Cast Iron Chef

‘The secret ingredient,” says BREADA operations director Derek Fitch, “is carrots.”

Mark Goodson and Chris Herring are amateurs, sure, but they’ve been through this before. They don’t even flinch.

Goodson, a community planner at C-PEX, and Herring, an auditor for the Board of Regents, made it through weeks one and two to get here, to be finalists in the annual Cast Iron Chef championship. They are about to put skills honed in their home kitchens to the test, Food Network-style.

The rules are simple: After learning the secret ingredient they must use, the competitors have one hour to stock up at the Red Stick Farmers Market and 30 minutes to prep inside at the Main Street Market. Other than cookware and a few spices, everything must be fresh and local.

“I like to cook and I’m single, so I’ve got to eat,” Herring jokes as his skillet heats, the chefs’ breezy façades belying a gladiator’s glint each has in their eyes. Wafts of garlic, onions and bell pepper permeate the crowd of 100 packed into the north end of the Main Street Market to watch Goodson and Herring go at it. WAFB anchor Donna Britt, Brandon McDonald of Mansur’s on the Boulevard, and Ben Clark, the 2007 Cast Iron Chef champ, are this year’s celebrity judges.

Using taste, creativity and use of local ingredients as criteria, they watch the action from tall chairs the way a Wimbledon net judge would oversee Federer and Nadal waging war.

“The sweetness of carrots this time of year and the sweetness of fresh crabmeat go really well together,” Goodson comments as he readies dozens of small carrot and cornbread crabcakes for the skillet.

As Herring and Goodson plate small portions of their dishes, a line of curious taste-testers forms up front. A few are still talking about the cabbage jambalaya that made Herring a winner the second week.

“This puts our farmers market to shame,” says Goodson’s aunt, Susan Colvin. She and her husband, Jay, drove from Shreveport to cheer on their nephew in the finals.

After Goodson’s crabcakes, Herring’s chicken fricassee, two vegetable medleys and deliberation from the judges, Fitch tallies the scores. The winner: Goodson.

“The thing is (Herring’s) stew needed salt, but the crabcakes needed nothing,” Britt says. “The taste was so unique and well-done. There’s a sweet flavor to the tomato relish that you don’t expect, and with the crabmeat it really sings.”

Adorned with a cast iron skillet medal and bragging rights at home and at the office for the next 365 days, one question remains for Goodson: Will he wear his new trophy every day?

“It gets a little heavy for that,” Goodson says surveying the crowd, now spilling out into the farmers market. “But maybe I’ll use it to make a little omelet.”