If you've ever seen the television show Iron Chef and not hated it, then you would have been amused by the events in one of the college dining halls today. The Deviants decided to host Iron Chef in the dining hall, and I finagled a guest meal in order to attend. Only one of the people doing the cheffing quit, and I ended up on a hastily assembled team of three men who, frankly, are not cooking experts. As our team was led by the bearded Al, we dubbed ourselves Al Dente.

    After the Chairman in the Japanese Headband took a bite of a giant bell pepper, he announced the night's ingredient: Apple. I immediately set to work cutting some apples into slices without any real plan. My third teammate began creating an abomination called Variations on a Cheerio, which consisted of a cheerio cut of an apple between a bagel that looked exactly like an apple cinnamon cheerio, since it was covered in bits of apple and cinnamon. Then it was garnished with cheerios.

    Al created a salad with orange chicken, while I decided to go for my old reliable-- mix stuff together and add cheese. I took some meatloaf and cheese, melted and mixed it, and added diced apple, honey, and cinnamon. I topped it with three apple slices for presentation. Our team put together an apple drink, and as a last ditch effort, I tried to core an apple and ended up losing half, so I filled the other half with honey. Al added a banana, and we dubbed it Apple and Eve.

    The judges were less than kind to us, some of them refusing to even taste my Meatloaf Al Dente. While we had two more dishes than the three women who were our competition, they nevertheless bested us in presentation, and also the whole competition. Not one to be a sore loser, I happily enjoyed the remainder of my Meatloaf Al Dente (which was damn near all of it) for dinner.