I enjoyed tonight’s Iron Chef America back-to-back women battles. As you can tell by my Babbo post, I’m a huge Mario Batali fan but he was just asking for it in his battle with Anita Lo! Strutting around all cocksure–making an amuse with 5 minutes to spare–I wonder if the producers told him to play the villain in order to make the show more exciting? In any case, the final score should put Batali’s ego on check. He lost by more than 10 points (if I recall correctly.) That’s gotta sting. I really want to check out Lo’s restaurant Annisa in the near future. (Once those male escort checks roll in. (Inside comment joke.))
Another observation: white truffles are a bit too available to the contenders on Iron Chef America. Batali had $1000 worth of truffles on an egg dish (which he readily told the judges) and in the second battle, the French chef shaved white truffles on potato skins to make them worth $70 each (as another judge observed). I’ve never had a white truffle, but I have little doubt that scraping some on even the oldest box of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese would have a revolutionary effect. My point here is that it takes a little away from the competition: sure, everyone has access to it (unless they have to bring their own?), but it feels a little like cheating. They might as well sprinkle diamonds on the edge of the plates for decorative purposes!
I watched and enjoyed as well but would like someone to explain how the ingredient is unveiled and the chef/sous chefs run into action. Where is the game planning? Is there 15 minutes we don’t see? Do they have ESP? Any insight?
They are told the ingredient ahead of time.
I’m growing a little disillusioned with Iron Chef America, to be honest. Like Meg, I’d like to see more of the planning process — how do they decide what recipes to make? how do they coordinate what chef does what?
And it was a little too obvious here that they’d filmed the two battles back to back. Mushrooms the ingredient in the first one; and guess what, large amounts of enoki mushrooms available in the second.
Too slick; not quirky enough.
And all the hoo-ha about First! Woman! Chef! — how patronising. You’d think women didn’t cook from all the fuss they made about it.
Frankly I thought they’re being way more cost conscious with the American Iron Chef than the Japanese version. In the original I don’t think any battle went by without at least one person bringing out truffles, fois gras, and caviar, and most of the time all three in combination.