either my usual state of sleep deprivation or the fact that they're as boring as plain white rice, but I can't stick with any of them long enough to learn anything.

What I figure I require are puppets and skits and some sort of illustrative use of styrofoam balls and yarn. Surely, if Alton Brown can't teach me how to make good cookies at altitude, it is a lost cause.

But I can't ask him to do this show, because there is no known way on the internets to get a message to him. If I had a homing pigeon, I would use its services. If anyone reading this post can find a link I couldn't find, I will bow to your superior internet kung-fu if you take pity on me and leave it in the comments.

2. Very simply, to all brick and mortar store websites: you are not allowed to have a website unless I can go there and find out when your store is open. If you have a store locator and there are no store hours on each location's individual page, you fail and you have to start again. In this information age, I shouldn't have to pick up a phone and derail one of your employees just so they can tell me that they'll close tonight at 7:00. That is 20th century thinking, which would be great if that was the century we're living in, BUT IT'S NOT.

Let me know when your outsourced website vendor figures their shit out and puts ALL the basic info on your website, because that's when I'll bother to go there again. When I make a wasted trip to your site, all you do is teach me not to waste my time in the future. In this economy, I don't think you can afford to do that. Just some love from me to you.