I feel fellowship with Sportscenter addicts

I never really understood the appeal of SportsCenter to the usually out of shape, usually white suburban men of questionable athletic prowess. The thought process went something like this: doesn't watching sportscenter remind them of their inability to achieve even the most tame of these athletic endeavors.

But I've found myself watching a lot of Food Network. Specifically Iron Chef. Iron Chef is to cooking what SportsCenter is to sport. The fetishizing of feats of talent so absurd that you stare slack jawed. Now there is Iron Chef America. I used to watch the show (Japanese version) more for the kitsch value. No longer. Now, sadly I find myself trying guess to what use quail eggs will be put in the cuisine of Iron Chef Puck. I actually, turned to my dad and suggested that Mario Batali was likely to use some wine as part of a reduction. It's silly. And it's supposed to be. But now that Iron Chef is in English, the horrid joke about the bad translations is removed, leaving a really solid product.

The first battle (each show is a "battle" between an Iron Chef and a challenger, with the respective sides trying to invent new ways of preparing the special ingredient within their given specialty). The innagural battle of the American show was Iron Chef Bobby Flay vs. the master of the Japanese show Chef Saki (who is a French master, and amazing with garnishes...I've watched a lot of Iron Chef over the years). The ingredient was Trout. Live trout. They catch and kill the trout, and Sakay makes it into an ice cream (yep, trout ice cream). The ingredients are usually very exotic...so much so that in the 300 episodes of the Japanese show an estimated 8 million dollars worth of groceries were used. They don't have "bologna battle"

The commentator, and this makes a huge difference, is Alton Brown (of Good Eats, the wacky professor of the Food Network). He is brilliant and funny and can tell you the chemistry at play in the cooking.

So I've been fixated. Last night was the "egg battle." Quail, salmon, duck, ostrich, chicken, human? all kinds of eggs. Wolfgang Puck vs. Mashaharu Morimoto (he of Morimoto, the Japanese Rest. in Philly). Morimoto cracked (using, a hacksaw, no joke) an ostrich egg. It was about 12 times as large as a chicken egg. I saw Puck's sous chef pull molted sugar off a spoon to create a gossamer fine nest of sugar. I was glued. Unreal.

The result of all this: I can no more prepare a delicate lobster saltimbucca than they can hit a Pedro Martinez slider. But, there is something great about the knowing. Something great about knowing just how much they (performers) know.

I'm working on improving my cooking skills, but right now, I'm a much better at sitting on the 0-2 sinker away than preparing anything that could be called a compote without first heading directly into composte.