I am home sick. I’m supposed to be lying down – and I will be again, in a few minutes – but I had to check my e-mail.

My e-mail contained a notice of a new Twitter follower. I’m still not exactly sure who he is, but we have some Twitter contacts in common, so I went to check out his profile page.

I’m glad I did; he had a link to this article about Alton Brown. Any regular reader of this blog knows that I’m a huge fan of Alton’s – but apparently, I wasn’t a huge enough fan to know that Alton is a Christian:

When I go to New York and I tell people I am going to church tomorrow, people take a couple of steps back from me. What I’ve learned to do is go ahead and take two steps forward. But yeah, it’s tough, and there have been times when I’ve broken out in a sweat a little. I still feel a funny little tinge in my stomach when I’m out to dinner with my wife and daughter in New York. We’ll go to dinner and we’ll be sitting around the table and we’ll say Grace. You know what? People are going to stare at you. I used to feel really self-conscious. But I’ve gotten to a point where I think, nah, I’m not going to feel bad about that. I’m not going to apologize about that.

It’s a nice article, and a pleasant surprise. One thing that struck me: So many people think – falsely – that science and religion have to be at odds. I think one of the interesting things about Alton is that “Good Eats” is, in large part, a show which popularizes science.

One of the earlier episodes of “Good Eats,” the one about casseroles, took place at a little white country church – a United Methodist church, which they took pains to identify by name through an on-screen graphic. The church reminded me of a lot of the churches my father used to pastor. Of course, all that proved was that Alton had been exposed to religion, and (given that he grew up in Georgia) that wasn’t too unexpected.

So, good for Alton. Although, I have to say, I’ve gotten a little tired of “The Next Iron Chef.” Why are they doing another one so soon? Is one of the existing Iron Chefs leaving? How many Iron Chefs does one network need? I didn’t watch the last “Next Iron Chef” except for the last couple of episodes, and I really didn’t like the arrogant Jose Garces, who ended up winning the thing.

Now I’m suddenly even sadder that “The Wittenburg Door” is in limbo. At this point, I would certainly have been calling Bob Darden to try to pitch him an interview with Alton, who would have fit the magazine to a T.