‘red bell peppers’
courtesy of ‘needlessspaces’
So how did Chef RJ Cooper and his buddy sous chef David Guas do on last night’s season premiere of Iron Chef America? Er…not so good. They competed against the newest Iron Chef Marc Forginone in his first competition, and lost the battle 54-45. And what battle was that? Battle Bell Pepper. Dunt-dunt-dunnnnn.

Not exactly the most exciting secret ingredient (who remembers all the crazy things on the original Iron Chef?) and it seemed like Cooper was at a real disadvantage since he referred to bell peppers as what he “used to scrape off the salad’s [his] mother used to make.” And the judges probably weren’t the greatest for this particular occasion either since Adam Richman (the Man v. Food guy) is more used to eating a thousand pounds of pizza in one sitting, and Nigella Lawson at one point referred to green peppers as “an abomination.”

But in the end, poor secret ingredient or not, Cooper lost points for not featuring the peppers prominently in his dishes. Should we expect a special bell pepper tasting menu at Cooper’s soon-to-be-open Rogue 24? Methinks no.

Ashley Messick

Ashley is a born and bred Washingtonian who left for college but came running back to the District as fast as her little legs could carry her. By day she is a Capitol Hill brat, but by night she is a lean, mean, eating machine. It’s her goal in life to steal Anthony Bourdain’s job…by whatever means necessary. Contact her at Ashley (at) welovedc (dot) com or follow her on Twitter.