Guest column: A Farmers Market to Remember

The year 2008 was a mix good and bad memories which I will never forget: The Flood and my first Iron Chef competition.

Up until the flood, I had prepped and waited tables down at Zin's, just doing whatever I could to get on the cooks' line. The flood changed all of that. It wasn't until the Cedar Rapids Downtown Farmer's Market started back up did you see that the lifeline of downtown hadn't died -- it was just covered with a bit of debris.

I had always loved looking for that wonderful produce for the perfect dish. At school, we heard they were doing something special near the end of the season: Iron Chef! I had competed for Kirkwood and had won money for the college, so I kind of had my foot in the door.

The day arrived.We had all agreed to use Lamb center cut chops. I took charge of my team and discussed going with an Indian theme: Grilled lamb with ginger and Garum masala, caramelized cauliflower and leeks, grilled turmeric potato coins with an Indian cream sauce.

The competition started at 8:30 a.m. The 60 minutes that followed both crawled and flew by. All of the sudden, TIME!

We didn't spend as much time making intricate presentation, instead focusing on correctly matching flavors in the dish. The judges tasted the food and took their time, then declared us the winner. It seemed the focus on balancing flavors better brought us victory.

It always makes me hope that someday that the Cedar Rapids Downtown Farmer's Market will hold more Iron Chef Competitions that I could compete in as a Hy-Vee Executive Chef.

Chef Luke's Grilled Indian Lamb Chops

• 4 lamb chops
• 4 ounces ginger
• 1 teaspoon dried sage
• ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 teaspoon coriander
• 1 ½ tablespoons Frontier Garum Masala
• ½ tablespoons kosher salt

Mix together the last five ingredients making a dry rub.

Take your ginger and grate with a microplane or a fine grater to be spread on your chops.

Evenly coat all the chops with your dry rub. With the grill at about 500 degrees, grill the chops on one side for 2 minutes, then turn 90 degrees and grill for 2 minutes. Turn the chops over and cook for 2 minutes, then turn 90 degrees and grill for 1 minute. Remove the chops from the grill and rest for 3 minutes. The chops should be a perfect medium rare.

Luke Peters is the executive chef at the Edgewood Road Hy-Vee in Cedar Rapids.