An Iron Chef Fans Diary, October, 2001

Tuesday, October 2nd, 2001

Did I mention that I've been working my butt off at McDonald's? I've lost eight pounds since I started.

The franchise at 350 W. Bagley Rd. in Berea, Ohio, is a high volume fast food restaurant. They even

call me in on my day off, when they get too overloaded. One of the high school kids asked me why I

was working there. I told him about Wooden Chef and explained that being involved in fast food

sort of gives me a legitimate claim to being a real cook. I certainly know why the Iron Chefs sweat.

It's HOT in that kitchen, with two grills running at 425° and 16 deep fryers running at 350°. There is

more to being a chef than just cooking of course. There is the whole restaurant management business

to deal with; the supply truck coming in once a week, keeping inventory, labor costs, and overhead.

It might be fine if I only had to cook, I also have to sweep and mop.

So today my boss, Paul, told me that he was giving me a raise and promotion after working there for

only two weeks.

Friday, October 5th, 2001   The Third "New" Battle
Main Ingredient: Truffles  
Cooking Style: Japanese with European influences  
Iron Chef:  Rokusaboro Michiba  Challenger: Dr. Hattori

Saturday, October 6th, 2001

Three 48 passenger buses pulled into the McDonald's parking lot at dinner time.

They opened up the second sandwich assembly line to cover the drive-through.

I cooked everything in the place for an hour and a half as fast as I could. I was

dropping chicken nuggets two baskets at a time (that's 42 to 44 nuggets per bag

for four minutes at a time), and crispy chicken and fish filets by the dozen.

Officially, you are only supposed to make nine 10th of a pound patties in each

of two clamshell grills, but by placing them carefully, I could get 12 patties under

each clamshell for a total of 24 patties every 44 seconds. The Quarter pound patties

are only supposed to be cooked six at a time under each of two clamshells, but

careful placement gave me nine on each side, for a total of 18 patties every

minute and 25 seconds. Nobody waited any longer than usual for their order.

The high school kids on the front assembly line were cheering me on. "Wow,

he's so fast, you can't see him move. First he's on the grills then he's on the fryers."

Wooden Chef is the Master of Fast Food. Watch out Iron Chefs.

     
Saturday, October 6th, 2001
Main Ingredient: Duck (IC)  Wild Duck (SM)
Cooking Style: French vs. European, Japanese Style
Iron Chef: Hiroyuki Sakai   Challenger: Mitsuo Hazama

A rerun of Friday, September 7th, 2001  
  

Sunday, October 7th, 2001
Main Ingredient: Lobster

Cooking Style:

Iron Chef:    Challenger:

rerun

Friday, October 12th, 2001   The Fourth "New" Battle
Main Ingredient: Cabbage  
Cooking Style: Szechwan vs. Japanese  
Iron Chef:  Chen Kenichi  Challenger: Hiromi Yamada

    
Saturday, October 13th, 2001
Main Ingredient: Bamboo Shoots

Cooking Style: Japanese  
Iron Chef:  Masaharu Morimoto  Challenger:

I thought this was going to be the other bamboo battle and I missed it. 
  

Sunday, October 14th, 2001
Main Ingredient: Mango

Cooking Style:

Iron Chef:    Challenger:

Friday, October 19th, 2001   The Fifth "New" Battle
Main Ingredient: Bonito  
Cooking Style: French vs. Edo Style Japanese  
Iron Chef: Hiroyuki Sakai   Challenger: Hiromi Funatsu

    
Saturday, October 20th, 2001
Main Ingredient: Lamb

Cooking Style:  
Iron Chef:    Challenger:

rerun  
  

Sunday, October 21st, 2001
Main Ingredient: Asparagus

Cooking Style: Japanese

Iron Chef: Masaharu Morimoto   Challenger:

I had to work from 3:00 to closing (11:40), so I missed this battle.

Friday, October 26th, 2001

I just spent an hour reading through all of that legal stuff on Food TV's new Forum and I am irritated.

Just for the record, I ACEd a Business Law Class at the University of Texas at Dallas, one of only two

A's that professor ever gave. According to all of that legal garbage, Food Empire will own all of the wonderful recipes that the Forum members used to share with each other, and will not recognize

(or pay) any members for any of their ideas.

So I didn't register. Who cares? They don't have the New UPN Iron Chef anyway.

At least our buddy Shaun doesn't claim to own everything we say and has a "whatever" community topic area for the fans to "chat" in.

Friday, October 26th, 2001 The Sixth "New" Battle
Main Ingredient: Duck  
Cooking Style: French vs. the Japanese Expert of Chinese Cooking  
Iron Chef: Hiroyuki Sakai   Challenger: Masatoshi Kimura

    
Saturday, October 27th, 2001
Main Ingredient: Truffles

Cooking Style:  
Iron Chef:  Michiba  Challenger: Dr. Hattori

rerun

Morimoto was on East Meets West at 3:00 a.m.

I worked from 5:00 to closing (11:15) and missed Morimoto.  
  

Sunday, October 28th, 2001
Main Ingredient:  Pumpkin

Cooking Style: Italian

Iron Chef:  Masahiko Kobe  Challenger: Kensuke Sakai

DISCLAIMER: Iron Chef is the property of FujiTV and all opinions expressed herein do not reflect those of FujiTV. The author is in no way affiliated with FujiTV or Food Network. The recipes presented here are loosely based on the dishes appearing on "Iron Chef", but are in no way supposed to be accurate copies. Use of copyrighted images is covered under the fair use section of the Copyright Law. This site is not responsible for the content of any other site to which it is linked. All text and graphics are ©Copyright 2001 by Brett Pijan, unless otherwise noted.