Home Court Advantage: Yeah, I watched Iron Chef America: Battle of the Masters, mostly for Alton Brown. I've never really been a fan of the original show--I watch food shows to learn, not to be wowed or suprised, and the breakneck pace of Iron Chef makes it hard to follow what's actually being done. Half the time you don't even know when they made half the ingredients in a dish because too much was happening at once.

This version still has all of those disadvantages, but it has a couple of advantages, too. The first is Alton Brown, who could talk about sociology and make it sound interesting if he wanted to. The second is the excellent voice-overs done for the Japanese chefs. A lot better than the voice-overs on the shows they air on Food Network.

I was shocked by Bobby Flay's constant victories--compared with the other chefs, he came across as amateurish, rushing about the kitchen, burning ingredients, cutting himself, asking to be reminded of things. But in the end, it's about taste and appearance, not about grace or smoothness of preperation. So he won both his contests.