In case you don't know, I will explain how this show works (to the best of my knowledge). An Iron Chef competes against another professional chef to make an entire meal in one hour, usually at least four courses, and each course must include the "secret ingredient," which is introduced at the beginning of the show. There are five Iron Chefs, and they each have a specialty, like Japanese or Italian cuisine.
Today was a holiday dessert contest. At the end of the hour, three "celebrity" judges taste each dish and then pick a winner. The show also has a chairman who sits at the judge's table on every show and tries all the dishes. I think he is one of the judges too. Ok, it is clear that I am not an expert on the Iron Chef rules, but you get the general idea.
Tonight was different. It was a holiday dessert cook-off, and there were teams. Paula Deen (Food Network show host) and Cat Cora (Iron Chef) competed against two male chefs who I think are also Food Network show hosts. The secret ingredient was sugar.
And look who the judges were!
H and I both love Tina Fey. H may love her a little bit more than I do.
It was very hard to take pictures of this show because the chefs were running around the kitchen all willy-nilly. (I am pretty sure that is the first time in my life I used the phrase willy-nilly.)
The chefs always have sous-chefs who help them prepare things. This grown woman dressed like an elf for the holiday-themed show. I feel that she does not get paid enough for this.
This is one of the competing chefs. He took off his white chef's jacket and was flashing his arms around. It was weird and slightly disturbing. He also spent a lot of the episode flirting with Paula Deen. Put your coat back on!
Of course, during the commercials I had to flip to this to watch my guys (Duke).
16 comments:
The secret ingredient was SUGAR?? That's hilarious. Usually they pick something way more obscure (again, from my almost equally limited knowledge of the show).
I am determined to have an Iron Chef: Minneapolis competition where three of my friends who are all great cooks face off. All we need is a house with three stoves...
I know. In the other two episodes I have seen, the ingredients were abalone and Kobe beef. This was obviously not a serious competition tonight.
Maybe you could just set up three hotplates for your friends. I would come watch and help them eat the food!
Any adult is wearing an elf costume on TV is not being paid enough.
Abalone might have been a difficult, if not interesting, choice for holiday desserts. I haven't seen any of the new Iron Chef episodes yet... but now that I have DVR, watch out Food Network!
I should really re-read these posts before I hit the publish button. Oh well.
I cracked up over sugar being the "secret ingredient." If Paula Deen made those Gooey Pumpkin Butter Cakes of hers, then there is no way she could have lost. She rules. I love a woman who's not afraid to use massive amounts of butter.
I love Ted. And Tina Fey. But Ted, I've actually met, and he gave me beer. He's a great guy. I think I love the way Paula Deen thinks. For Christmas morning this year, I'm going to attempt to make Pumpkin Bread French Toast. The not so secret ingredient will be sugar.
No pumpkin was used in this episode. However, Paula did make fudge, which involved her melting a pound of cheese together with a pound of sugar, adding chocolate and other stuff, then coating the fudge mixture with caramel, and then coating the caramel with white chocolate, and THEN adding almonds. OH MY GOD. The judges all took one bite and then looked like they were going to die of butter/cheese/chocolate overload.
The guy on the treadmill next to me at the gym last night was watching this show (I won't even go into what I think about people who watch cooking shows at the gym) and I was utterly fascinated. I couldn't figure out what channel it was on, so I just watched his TV the whole time. I think he noticed and thought I was hitting on him.
When Paula started mixing all that cheese and sugar together in the bowl I almost died. I thought it was butter (bad angle). It looked soooo good.
I've never seen this show before and I didn't know about the secret ingredient, but I was expecting something really challenging as a secret ingredient. And instead it was... sugar? For desserts? Why even bother HAVING a secret ingredient in that case?
I liked the original Japanese version of Iron Chef....those guys were crazy kamikazes. The Japaneses would never use a secret ingredient like 'sugar'.
I'm guessing Paula Dean put at least one stick of 'butta' in her recipe! I just love her and I said, just last night, that I totally want to be her friend.
What a lame secret ingredient! The American version of this show is so boring compared to the Japanese version. I say, next time they should have to make desserts with octopus or something.
I was surprised and a little disappointed by this episode too. The bigwigs over at the Food Network decided to compromise their otherwise interesting approach to the Iron Chef competition and create a family-friendly holiday version of the show instead. Is that so bad? I don't know. But on top of that, the little clay versions of all the chefs dancing around in the snow made me feel about 12 years old.
Nothing, however, is so painful as the K-Mart and Walmart commercials on a seemingly endless loop. Please, bring on a sugar coma so I don't have to watch those!
I love Iron Chef, but "sugar" is kind of a cop out secret ingredient. I wouldn't want them to have, like SALMON for a dessert show but they could have at least done something a bit more creative like nutmeg or cardamom, right?
It cracks me up that you took pictures of what you were watching on TV. Also, am I the only one here who thinks Paula Deen is creepy?
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