Ravioli Rises to the Top

By Eric M. Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Working against a deadline, Greg Deviny put the coconut in his workbench vise and sawed it in half. Then he flattened out the round bottoms of each half with a hammer and a wood chisel so they wouldn't tip over when his wife Meredith filled them with steaming coconut chicken soup.

A couple of sprigs of cilantro were floated on top, a handful of flowers was tossed around the serving platter and the couple's entry was ready. After all, presentation counts when you're vying for the title of Iron Chef D.C.

The Iron Chef concept, which started in Japan in 1993 and now has an American television version, pits teams of professional chefs who must create and cook a whole meal using a "secret ingredient" that is revealed at the start of the show. The winners are then chosen by a panel of celebrity tasters.

In this home version, there are no celebrity chefs, no Kitchen Stadium, no baskets filled with eels and definitely no Japanese hosts biting into bell peppers. But competition and culinary creativity, which have made the Iron Chef idea a minor cult, are thriving in the nation's capital.

These are the rules: On a designated Friday morning, the secret ingredient, chosen out of a hat, is revealed to the group by an e-mail from the week's host. Teams are assigned either an appetizer, entree or dessert. They spend the weekend poring through recipes, buying ingredients and cooking. On Sunday evening, the group meets, eats and chooses a single winning dish.

Local competitors use cramped apartment kitchens and not-so-exotic fare from the neighborhood grocery. This group of adventurous cooks competes for the love of it -- certainly not for the under-$10 kitchen gadgets the winner receives that are contributed by the members. There are no club dues.

"It's just an excuse to get together and eat good food," said Amanda Frost, 35, an American University law professor and the founder of the D.C. Iron Chef outpost. She got the idea from a friend in New York and started it up in the District with some friends last October. Now, the group numbers about a dozen. Four of the 10 members who attended the last round have never seen a complete hour-long episode of "Iron Chef" -- not necessarily a boycott of the show, but rather the reality of not having the time or access to cable TV.

The Food Network, which airs "Iron Chef" shows, encourages such out-of-studio experiences, said Carrie Welch, a spokeswoman. Some of the more interesting contests are even featured in occasional on-air segments called, "How do you Iron Chef?"

Very competitively. In fact, one Washington team briefly considered cleaning out the entire supply of last week's secret ingredient, coconuts, from the local Whole Foods Market to foil the other.

Everyone in the Washington group has a day job that doesn't involve toques or paring knives. There's a Justice Department lawyer, a couple of techies, an engineer and a few who work for nonprofit organizations. But for all, the rhythms of preparing and cooking food round out their lives.

For lawyer Joe Gaeta, 35, food connects him to his Providence, R.I., home, where he grew up working in his family's Scialo Bros. Bakery on Federal Hill. Chris Sadler, 34, a systems analyst for the Bureau of National Affairs, and Binni Chadda, 29, an epidemiologist, met over pizza and courted through cooking classes at Bethesda's L'Academie de Cuisine. Alex Schlegel's mother was a professional caterer in Indianapolis, and she grew up in a house where pasta was frequently being hung up to dry.

"For dinner we never had anything normal -- and all I ever wanted was some lettuce with ranch dressing and mac and cheese," said Schlegel, 31, who lives in Georgetown and works in international development. Now, she and her mother bond over food, even traveling to Sicily for a cooking trip.

Entrants arrive at the competition site, rotated among members' homes, with a bottle of wine and their dishes mostly complete. A last-minute reheating or boiling of pasta is allowed.

In past competitions, which take place roughly every six weeks, beet ravioli with chive butter and sesame seeds was a winner. Green bell peppers stuffed with chocolate, avocado and goat cheese was, um, not.

"That was the worst meal ever," Gaeta said, reeling from the memory of the stuffed peppers and other chocolate-themed dishes.

Besides a good meal, the competitions serve as inspiration for future dishes. "I saw the potential of pumpkin in a way I never had before," Frost said, referring to a round in which the fruit was the secret ingredient.

For the most recent local Iron Chef dinner, held at Sadler's one-bedroom Adams Morgan apartment, appetizers included shrimp and coconut tamales with a spicy tomatillo dipping sauce. Entrees included the Devinys' coconut chicken soup with lemon grass and chili-garlic sauce and a South Indian fish stew made with cod. And dessert featured Puerto Rican coconut cookies and a decadent coconut and pecan tart with chocolate crust.

Each cook introduced a dish -- lovingly plated on a colorful serving platter -- gave a sales pitch explaining the process and how the key ingredient was incorporated and answered questions about it.

Then everybody dug in, taking a medium-sized portion of each dish.

At the end of the meal, blank Post-Its and pens were handed out for voting. Points are earned for the primacy of the secret ingredient, originality of recipe and presentation.

The winner was clear: Sadler and Chadda's coconut shrimp ravioli with a tasty green curry sauce. Soon their laps were filled with gifts ranging from bamboo spoons to a freshly baked vanilla bean loaf cake featuring vanilla beans recently brought back from Madagascar.

The Devinys took home their empty coconut bowls and red serving platter. Maybe next time.

Eric Weiss covers federal courts for The Post's Metro desk.