Iron Chef Jeff

Jeff and I are serious Food Network junkies. Among our favorite shows is Iron Chef America. So, when one of Jeff's co-workers threw out an Iron Chef Challenge on Friday, Jeff was instantly drawn in. (For those of you who don't watch this show, the idea is that two chefs--and their sous chefs--face off against each other in Kitchen Stadium, having an hour to prepare at least 5 dishes. The catch is there is a "secret ingredient," which the chefs supposedly don't know anything about until just before the face-off but must feature in all of their dishes. The chefs are judged on taste, originality and plating). In this work version, the secret ingredient was given on Friday, and anyone who wants to participate just brings their dish(es) to work to share with everyone tomorrow at lunch time. The secret ingredient was lime. There are no real winners (or losers) here. It's all just for fun.

So, today we transformed our kitchen into a kind of ghetto Kitchen Stadium, with Jeff acting as chef and Ruth and I taking on the role of sous. Jeff has a real talent for this kind of stuff and came up with some fabulous dishes. He made Chipotle Guacamole on Mango Lime Salad with Chile Chilaca sauce, served with Masa Lime Tostadas. He also made a Papaya Limeade, which was absolutely wonderful. We all had a great time working together in the kitchen and sampling all the yummy dishes. If there was going to be a winner in the competition tomorrow, I'm certain Jeff would win.