Alton Brown's New Variety Show Will Be His Last — and Then He Plans to 'Disappear for a Little While' (Exclusive)

Alton Brown is about to hang up his paddle.

The Good food star will kick off his Alton Brown Live: Last Bite tour On February 13, PEOPLE can reveal exclusively. Estrada 60 cities will be his fourth and last.

“This will be my last big show on the road,” says Brown, 62, who has been combining educational culinary content with science on stage and screen since 1999. “I’ve been away from home too long. It’s too hard on my family.”

Brown lives in Atlanta with his wife, interior designer Elizabeth Ingram, and their three dogs. (He also shares a grown daughter, Zoey, 24, with ex-wife DeAnna Brown.)

Alton Brown married Elizabeth Ingram on a boat in Charleston — check out the bride and groom!

Ingram last toured with him as part of his band, but her busy career means she will only join in occasionally when he travels the country. “Being away from my family for 10 weeks is, ah. I don’t want to do that,” Brown says.

He’s keeping most of the details of his show under wraps so it remains a surprise for the audience, but Last Bite will have “the same format” as previous shows, he says. There will be live music, a multi-page monologue and “a very large, very unusual culinary demonstration”. His usual campy costumes, history lessons and pop-culture puns will also be there.

Alton Brown.

Shayan Asgharnia

“I will try [readers] with the trifle that the entire second act of the play deals with the great hero of the industrial revolution, steam and food that would not exist in America if it were not for the industrial revolution and the mentioned source of steam energy, which of course can be used for cooking and for moving large things, ” he teases.

Brown will also publish his tenth book Food for thoughtcollection of essays, in February. And after that launch — and his final appearance for Last Bite in May — Brown says he’ll likely step back from the limelight.

“I’m 62 years old and I’ve always said the secret to being a good cocktail party guest is knowing when to leave — and maybe it’s time to leave,” he says. “After the tour, maybe I’ll take a break and disappear for a while and see if the world misses me. If not, oh well, I’ve had a good run.”

Alton Brown with his dog Scabs.

Shayan Asgharnia

Just don’t call it retirement. “I am a worker bee. I will make honey until one day I drop dead outside the hive,” he says. “But I think, especially for people in the media, there’s a time to shut up and be still for a minute and reassess. I’m not so desperate to be in the public eye that I feel like I just have to keep doing something. I could go somewhere and make a little brandy or something like that.”

“I don’t know. I’m not done, but I’m not one hundred percent sure I’m not half done.”

Alton Brown with his wife Elizabeth Ingram. Paul Costello

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For now, Brown will give Last Bite his best shot. He began four months of strength training and dieting to prepare for the “physical ferocity of the trip.”

“If something happens to me, it’s the show. There’s no fill-in. There’s no, ‘Alton’s going to be played by Brad Pitt tonight,'” he jokes.

His viewers, who first noticed during his guest appearance Good food and Iron Chef America on the Food Network, continues to grow while taking on new projects. His interactive performances, he says, have attracted a new, younger generation of fans whose parents have turned them on to his shows.

How Alton Brown’s new wife changed him: I used work to ‘avoid the rest of my life’

“You’ll look out and you’ll see maybe a family of six where there could be grandparents, parents and kids, and they can all enjoy it together at the same time. I’m proud of that,” says Brown. “To be able to gather a bunch of people in a big room and make them happy for a few hours is an absolute privilege. For me, that’s the thrill of a lifetime.”

Tickets for Alton Brown Live: Last Bite go on sale October 11th.

Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education