Maybe the baby was the deciding factor. Impossible to tell, really. Six-month-old Landon Calo certainly was cute, but 16-month-old Faith Griffin was adorable as well.

Joseph Calo, of Elkridge's Boulevard BBQ Boys, quickly picked up his infant son as soon as the three judges of the Iron Chef cooking competition, held at the Howard County Fair on Aug. 7, walked over for a final inspection of his table.

"Oh, I was just playing," Calo said with a laugh. "I said to the judges: 'The baby's with this table. Cuteness points, cuteness points!'"

Not to be outdone, Barry Griffin, head chef of the adjoining Rivers Park Jacks of All Trades team, posed in front of his display with his strawberry blond daughter, Faith, who was decked out in a pink-and-white checked gingham playsuit. The rivalry between the four teams of firefighters competing for the Iron Chef Champion title wasn't going to go down without an answering salvo from him.

Howard County Fire Chief Joseph Herr, a member of Fire and Rescue Headquarters' Keep the Chief in the Kitchen team, didn't appear the least bit surprised by their competitive spirit.

"Anytime there's an opportunity to be competitive, firemen are all about that...Everything they do, they want to be the best: best rescue squad, best engine, cooking, softball. Doesn't make any difference what kind of competition, they're there," he said.

The first Iron Chef contest was held at the Howard County Fair four years ago. Madeleine Green, the Iron Chef chairperson, was there at its inception.

"I'm a home economist by training, you know, and I thought, why don't we have a contest like the Iron Chef? How about promoting Farm-City week at the Fair?" she said.

While the Farm-City Celebration Committee organizing the cooking contest has in the past invited prominent community leaders to participate in the cook-off, Greene said that firefighters have long been on their list of must haves.

"They are so famous for doing this firehouse cooking," she added. "I have two nephews who were New York City firemen and they used to brag all the time about how great the cooking was."

According to the rules for this Iron Chef competition, all four teams entered in the event were required to use the fresh vegetables and meat provided for them by the organizers and everything had to be cooked on the propane grills set up outside of the fair's Activities Building. Otherwise, they could bring anything else that they wanted to the competition, including additional ingredients.

Each team of fire fighters was made up of three members: a head chef and his two assistants. Greene knew from the onset that the competition was going to be a close one -- two of the teams boasted head chefs that had been professionally involved with the hospitality business.

Griffin, a firefighter for five years, was previously the chef at the Grand Hyatt in Washington, D.C., and Cory Hutchcroft, head chef of Fire and Rescue's Public Information Office team Keep the Heat in the Kitchen, had worked in the Columbia area as a chef, manager and owner in the restaurant business.

Griffin admitted to bringing along a secret ingredient that he hoped would help sway the judges' vote -- a marinade he had often used at the Grand Hyatt made with rosemary, thyme, basil, garlic, shallots and extra virgin olive oil.

"We don't care what place we come in, as long as we're higher than that team," said Elkridge's Calo, pointing toward Griffin's table during the prep stage of the competition.

His team's head chef, Robert Grant, only smiled and shrugged when asked if they had brought a secret ingredient, but Calo was quick to pitch in: "I would say the RG (Robert Grant) rub. There's a little bit of magic, some unicorn dust, and it's got just a little bit of a kick when all is said and done."

Bill Robinson, head chef of the Keep the Chief in the Kitchen team, appeared totally unfazed by all the frantic prep work going on at the other tables before the cook-off.

"They're not going to win, see; we're going to win 'cause the Chief's with us. It was written into the SOPs (Standard Operating Procedure)," he said with a good-natured grin. "Now, it's a rather new SOP. I think it was only written in last week."

The grilling itself didn't go as smoothly as planned, however. The contest started a few minutes early in hopes of warding off the heavily threatening clouds overhead, but less than 15 minutes into the cook-off a torrential downpour forced all of the contestants, judges and onlookers to seek shelter inside the building. Each team carried their table inside and took turns running outside to tend to the food left out on the grills.

The firefighters took the weather in stride.

"Oh this is fun," said Herr, nodding toward teammate Bill Mould, who was holding up the front of the table. "He's the driver and I'm the tiller man."

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