Let's get straight to the news:

• Volt chef and owner Bryan Voltaggio is apparently scouting around for another restaurant, which may or may not be the second coming of Volt. (Washington Business Journal)
• Tis the season for tying one on. Tis the season for hangover remedies, too. A number of local heavy hitters explain their best morning-after cure. (Brightest Young Things)
• Eater looks back on R.J. Cooper's unfortunate loss on Iron Chef America on Sunday, while Best Bites Blog runs a Q&A with Cooper's sous chef for the challenge, David Guas, who explains how the whole contest went down.

• The Capital Video Sales store on 8th Street SE will be closing to make way for a Latin tapas joint called Pacifico. (Prince of Petworth)
• Just before Thanksgiving, President Obama dished out two presidential turkey pardons outside the W Hotel. The spared birds were aptly named "Apple" and "Cider." (WeLoveDC)
• The Thrillist folks take us through a first look of Penn Quarter's newest joint: Merzi. (Thrillist)
• Foxhall sandwich shop Jetties will be opening a second location in Bethesda early next spring. (Bethesda magazine)
• Can't make up your mind on savory or sweet? The Cakespy's recipe for cinnamon rolls stuffed with Thanksgiving pie leftovers should do the trick. (Serious Eats)
• Bubbly anyone? On Dec. 11, EatBar is hosting its annual Sparkler Tasting and Sale, where you can sample all things bubbly, from your standard champagne to imported sparklers from Italy and Spain.
• New York City tapas joint Boqueria is currently on the prowl for a spot in the District to open a new location. (Eater)
• The self-proclaimed "first FIT restaurant and bar in America" Funxion at 1309 F St. NW is looking to switch to a 24-hour schedule. (Prince of Petworth)
• While the downtown D.C. branch of NYC-based Crumbs Bake Shop has already launched, the folks in Clarendon continue to await an opening date. (ARLnow)

Photo courtesy of Boqueria via Eater.com

Since he's still technically on hiatus between his former gig at Vidalia and his new one at Rogue 24, R.J. Cooper clearly has some time on his hands to mix it up on reality TV. He'll be the challenging chef on the season debut of Iron Chef America, which will air on Sunday, Nov. 28, on the Food Network.

According to a press release, Cooper will face the winner of the current season of The Next Iron Chef. His culinary team will include Harper McClure, the future chef de cuisine at Rogue 24, and David Guas, the former Passion Food pastry chef who's opening his own place, Bayou Bakery.

Y&H got Cooper on the horn as soon as he heard about the news. Here's our short Q&A, which tells you a lot about the information control over at the Food Network:

Can you say whether you won or not?

"I can't say," Cooper says.

Can you say what the secret ingredient was?

"Can't say that, either."

Can you say who the judges were?

"Can't say that, either."

How did you decide on your team?

"Harper's going to work for me," he says. "David's a great pastry chef, and he's not doing anything either."

[We laugh.]

Can you confirm what Eater recently reported: that chefs are told before taping which three or four ingredients might be the secret one so they can prep?

"That's true and false," Cooper says, helpfully.

And that was the extent of our "interview."

Guess we'll have to find out what happens on Nov. 28.

Then again, the Chairman on Iron Chef America is more excited about every ingredient than you. Take a look.

And why not? The inaugural White House kitchen garden became more than just a homegrown source for the First Family's meals but an international symbol for local agriculture and even the "site" for a special episode of Iron Chef America.

Will the expanded garden suffer the inevitable sophomore slump this year?

For a complete report on last week's planting, read Obama Foodorama's coverage, including a description of the First Lady's rhubarb dance.

I don't know about you, but between the cold weather and the post-vacation stupor, your semi-friendly Y&H just hasn't been able to embrace the work-at-all-costs mentality yet. I'm feeling so, so unAmerican.

I have, however,  enjoyed mixing it up again on the blog, and you readers have been clicking in droves this week. I (and the publisher) appreciate that. Here's what you've been clicking on most:

1. The Restaurants Coming Soon to a Neighborhood Near You
2. The Taco Bell Drive-Thru Diet: You Don't Even Have to Lift Your Ass from the Car to Lose Weight! (*)
3. Critics of Iron Chef America, White House Edition, Wonder If the Fix Was In
4. The Whole Foods' Ground Beef Grind Clock
5. 2009: Looking Back at a Growing Beer City Part 2
   

* A certain light-drinking Budweiser beer was, once again, a popular item, but we’ve stopped counting it.

Time to play catch-up here late on a Hump Day, which can mean only one thing: another round-up of food-related links. First up is the big news of the new year: the sudden departure of Cedric Maupillier from Central. WaPo's Tom Sietsema broke the news.

Interestingly enough, Philly.com reported in November that Maupillier's replacement, Arthur Cavaliere, was heading to D.C. Unfortunately, the source couldn't say where exactly he was moving to. The interesting thing to Y&H is Cavaliere's experience at El Vez, the Stephen Starr property that deals in modern Mexican-American food. Could any of that influence wiggle its way into Michel Richard's Americanized French bistro?

In other news:

• U Street Girl reports that former Tabaq chef, the underrated Daniel Labonne, has opened his own place, Bistro La Bonne on U Street.
• Prince of Petworth notes that the former Asmara Cafe space is being transformed into Bella Restaurant.
• PoP also lets us know that one of Y&H's best new restaurants, Masa 14, is already looking to expand.
• Zagat Buzz gives us a list of places that are extending Restaurant Week.
• Foodservice Monthly names Lynne Breaux, president of Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington, the "foodservice leader of the year."
• Obama Foodorama has the recipe for the sweet potato tart from Iron Chef America's most recent winning team.

If you haven't yet had a chance, like Y&H, to watch the Iron Chef America episode in which the not-so-secret ingredient is the White House vegetable garden, you might want to stop reading now.

Otherwise, you'll never forgive me for what I'm about to do: reveal the winner in the star-studded cook-off that pitted Mario "Orange Crush" Batali and Emeril "Bam Bam" Lagasse against Bobby "Death Smirk" Flay and White House Executive Chef Cristeta "I'm Surrounded by Too Much Testosterone" Comerford.

I have a reason. The New York Times' Kim Severson and Sam Sifton suggested yesterday that the fix was in during their give-and-take on the Diner's Journal blog. As in: The winner was a foregone conclusion given the fact that the show was provided access to the most powerful house in the whole stinkin' universe (American interpretation, naturally). Take a read:

K.S.Seriously, the only one who kept her peas in the basket, as it were, was Cristeta Comerford. She was cool as a cucumber, even when her pastry guy was in the weeds and Alton Brown asked her strange, overwrought and unanswerable questions. And her look was flawless throughout, which is more than I can say about the brothers. I completely heart her now. Here’s the bigger question: Was the fix in? I mean, I know reality TV isn’t exactly real, but this felt like a set up of the highest order. How are you going to get your Food Network show invited to the most powerful house in the world and not give the gold to the host team?

S.S. Let’s turn that question over to the readers. For myself, I think it would have been hard, even for British subjects like Ms. Lawson and Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman (Ms. Seymour’s greatest role) to deny Ms. Comerford and her employer’s vegetables the win. I think that would have been the case even if that chowder thing she and Mr. Flay made wasn’t as dodgy and weird and gross as it looked and sounded.

Also, that there was a fix would suggest the idea that Mr. Batali burned the radishes on purpose. And I love that idea. (”I charred some icicle radishes,” he said, as if this were smart cooking, when he introduced the dish. Dude! Nice try!) Because: did you see the expressions on the judges’ faces after they ate Mr. Batali’s sweet-potato raviolo, with the egg yolk inside? They were rapturous. That was a winning dish, right there. I suspect that Mr. Flay’s barbecue and tamale dish was, as well. But my feeling is he would have won with a pile of blue-corn tortillas, some honey mustard and a heap of steamed kale.

OK, readers, let's get into it. What the fix in?

Comerford and Flay get fresh (veggies) in the White House garden.

Jeesh, speaking of predictions, Y&H should have guessed this would happen as soon as the White House broke ground on its kitchen garden in March: Iron Chef America has trotted out three of its, ahem, heaviest hitters to cook a meal from ingredients plucked from the hugely symbolic garden.

The special two-hour episode of Iron Chef America, dubbed with a stunning lack of subtlety, Super Chef Battle, features Mario Batali and Emeril Lagasse, who take on Bobby Flay and White House Executive Chef Cristeta Comerford in the competition.

The episode has already been filmed, and according to The New York Times' account, First Lady Michelle Obama laid out the ground rules to the teams (they had to cook five dishes using ingredients from the White House kitchen garden) and put in a good plug for her Healthy Kids Initiative.

The show will air on Sunday, Jan. 3, on the Food Network.

Not surprisingly, the air date is politically tinged. So says Y&H's virtual friend, Obama Foodorama, who writes:

The show's January airdate is timed perfectly to be right before Congress comes back into session, when legislators will be addressing the reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act, which provides federal funding for school feeding programs. Better school lunches are one of Mrs. Obama's priorities, and President Obama's too; Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack frequently notes in his public remarks that this was the very first subject President Obama discussed with him during their "job interview."

And here's another interesting twist: The ingredients used for the actual cooking challenge in Kitchen Stadium were not from the White House garden. So says both The New York Times and Obama Foodorama, who notes:

Today, the chefs reunited in New York in the Iron Chef Kitchen Stadium, the stage set where the competition part of the show occurs. In addition to the "secret ingredient" of White House Kitchen Garden veggies (stand-in organic veggies were used for the actual filming–) the chefs were given a baby pig, and a pantry of dairy products to work with, among other things. Guest judges for the competition part of the episode were cookbook author/chef Nigella Lawson, actress Jane Seymour, and Olympic swimming champ Natalie Coughlin.

Photo courtesy of Obama Foodorama