Trama

Jerry's new girlfriend's mentor is dating Bania; Kramer volunteers to host a Jewish singles mixer; George tries to study up on risk management; Elaine promotes a man she is afraid to fire.

Kramer volunteers to set up a Jewish singles mixer. He has a hard time finding a cook for the event until he learns that Frank was a cook in the Korean War. But Frank refuses to cook for the event because he experienced a severe case of shell shock. Meanwhile, Elaine tries to get rid of an unruly employee in Peterman's mailing room but winds up promoting the guy instead. Jerry dates a woman with a mentor, but he gets weirded out when he finds out that the mentor is dating hack comic Kenny Bania. Jerry, inspired by this, decides to take Bania under his wing and mentor Bania to the top. George must give a report on the subject of risk management for the Yankees.—halo1k

Kramer's latest scheme is to organize a mixer for Jewish singles. He's rented the Knights of Columbus Hall for the event and plans to do the cooking himself. It's soon obvious that he can't cope and begs George's father Frank, who was an Army cook in the Korean War, to help him, but Frank is still scarred by a particularly traumatic experience there and hasn't cooked since. Meanwhile, Jerry is happy that his new girlfriend has a mentor, but not so please when he learns that the woman dates Bania. George must give a talk on risk-management at a Yankees lunch. Elaine can't quite bring herself to fire the mailroom clerk, so she does the next best thing: she keeps promoting him.—garykmcd

Jerry is dating a girl, Abby (A.J. Langer), and is intrigued by the concept of his girlfriend having a mentor. Jerry meets Cynthia (Katie Layman), his girlfriend's mentor, but finds out she is dating Kenny Bania (Steve Hytner). After they see Bania's act, Jerry's girlfriend loses respect for her mentor and eventually fires her. George has to give a lecture on risk management (because his resume gives the impression that he is an expert on the subject), but he finds that he can't study for it because books on tape have spoiled him. When George discovers the blind can get any book on tape, he intentionally fails an eye test so he can get his book on tape. George encounters a problem when the person's voice on the tape sounds like his voice, much to his displeasure.

Elaine prepares to fire Eddie Sherman (Ned Bellamy), an employee who constantly delays important stuff, but when she meets face to face with him, is scared of him due to his gruff voice and wearing military fatigues, so she promotes him instead. When he does a terrible job, Elaine promotes him again just to get rid of him. This plan backfires when the other employees quit because he was promoted over them, causing Elaine to work on the project alone with Sherman.

Kramer runs a Hebrew singles night at Frank's (Jerry Stiller) Knights of Columbus Hall. When he realizes he can't cook Hebrew food, he asks for Frank's help. Frank refuses, because he hasn't cooked since the Korean War, where he sickened his fellow troops by using bad meat and has become traumatized because of it (Frank's memory is dramatized with a re-enactment in which the onset of food poisoning is set to Barber's "Adagio for strings", as in the film Platoon).

When Cynthia dumps Bania because of his poor act, he turns to Jerry for advice, and Jerry agrees to be his mentor. At the same time, Jerry's girlfriend is looking for a mentor and Jerry is surprised to find that she picked George. However, George's plans are for her to read and summarize his book on risk management so he can present it to the board. Unfortunately, their files get mixed, and Bania ends up talking about risk management (which ends up working out well for him) and George ends up talking about Ovaltine. Frank, displeased at Estelle's (Estelle Harris) cooking, decides to cook again and helps Kramer get the food ready for his Hebrew singles night.

Working exceptionally well as a team of two, Elaine and Sherman manage to finish the catalog, and when Elaine finds out he adopted his frightening persona after a failure to meet a nice woman and settle down, takes him to the Hebrew singles night. The food turns out to be a hit, and Frank feels reborn ("like a Phoenix, rising from Arizona").

Due to his impressive string of quick promotions, Sherman is given an offer from Cynthia who would pay him extra for his work (because she's impressed by his quick rise through the ranks at Peterman). He ends up choking on his food when Elaine violently shakes him while proclaiming "I need you!"; this, combined with the fact that Sherman is dressed in fatigues, brings back the bad memories of the night Frank caused his soldiers so much distress (again to "Adagio for Strings"). Believing this is a recurrence of food poisoning, Frank wildly tries to stop people from eating, and the episode closes as he tips over the entire buffet.