With D.C.’s record standing at 2–2 in Kitchen Stadium – a win and a loss against Bobby Flay and Masaharu Morimoto each – Sunday night’s Thanksgiving-themed episode of Iron Chef America pitted Agraria’s head chef Ricky Moore against the Chairman’s newest Iron Chef, Michael Symon.

From the beginning, the odds seemed stacked against Iron Chef Symon, who felt the pressure to earn his first victory after having won the Next Iron Chef competition. Add to the fact that Agraria specializes in using farm-fresh products to create rustic–yet contemporary–American dishes; Moore was a perfect choice for Battle Thanksgiving. Or perhaps Moore was chosen due to the fact that, according to Tim Carman of the City Paper, Moore was once considered to compete in the Next Iron Chef. Despite his near brush with fame, Moore has moved on and was recently named the new head chef of Indebleu.

Even the judges seemed to have preferred Moore’s Thanksgiving selections over Symon’s. They fawned over his pumpkin soup and bacon wrapped venison, while commenting on the aroma of his sweet potato streusel and the inventiveness of creating a crispy skinned turkey by deep-frying when hours of roasting wasn’t an option.

Image of Iron Chef Symon from the Food Network’s website