Come ’round our house on a typical weekday afternoon, and you will see our version of a reality show we call “Iron Chef Homeschool.”

Lately, I’m walking in as my husband, Brian, is walking out. Suddenly, we remember the question we’ve been too busy to ask all day: “What’s for dinner?” The entertainment begins.

On the Food Network, “Iron Chef America” is a competition between a challenger and an Iron Chef. The show begins with The Chairman announcing the “secret ingredient,” and the chefs then prepare a picture-perfect meal featuring that item.

Our homeschool version is a bit different.

We quickly look through the kitchen, trying to locate anything that might be transformed into dinner. Brian is our Chairman. With a swoop of his arm and a booming voice, he announces the secret ingredient for the day. He then leaves to transport the girls to ballet, leaving me to prep a meal for the judges: six hungry children.

This year, we’ve had a lot more secret ingredients than usual. Faced with no time to plant and maintain a garden, we called up farmer Jim Muck for a subscription to his farm. Each week, we’ve picked up a box full of secret ingredients. Farmer Jim has attained rock star status among our children, in part because he invited everyone out to the farm to see the operation and plant pumpkins earlier this year. My kids will try anything Farmer Jim has packed in the box.

True Iron Chefs and their challengers have an experienced staff of two sous chefs helping to prepare for competition. At home, we have a rotating assortment of cook’s helpers who range in age from 5 to 15 who learn how to chop, measure and assemble while we work together. Once a line chef reaches age 10, we promote them to sous chef, an honor that comes with the responsibility of making dinner for the family once or twice a week.

True Iron Chefs have one other advantage I lack — there are no teething toddlers underfoot.

If Brian is our Chairman, then 3-year-old Max must be our Alton Brown. He wanders in regularly to check on progress and ask what I’m up to, making comments about the ingredient list, my progress and totally unrelated topics, such as the shape of Barack Obama’s head. I leave little piles of raw veggies on the edge of the cutting board, and Max samples his way through the kitchen.

The judging session — also known as dinner — commences when everyone has arrived home for the evening. There is a flurry of activity as meals are plated and presented. On “Iron Chef America,” the judges might say, “I usually don’t care for soup, but this surprises me.”

Our judges are not so refined. They push their food around on the plate, then eye me suspiciously. “Are there onions in here?” or, “Is that a bean?” Naturally, I never reveal my culinary secrets.

The grading is straightforward. The baby, not yet 2, either throws his plate on the floor or clears his plate before the others have been served. Older children are more subtle. Some evenings they look around hopefully and ask, “So, is there dessert?” Those kids will finish anything for a crack at dessert. I know I have a hit on my hands when kids clear their plates, ask for seconds or complain that a sibling got a bigger portion.

This Thanksgiving, we are thankful for our little Iron Chefs in the making who will be helping, commenting and running underfoot. And yes, we’re having dessert. Bon appetit.

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