All Sport Report

If there are two things I love, they are sports and food. Sports and food go together quite well. Perhaps that is why my partner, Ashtyn, and I go together, so well. I am the sports enthusiast and resident expert. She is the gourmet chef. She even writes her own blog on the Food Network called Watching Food TV.

Imagine my surprise when I became addicted to the Food Network. A whole network about food is about as exciting for a man as the ESPN network airing non-stop sports 24/7. Of course, I have my favorites like Paula Deen, who is a southern cook after my own heart and Emeril, who cooks kicked up food with a lot of New Orleans flavor.

So, when I get the chance to have my two passions, food and sports mix, I am like a kid in a candy store. After watching Rory lose the Next Food Network Star I realized that the season premiere of one of Ash’s favorite shows, Dinner Impossible, takes Chef Robert Irvine to the ballpark. He was attending a Chicago White Sox versus New York Yankees baseball game where he would find out his mission.

Dinner Impossible is a competitive type of show where Mission Impossible meets the Kitchen. Chef Robert is given an impossible food mission and in an even more impossible amount of time he has to finish the mission. His mission for the White Sox game is for Robert and his crew to cook for 200 of Chicago’s finest police officers by the seventh inning stretch. However, things are much more complicated then that.

First, Robert is British. He knows nothing about baseball so telling him he has seven innings means little to him. He soon learns that an inning can go really fast or really slow. It just depends on the players, the game, and how the pitchers pitch. To further complicate things, Robert has to go through boxes of frozen, typical baseball food (you know hot dogs and wings). His mission is to make the food gourmet in some way so he can’t do the typical ballpark food fare.

Additionally, the kitchen is incredibly small and he also has to throw out the first pitch of the game so he cannot even start cooking until after he does that! The episode starts with Robert learning about his mission, going through boxes of food, and having his assistants, one of whom is the White Sox’s own Ron Kittle, help him get the boxes of frozen food upstairs.

Kittle, if you do not know him, was the 1983 Rookie of the Year for the AL, when he was playing for the White Sox. Kittle becomes a vital part of the show and Robert’s mission as he helps get food to Chef Robert, carry it upstairs, and keeps track of innings for him.

Chef Robert learns quickly after he gets started cooking, just how fast innings can go in baseball. He makes a plan of what to cook (he’s very organized) since Ron and his other assistants have carried all the boxes to cook up 15 flights of stairs where the small kitchen is located while he was throwing out the first pitch, and lets just say Chef Robert has no future career on the mound! Of course, to give him credit, he has never thrown a baseball, and he does make it to the plate, even if he does throw it into the ground.

By the time he has his plan, half an inning is already over. Robert is shocked, the food is frozen, and he better start cooking right away. As he tries to put beef on the grill, it is filled with water so it disintegrates and Robert cannot use it.

This is something that seems a bit discouraging, but Robert manages to pull it together to make such great dishes like Swedish Meatballs with a Dijon sauce, Mango Ginger Lime Chicken Wings (made with mango ginger seasoning and margarita mix), Brats in a Blanket (tortillas with cheese wrapped around Bratwurst), Chimichangas with Guacamole, Pepper Crusted Corned Beef, Chicken Skewers, and Double Chocolate Brownies with Margarita Ice Cream. With less than an inning left, Robert has to finish all his food, make enough to feed 200 policemen and their families, and get it upstairs before the seventh inning stretch.

Just when it looks like he’s going to fail, Robert catches a break. There is a pitcher change, which can take up to ten minutes. This is all the time Robert needs to get everything finished. He finishes in the nick of time and everybody loves his food. Dinner is a success, and Robert has now become a baseball fan for life!

Baseball, Chicago White Sox, Ron Kittle, Dinner Impossible, Chef Robert Irvine, Seventh Inning Stretch