You may call me Iron Chef.

Sara, Trisha, Julia, Kristen, Jessica, Paul

A couple weeks ago I was asked to be one of 5 lead chef's in the upcoming Iron Chef activity at church. I was out to win and nothing could stop me.

The instructions were as follows:

-Bring at least 1 ingredient you think will help you win the competition.
-Once teams are formed 2 people from each team will have about 30 seconds to grab ingredients from the supplied ingredients. Then we'll reveal the secret ingredient and the competition will begin.
-You'll have 15 minutes to make your dish for 3 judges.
-Judges will base the winner on creativity, taste and use of the secret ingredient. There are prizes for 1st & 2nd place.

All of us would be in the gym and we only had 15 minutes, thus we weren't actually "cooking" anything. What could it be? My best bet: dessert.

Like the other contestants, I didn't know what the "secret ingredient" would be, so I came prepared. I brought with me:

-mixing bowls
-a can opener
-display trays
-my good knives
-a cutting board
-food grater
-4 cute margarita glasses
-Hawaiian napkins
-cookie sheets
-assorted food coloring
-white frosting
-chocolate frosting
-a set of 6 cake decorating tips and bags
-assorted sprinkles
-Life cereal
-Hershey's chocolate bar
-Twix bar
-Snickers bar
-marshmallows
-angel food cake
-strawberry glaze
-strawberries
-blueberries
-raspberries
-bananas
-can of mandarin oranges
-can of peaches
-cream cheese
-Eagle Brand condensed milk
-plain yogurt

Not only did I bring all of these ingredients, I laid them all out on a beautiful purple table-cloth. I brought in a little team spirit with Hawaiian decorations and lei's for everyone on my team. I might have given the 3 judges lei's too. I had to make them feel included!

I came prepared and determined to win. As soon as the other 4 lead chef's witnessed 'the oil in my lamp', they quickly accused me of cheating. Not so... I reminded them of the rules: "Bring at least 1 ingredient you think may help you win the competition." Needless to say, they didn't like that comment. I can't blame them, they knew they were going to lose.

The bell rang and we ran to the provided ingredients table. I picked up some whipped topping and Teddy Grahams. The secret ingredient was announced: JELL-O. I died laughing. What a typical Mormon food... and perfect for my dessert-inspired creation! I ran to the stage and grabbed a pre-made bowl of red Jello.

My team and I set to work. 15 minutes later we had 3 incredible Fruit & Jello Parfaits in my margarita glasses! We called them "Love on the Beach".

Layer 1- blueberries and strawberries
Layer 2- bananas with strawberry glaze
Layer 3- red Jello (I still don't know if it was strawberry or cherry flavored)
Layer 4- raspberries
Layer 5- whipped topping encircled with blueberries
Layer 6- Two Teddy Grahams sitting underneath a little paper umbrella with chocolate Hershey's bar shavings (the sand) surrounding them

It was perfect. No cheating necessary.

The 5 teams presented their creations to the judges one by one. Team Jessica with their cute presentation in glasses with a Hawaiian inspired table setting, the other 4 teams with their disasters on paper plates. I told the panel of judges that we had angel food cake as one of the layers... whoops. In my haste, I forgot we had nixed that plan--it didn't taste quite right. Oh well. They still loved Team Jessica's creation the best. WE WON!!!

The prize was a really cool wooden spatula for each member of the team, engraved with "Los Angeles 1st Ward – IRON CHEF 1st Place".

Someone once asked me if I was competitive. My answer- Only when I want to be.

[Kudos to the activities committee and Carrie for putting on such a great activity. They even had a Movie on the Green showing of "Back to the Future" afterwards.]