Welcome to "Iron Chef II," a cook-off held on a recent evening in a brick two-story Carroll Gardens house whose occupants are the aforementioned five- some. Modeled on the cult Japanese TV show, in which two world-class chefs no one has ever heard of compete by cooking meals centered on secret ingredients like swallow's nest or electric eel, "Iron Chef II" had its Brooklyn beginnings with five men in their late 20's and early 30's who found themselves living in a house with two kitchens and had a generational fondness for almost painfully self-conscious irony.

As the two "chefs"-friends of the roommates-labored in the upstairs and downstairs kitchens, the evening's main host, a Columbia University Ph.D. candidate in comparative literature named Matt, balanced on a small metal chair on the cement terrace. He said that he often went out of his way to throw the perfect dinner party, then grasped his face with both hands, slumped and said: "I can't believe that I just used the phrase 'the perfect dinner party'! I sound like my mother, if she were the type of woman who threw dinner parties-which she is not ."

Matt looked like he could be Conan O'Brien's cuter cousin: 6-foot-4, with bright red curly hair and a handsome mug. The street was decorated with American flags and frog lawn ornaments. The F train rumbled overground in the distance. As the 40-odd corduroy-clad partygoers wandered in, Matt welcomed them with a wave of his huge arm.

This was the second time the men had done the "Iron Chef" thing-at the first one, the secret ingredient had been artichokes. According to Jerry, a blond financial journalist with a toothy grin, some of the judges-friends selected on the basis of whether they really liked food-were "over- served ."

"Given that it was later in the night and some alcohol had been drunk, cheesy potatoes are just tasty ," said Jerry. The night had ended in a tie.

This year, the secret ingredient was revealed early on. The guests recognized the intended humor, but didn't seem too happy about it.

"It's a débâcle ," said Matt. "The ingredient is grapes."

A third roommate-Ben, a slim, dark-haired Ph.D. candidate in philosophy-was wearing a blue shirt, khakis and flip-flops and smoking an all-natural cigarette, which he continuously dropped into a soup can, fished out and resumed smoking.

"I will admit," he said, "when the first little dish towel came off to reveal two little things of red globe grapes, I was shocked, dismayed and negatively whelmed ."

"The choice of ingredient this year reflects an interest in a kind of clever approach to concept rather than content, " added Matt.

Meanwhile, the man who had chosen the no-longer-secret ingredient-Scott, a sinewy bike-riding vegan-was lighting tea candles in the upstairs living room. He sported a small tattoo of an anchor on one bicep. "I'm a vegetarian," he said, explaining why he'd chosen the grapes.

In the kitchen, Iron Chef "Newton, Massachusetts," a childhood friend of Matt's, intently stuffed a chicken full of grapes. His sous chef and girlfriend, a slim woman with corkscrew curls, diligently sliced green grapes. As the crowd of messy-haired young guests began to gather, the ease with which Newton socialized made Matt nervous. He was pulling for Newton to win; shouldn't he have been devoting his time to cooking?

"If you can pull off that nice guy, easygoing thing, that would be epic ," said Matt.

"It would be like a Beowulf thing," said Ben.

" Very Beowulf," said Matt.

Matt and Ben became distracted by the latest addition to their aquarium, a little gray elephant-nosed fish.

"My God," Matt said, "it looks like a tiny dolphin !"

"No way," said Ben. "It's the waterbound twin of the goddamn humming -bird."

Downstairs (which one partygoer described as "like my parents' house"), Iron Chef "India"-who, though Indian by heritage, was born in Connecticut-was chopping, stirring and basting. In the next room, Jerry was deconstructing Eminem's "Lose Yourself" for a blond investment banker who had just told him she was ashamed of her profession. "Eminem's refusal to rap on beat shows his impotent rage," said Jerry, as he played the song on a laptop computer.

As the minute hand ticked closer to the 9 p.m. deadline, the room got a little sweaty and somebody choked on a piece of pita bread.

The six judges, who were dressed in costumes that represented nothing in particular (a long blue dress, curtains, a bejeweled hat), took their seats at the front of the room, and the crowd cheered. Matt suddenly felt optimistic about the grapes. "Progression," he said. "You gotta move a thing forward. You have a good thing and you think it's a good thing, and you don't risk and it stagnates. And you lose faith in life, in everything-and certainly in the event. So, we're looking forward. Progress!"

The tasting began. Iron Chef Newton, Massachusetts and Iron Chef India had whipped up stuffed chickens full of grapes, bruschetta topped with grapes, poached pears and grapes. After each presentation, the crowd screamed and cheered. Jerry played suspenseful music on his laptop.

Iron Chef Newton, Massachusetts won. It might have been the grape ravioli, which tasted a lot like pasta stuffed with grape Jolly Rancher.

"That's a function of the ingredient, not of the chef's skill level," said Matt as he chewed his ravioli. "This is something that simply ought not to exist ."

And the future?

"'Iron Chef III' will be in the spring," said Matt. "We're looking to have at least one female iron chef, so that's important … maybe girl-on-girl action-we're very progressive ."

-Justine van der Leun

I got my first haircut at Michael's, and every haircut after that until, at the ripe old age of 16, I finally rebelled. Haircuts in my family were traumatic, psychologically scarring events. The fault lay not with Mr. Michael, as the salon's owner was called, or with his No. 2 man, Mr. Gay, both of whom gave a competent haircut. The problem was my mother.

First, there was the hair style she'd invented for us. It was like nothing that existed in nature, or even in science fiction. Well, maybe science fiction: It sprung from her fertile imagination like that creature in Alien . The easiest way to describe it is as a crewcut, a Marine buzz cut-except that my mother, God forbid, would never let anything as proletarian as a razor near her four sons' tender heads.

Instead, she insisted that we be trimmed to a state of virtual baldness-except in the front, where we all sported Tom Sawyer–like cowlicks-with a scissors. To keep our hair just so required that we visit Michael's religiously every two weeks. And since my parents were apparently under the impression that the only way to cope with four boys was to treat them like military cadets, or rather prisoners of war, we all had our hair cut on the same afternoon every other week. And by the same barber.

At first it was Mr. Gay, a pleasant man with a business-like mustache-until he crossed my mom. From the age of 3 until I was 8 or 9, no one but Mr. Gay was allowed near my hair. Until suddenly one day, without explanation, my mother dropped him for Mr. Michael. It was disorienting for a child, to say the least. So much importance did my mother attach to our appearance (and to our hair in particular), and so completely were we Mr. Gay's customers, that it was hardly less significant than if she'd just filed for divorce from my father.

I recently asked her why we abruptly switched from Mr. Gay to Mr. Michael, a sweet-natured opera buff with the world's bushiest eyebrows, who ran the salon from Chair No. 1. At first my mother denied we'd ever patronized Mr. Gay, so utterly had she banished him from her memory. Eventually, she admitted there must have been some falling out over hair.

It's coming back to me now, almost as if retrieved by hypnosis. Mr. Gay, who seemed like a decent enough guy, eventually balked at clipping our heads with a scissors. Since the final result was hairlessness, he didn't see why he couldn't save lots of time-not to mention his mental health-by simply plugging in a razor.

I was on his side. I can't exaggerate the exhaustion for all involved in going to Michael's. It was like getting your own hair cut four times on the same day. After I was through, I'd have to wait while my brothers got their hair cut, my mother standing over the barber the whole time. The comic books and lollipops helped. But by the time my youngest brother Jamie slipped out of the barber's chair with his crewcut, I was crawling the walls.

We spent so much time at Michael's that historic events transpired while we were there. The great blackout of 1965 occurred during one of our biweekly visits. Unfortunately, the lights didn't go out until our haircuts were finished and we were leaving. Not that that would've made any difference: My mother would've simply insisted that Mr. Michael complete the job, to her specifications, by flashlight.

This form of child abuse went on until June 1969, when I'd just turned 16 and my mother sent me off on one of those eight-week, cross-country "teen tours." She didn't realize the far-reaching consequences it would have, for both my hair and our relationship. If she'd known, I'm certain she'd have forbidden me to go.

Suffice it to say that I wasn't popular with the young ladies on the trip, at least not at first. When it's the Age of Aquarius and you're a 6-foot-2, 125-pound hairless geek, you aren't going to attract women whose idea of handsome is Paul McCartney. I was stuck sharing hotel rooms with all the other losers on the bus because nobody, not even my cousin, would room with me.

But something miraculous happened during the journey. My hair started to grow. And since I was on a bus crossing the country, there was nothing my mother could do about it. The longer my hair got, the more socially acceptable I became. Halfway through the trip, the coolest guy on the bus-a rock musician who attended an alternative high school in Newton, Mass.-decided I was hip, or at least unconventional, and became my roommate, bless his heart. He remains a friend to this day.

By the end of the vacation, my hair was almost normal length, and under his tutelage I was considered cool, too. I even started having girlfriends. But I knew full well that this fantasy would soon end and I would be delivered back into the clutches of my mother and her evil scissors.

So I had everybody on the bus sign a petition pleading with her to leave my hair alone. I delivered the document to her in Italy, where I joined my family after the teen tour ended. Predictably, she almost dropped dead when she saw my hair and insisted that I get it cut immediately. I agreed-on the condition that it remain a reasonable length.

She concurred. But I should have known that when it came to hair, my mother had no scruples. She was ruthless: As soon as I was seated in the barber's chair, she kept instructing the barber, " Piu corto , piu corto "-shorter, shorter.

I didn't catch on until it was too late. When my haircut was finished, it looked exactly as it had before I'd departed on the trip. No longer a cool teen, I was a heartbroken pinhead once more. To punish her, I wore a hat everywhere, even to dinner at fancy restaurants in the sweltering heat of the Italian summer, and I never again let her near my hair. I also never went back to Michael's.

The tragic thing is that by the time I finally got to wear my hair the way I wanted, in college, it was already starting to fall out.

Now, Michael's is a Face Stockholm makeup boutique. I suppose there's some poetic justice there. It's one of my daughters' favorite stores, a place where they love to try on lip balms and blushes and where they're free to experiment with their appearance. If I'd had that chance at 14-I don't mean being allowed to wear makeup, but sporting the same bowl cut as J.F.K. Jr. and all the other guys-who knows how nicely I might have turned out? I guess it's never too late to consider a hairpiece.