We don't know about you, but we've been virtually glued to the Food Network this week watching hours on end of Thanksgiving themed cooking shows. We swear, we've watched nine or ten different chefs give tips for preparing the perfect turkey, and we find it oddly mesmerizing -- not unlike the bass fishing channel in that way.
Last night, we stumbled upon what had to be the greatest holiday special since the passing of Jim Henson: Iron Chef America -- Thanksgiving Showdown. The Iron Chefs faced off against each other using ingredients present at the first Thanksgiving, and Morimoto may or may not have grabbed Bobby Flay's ass...
Top Five Highlights From the Show:
1. The Chairman was sporting an orange-sherbert-hued tie that made everyone uncomfortable.
2. The show began with the Chairman calling Marc Ecko out of a cloud of steam and commending him on the new uniforms he designed for the Iron Chefs
The Chairman: Magnificent!
Marc Ecko: Cool. I gotta go. Peace.
3. The showdown matched Bobby Flay and Mike Simon against Cat Cora and Masaharu Morimoto -- so it was kind of like frat boys take on the odd couple. At one point we're pretty sure Morimoto goosed Bobby Flay just to mess with his head. Morimoto is way funnier than we imagined.
4. The judging panel was comprised of the strangest set of celebrities ever: Tiki Barber, the aforementioned Marc Ecko, Lou Diamond Philips and Donatella Arpaia. Okay, we get why Donatella Arpaia is there -- food critic, restauranteur -- totally makes sense? Not to be unkind, but it's hard for us to take the culinary critique of Tiki Barber, Marc Ecko and Lou Diamond Phillips seriously. It sort of makes us feel like the Food Network spent their budget on the celebrity chefs and then found themselves scrambling for judges ("Hey, has anyone called Lou Diamond Phillips?"). Although, to be honest, we felt a bit better about the whole thing after LDP (who, by the way, is alledgedly a "prolific home cook" and also sporting a haircut that makes him a dead ringer for a multi-racial John Stamos) got into an esoteric discussion with Bobby flay about some sort of Navajo fry bread.
5. During judging, LDP starting fawning all over Bobby Flay and Tiki Barber (who may or may not have been high...just putting that out there) called him out for being a kiss ass. For the record, we further suspected that TB had been smoking back stage when he devoured the turkey egg soufflé in a matter of seconds and dug around in the bottom with his spoon while the others tried to get on with the critiques.
In the end, Bobby Flay and Mike Simon triumphed over Morimoto and Cora even though Mike Simon set fire to their side of the kitchen several times during the competition -- Listen, no one ever said a safe kitchen produced the best results.
