I’m pretty fanatical about Iron Chef. Not the Iron Chef America knock-off, but the original Japanese show with festive english voiceovers. Every time I get home from work, I feel like I’m stepping into a really tiny (really…I’m not kidding) version of Kitchen Stadium.

I open the refrigerator to investigate which surprise ingredient I’m going to use for the evening’s meal preparation. Will it be eggplant? Swallows nest? Chicken stock? Freshwater eel? Rhutabega? Ok, so I’ve never had most of these things in my refrigerator, much less eaten them in a restaurant…aside from the eggplant. But still……I try to pick some unique item that I’ve purchased at Albertsons and work that into a miracle of modern cooking.

I haven’t gone so far to do my own voiceovers, but I’m considering recording Chairman Kaga summoning the Iron Chef’s and playing it back via a motion sensor when I enter my kitchen. (If you read previously about my addiction to the American Idol theme song, then this won’t come as a surprise to you.)

In the corner of my kitchen, I’ve set up a few chairs so that Dr. Hattori (always a pleasure), Mayuko Takata, and Kenji Fukui can comment on the ingredients I’m using, and my personal cooking styles. I always enjoy Takatasan’s laughter and giggles as she makes commentary on the fact that I am deep frying the asparagas with a hot bean paste (very Chen-esque).

My addiction to Iron Chef has now extended to my friends and family. This coming Sunday (Sept 18), our friends Cody, Emily and hopefully Rachelle (I say hopefully because I haven’t had a chance to invite her as of this writing), will be coming over around 4pm. While we are socializing, David (who has volunteered to be the first Iron Chef), will go to the grocery store to get his stock supplies for the evening. Upon his return, the rest of us will leave for the store to select our theme ingredient.

David will be presented with the theme ingredient, and have 1 hour to create an entire meal that we will all enjoy. (By the way, as I was writing this I just IM’d Rachelle, and she’s going to come. I suppose I could have just edited what I previously wrote about not having invited her just yet, and you would never have known that there was a delay in the invitation, but then you would have missed out on the tension of wondering whether or not she had been invited and whether or not she had accepted, so I left all this in here. Whew!)

He will be able to choose, based on the theme ingredient, whether he will do appetizers, desserts, or other supplemental items to the mean. He may not get an ingredient that could be integrated into a dessert very well, or may get one that could be used no matter what course is presented….he won’t find out until we get back from the grocery store. Feel the tension.

We’re pretty excited about starting our little friends and family iron chef. We plan to rotate around to a new person each time, and hopefully be able to share some fun and unique recipes with everyone.

Stay tuned for the first round this Sunday, only on Heath’s Food Network.

Bang a gong, we are ON!

An annual festival of poultry bands, from around the world.

“Peace, Love and Olive Oil”