I was thinking about the incongruity between the so-called feminine art of meal preparation and the fact that men dominate the culinary world, and it reminded me that way before Cat Cora ever made headlines, the first woman in Kitchen Stadium was actually Anne Burrell, one of Mario Batali’s major weapons in his domination of Iron Chef America.

You know which sous chef I’m talking about, right? She’s rocking the fun, punky blonde haircut and looks like she actually eats once in awhile. Unlike Cat Cora (arguably the token chick on the docket), she’s the only woman in an all-male team and is there solely on the merit of her talent. She doesn’t seem to think that food is a weapon, a challenge to be conquered, a patriarchy to be bucked, which is the feeling I get from Ms. Cora. Like Iron Chef Batali, Anne seems to be in it entirely for the joy of making truly delicious food. And if the challenge involves anything related to pastry, just throw in your whisks, gentlemen, as you have already been defeated. Anne is going to kick everyone’s ass up and down the block.

I think my crush hit the first time I saw Anne make graceful strings of spun sugar. The stuff is referred to as culinary napalm because the boiling syrup is so incredibly hot and the stuff of legendary kitchen burns. Most chefs hold some serious apprehension for the stuff, but Anne was spinning the hot liquid into the air and catching it with her bare hands, trusting that the hang time would cool it enough to crystallize the sugar. The woman, as we say in the biz, has some serious huevos. “Food is like a dog—it smells fear,” she quips.

Um, HOT?!

So there it is. I have a MAJOR girl crush on Anne Burrell and would take her cooking show over chattering strumpet Giada DeLaurentis any day of the week. —Weetabix