While watching the holiday-appropriate “Turkey Challenge” episode of Iron Chef America, in which the contestants were each given the Thanksgiving bird to get creative within the show’s time slot, I watched half-interested as to who was challenging Bobby Flay (yet again) with Alton’s semi-sarcastic drawl in the background.
When I saw that it wasn’t Mario and that it was two affable ladies – a blonde in bright pink and a diminutive brunette with funky glasses, it got my attention. I realized after a while, that it was the Two Hot Tamales, also known as Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger.
The most interesting dish of the show by far was the Hot Tamales turkey (yes, turkey) ice cream, which used the bourbon Wild Turkey, and (regretfully) turkey stock. As one of the judges aptly put it, high marks for originality, low marks for the proteiny taste. Much as I like Mary Sue and Susan, I have to say that they reached a little too much here – who on earth would eat a poultry-flavoured ice cream? I must say that the presentation was beautiful though, a chocolate ball crust in a chocolate turkey-shaped basket.
Their other dishes beat Mr.Flay’s multi-turkey breast renditions (all the same, different sauce) by a mile I thought, with things like turkey meatball soup and a scotch egg which looked absolutely scrummy. You don’t get to see of the humble scotch egg on television much, and I have to say that the last time I saw one was at a garage shop in a UK motorway.
Sadly, it was a tie (the injustice!!), and even if Alton said that that was “rare” for the show, I should really email them and say that the last time I watched it was also a tie.
But anyway, one good thing was that I got to see the Two Hot Tamales again, who I hadn’t seen in years and had actually forgotten about in the sea of the new breed of Celeb Chefs (or dare I say media whores?). Now you know who I’ll be blogging about next.
[tags]Thanksgiving, Two Hot Tamales, Iron Chef America[/tags]
Originally posted on November 23, 2008 @ 11:39 pm
