I finally managed to catch a replay of the Iron Chef America: Thanksgiving Showdown from a week ago. The thing about Iron Chef is that I always hate the judges. They're always so pretentious. Cady Huffman annoys me not only because she spells her name stupidly, but because they believe I am supposed to be impressed if they refer to her as an actress. Her IMDB profile shows a few episodes of Law & Order and not much else. Is she related to somebody famous? If you're going to give me borderline celebrity, give me someone that probably resents the way their cookie crumbled. Give me Frank Stallone, Eric Roberts or a pre-Desperate Housewives Terri Hatcher type. Someone that needs the Iron Chef camera time to reinvigorate their career, not some goofy attention whore that is just happy to be invited back.

The judges for Thanksgiving Showdown were Tiki Barber, some food critic I don't know and Lou Diamond Philips. Possibly the least qualified panel to judge a rare 2v2 Iron Chef partner battle. Don't believe me, listen to Tiki Barber. "I like bacon", "I just keep going for the bacon" and "I'm just eating". Followed up in the second dish with the question "how did you make this?". Tiki, I don't know if you realized this but you were sitting inside Kitchen Stadium 15 feet away while they made your entire meal. What have you been doing for the last 60 minutes?

I don't know what to say about Lou Diamond Philips. He tried. He gave his best attempt to play the "acting is in my past, I'm a savvy restaurateur these days" role like Arnold Schwarzenegger at a Republican Governor's conference.

The one thing I would like to know is how I can audition to replace The Chairman? That seems like a pretty cushy job. You pace around Kitchen Stadium wearing hideous color combinations, occasionally stopping to shout the name of the secret ingredient. I wonder how much he makes.