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Hey, Iron Chef Fans, old and new alike! I hope that all is well with you and wanted to take some time to share what our site has been going through, some of the amazing things we’ve had happen already this year, and an idea of how I’d like our year to play out!
As all of you know, 2020 was a disruption to businesses, lives, and the best-laid-plans across the board, and our Iron Chef Fans site was no different. Our 2020 ideas included a site redesign, new contributions, and even some interactive content! We searched to find a content curator and were successful, but as all of our lives changed, their availability was uncertain. Similarly, our tech ideas went on hold as life, work, health, and so on took precedence.
One thing we did NOT expect from 2020 was bots, but boy did we get them. Each week for the last 12-14 months, we have about 12 new accounts created on our website looking for access and admin privileges. Some of those accounts have even sent emails to my webmaster account asking to be upgraded. The majority of my time with our site has been trying to separate the fake accounts from the real members, and it’s work that, hopefully, will pay off soon.
By the way, I floated the idea of coming on board to that content curator I selected and I think they’re ready to start by the end of the summer! The job is going to be pretty background from the website’s point of view: going through our decades of WP content to find our most celebrated and unique items and bringing those archives to a special area for display. We have been a resource to many folks and even many other sites over the years, and I definitely want to show that value off!
A few months ago, we shared information about the Twitch channel that has been streaming Iron Chef Japan, and I’d like to hear from you whether you’ve used that stream to reconnect with the things you’ve loved about Iron Chef! Have you run into other streams featuring other Iron Chef content?
Before I close, I want to welcome you to Summer – at least everyone in the Northern Hemisphere, that is. With grills and other cooking implements flying off of store shelves, and outdoor events becoming more and more possible, leave a comment here on what YOUR summer “Secret Ingredient” of choice would be if you went up against an Iron Chef. Allez cuisine!
Thanks for reading, and we’ll talk again soon!
I expect some you folks may have seen this before, but wanted to put this up in case you haven’t. Sakai and Chen were interviewed in uniform while they were in Sydney for a 2010 Iron Chef event, and the topics they discuss include their time in Australia (including Sakai’s time working in Perth early in his career) and their time on the show during its original run. Watch until the end for some English (or Engrish, if you prefer) from both of them!
A bit of a flashback not just to the Iron Chef event on February 14th and 15th, 2015 at the RACV City Club in Melbourne’s CBD but also to, among other things, Chen’s tofu battle (314 vs. Chiyo Cho). This one’s a fancam but still gives a chance to see a demo narrated in English of a Szechuan and Chen family (dynasty?) specialty.
Chen Kentaro was advertised as the only Chen attending the event, so attendees got a shock when Kenichi was also shown backstage and then when he came out and helped demo the recipe with added assistance from Sakai and Kobe. Hope everyone enjoys!
MasterChef and especially MasterChef AU fans may know this already, but Sakai was brought in to be the guest judge for the opening round of Series 2’s Finals Week: an Invention Test using crustaceans. When one thinks about it, that’s fitting because an Invention Test is the MasterChef event that most resembles a regular Kitchen Stadium battle and also because Sakai is known as “Shellfish Sakai” among other things thanks to his exploits.
Watch for Sakai borrowing Takeshi Kaga’s “Allez cuisine!” and eventual Series 2 winner Adam Liaw showing himself (in a cool way) to be a bona fide Iron Chef fanboy, having been born in Japan and watched the show (and also making efforts to converse with Sakai in Japanese that was, by his own admission, rusty). Adam later told Australia’s Daily Telegraph, “(Iron Chef)’s the first (show) that entertained rather than educated. You wouldn’t have MasterChef without Iron Chef.“
As you might know, Iron Chef Michiba turned 90 on January 3rd. What you might not know is that he also gave some birthday gifts with recipe tutorials, two of which have English captions/subtitles. Hope everyone enjoys, and a belated but wholehearted Happy Birthday to the man Takeshi Kaga called the best Iron Chef of all!
These are just the English captioned/subtitled ones I’ve seen thus far – make sure to check out the channel for the full listing.
In late April 2019, there was an Iron Chef collaboration with the long-running NHK show Today’s Menu (きょうの料理) to celebrate the end of the Heisei Era when Emperor Akihito (son of Hirohito) abdicated the Chrysanthemum Throne and was succeeded by Crown Prince Naruhito.
It featured Sakai, Michiba, Chen and even Kenji Fukui in a collaboration that would normally be unthinkable since Fuji TV and NHK are competitors, which goes to show how big an occasion the end of a emperor’s era is in Japan.
All three Iron Chefs participated in one of the show’s long-running segments, “Dinner in 20 Minutes”, which was actually conceived by Katsuyo Kobayashi, the chef who bested Chen in Battle Potato I (232).
Today’s Menu has been airing since November 4th, 1957 and its list of guests includes Chen Kenmin and a younger Michiba, as NHK Archives on Facebook posted:
