MBAs beat Hotelies in first Iron Chef competition at CU

In the foreground, MBA '04 students Amol Palkar, left, and Aamer Adamjee, center -- two members of the Johnson Graduate School of Management team "The Barachis" ("The Chefs" in Hindi) -- are observed by judge Mike Washburn, right, executive sous chef with Wegmans, during the Iron Chef competition, April 24. Nicola Kountoupes/University Photography

Are Cornell MBA students more-seasoned cooks than their Hotel School peers? It certainly looks like it from the outcome of the first-ever Cornell Iron Chef competition, held April 24 in the Statler Hall's food laboratories.

Johnson Graduate School of Management students handily beat out foodies from the School of Hotel Administration's MMH (master's of management in hospitality) program to take the coveted trophy, a wooden butcher block with a saucepan bolted to it and a ladle inside the pan.

Seven teams, four from the Johnson School and three from the Hotel School, competed against each other, with Johnson School teams taking the top three slots. The top winning team concocted tasty Asian-fusion fare from the assigned ingredient, ostrich, within the two-hour time limit.

Dishes included ostrich rice-paper rolls with Vietnamese dipping sauce, tangy poppy seed salad with warmed ostrich and shafis ostrich curry. The winning team members were second-year MBA students Ryan Folger, Joanne Wall, Alison Reichert and Annie Oh, who dubbed themselves "Ryan's Angels."

All the food for the entirely student-run event was donated by Ithaca Wegmans. The event was organized by Alex Tse, who earned a B.S. at the Hotel School in 1997 and is now at the Johnson School.

The Hotel School students will have a full year to train for a comeback. Next spring's competition may also be open to all Cornell schools and colleges, Tse said. Tse got the idea for the competition from the "Iron Chef" television program. He recruited judges from the community, including Dean of Students Kent Hubbell; Mike Washburn, executive sous chef at Wegmans; Dano Hutnik, former proprietor of Dano's restaurant; and Ken Cowan, owner of Eagle Broadcasting. Cornell students were invited to eat the leftovers.