The setup: Chef Robert Irvine is challenged to whip up creative dinners for small gatherings and large crowds, on-the-fly and on location; this is the beginning of Dinner: Impossible’s seventh season. --- Why have I never mentioned it before now? Because Irvine has never cooked for a roller-derby league--that’s how you get my attention.

In the season opener tonight on the Food Network, the cracked-out drill sergeant has eight hours to prepare a meal for Philadelphia’s PennJersey She Devils, one of the original East Coast leagues of the sport’s revival. There’s only 250 of ’em (!) and, at least going by my experience, whatever Irvine makes will have to pair well with Pabst Blue Ribbon and Camels.

Have I mentioned that our own local Salt City Derby Girls, coincidentally, will be playing the seventh home bout of their 2009 roller-derby season at the Salt Palace this Saturday? Shameless plug, ahoy! I'll be there spinning tunes, not cooking.

Irvine in (somewhat frightening) action: