Chris Spurgeon, who worked at WHYY in those days, was a cutting-edge collector and purveyor of all things that really popped in popular culture. One day, he lent me some VHS bootleg tapes of episodes of an imported Japanese cooking show called
Iron Chef. Some were translated, others weren't, but all of them were mesmerizing. This is one of the only times on
Fresh Air I've reviewed a show
before it was presented by a network - but before too long, Food Network picked up
Iron Chef, and the rest is history. I have Chris to thank for being so far ahead of the curve. I have to thank him again, too, for being the brains behind the computer-programming part of this website.