Since my friends are far more creative than I am in terms of finding stuff to do, I was invited to an "Iron Chef Neophyte" or "Tinfoil Chef" competition on Saturday. And since I've never seen the show, I was filled with anticipation and some confusion.

I still don't know exactly how the real thing operates, but what we did was, everyone provided one "secret ingredient." Then we met at the Superstore on Joe Howe Drive (more on that in a minute!) where all contestants drew for the course we were to prepare. There were five teams, and in the draw were one appetizer, one dessert, and three entrees. I drew a slip labelled "entree." And then we drew the "secret ingredient" which had to be included in every recipe. (By this time, since I had not quite understood the rules when I gave mine, I was rooting against my ingredient, which was "tomatoes" since the people making dessert would hate me forever.)

Nope, the secret ingredient we all had to use was: Dijon mustard!

Damn, I was glad I hadn't drawn dessert!

As it was Saturday afternoon, the store was packed, and since I hadn't been there before (that may have been the point: to go to a grocery store none of us were overly familiar with) I found myself in the children's clothing section (I nearly opted to serve a stuffed and glazed snowsuit) and had to double back to find condiments and meat. Because I had an immediate idea for my entree.

I also found little frozen packs of minced ginger, which you pop into your recipe like tiny gingery ice cubes, so I took one of those as well.

And then found that the checkout lines (full, it was Saturday and apparently some people had heard about the storm we ended up having Sunday) at this particular store are set up perpendicular to a big solid wall of shelves, so it was almost impossible to find a line or figure out which one you were in. I went to a self-checkout machine like the ones at Kroger in Dallas (I remember when those were installed, the cashier who helped me was all impressed: "We bought these from a company in Canada! Aren't those Canadians smart?" "Yeah, yeah, now explain this to me one more time?") It even had the same female voice telling you what to do. (No option for Spanish, obviously. A friend of mine used to prefer the Spanish option because the voice sounded friendlier.)

I think I've decided I'm never going back to that store.

Anyways, I was already aware that the entries were to be judged partially on originality and I was pretty sure we were on our honour not to just use a recipe book. However, when cooking with chicken (as I was) I like to avoid poisoning anyone, so I figured I'd create a variation on an existing recipe and use the same temperature and cooking times, and then confess.

I have previously made a honey-dijon-curry-cayenne sauce for chicken, so what I did was substitute ginger for the curry. And then, just before I fired the pan in the oven, I thought "what the hell" and sprinkled a lot of cinnamon over the top. I planned to make rice and mix the whole thing together in a casserole, so I put a little cinnamon into the rice on the principle that if it didn't totally ruin the dish, it would make it at least a little original.

When we got to the rally point, I learned that I was not the only entree-maker who had thought of chicken with a honey-dijon sauce. D'oh! Also, I learned that there was a score for "presentation" of the food, which makes sense, only I cook primarily for cats and occasionally horses and they're not so fussy about the look of the thing.

My solution was to plop the casserole dish on the table and announce that, since I am from the Miramichi, this was as presentationy as it gets.

Most of the group members were displaced New Brunswickers, so they understood.

By the end of the tasting we had thrown out our score cards (although really, the people who made the strawberry-peach frozen pie with Dijon mustard incorporated into the glaze probably should have won on general principles) and we just drew for the winner. Everything was really good, and it was a lot of fun.

The only question is, when do we do it next?

And will anyone suggest "black olives" as the secret ingredient?