Courtesy Food Network SAY CHEESE—Simi resident Rick Massa, 58, unveils his Cheese Lovers 5 Cheese Mac & Cheese dish to Food Network host Guy Fieri during the season premiere episode of Ultimate Recipe Showdown. The former LAPD SWAT team leader battled against three other competitors in the comfort food cook-off round with the hopes of winning $25,000. The episode airs at 9 p.m. Sun., Jan. 4 on Food Network. After he retired from the Los Angeles Police Department in October 2006, longtime Simi resident Rick Massa was unable to just sit around and relax.

He'd spent 35 years on the force, the last 25 on the SWAT team. Taking it easy was never an option.

As an outlet for his energy, Massa, 58, began taking cooking classes at Sur La Table.

Massa considered himself a "backyard burger flipper" who enjoyed baking cupcakes with his granddaughters and nothing more. With the cooking classes, he started to dabble in the culinary arts—a road that would eventually lead him to attend the Westlake Culinary Institute and to cook alongside Wolfgang Puck.

When he began the journey, he wouldn't have believed it if someone told him he would one day be whipping up macaroni and cheese on Food Network.

But the former SWAT team leader has transitioned from cop to cook, brandishing a frying pan more often than a firearm, battling fellow foodies instead of felons on Food Network's "Ultimate Recipe Showdown."

This is the second season of the network's popular recipe competition hosted by Guy Fieri of "Guy's Big Bite" and "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives."

At the end of each episode, a panel of judges selects a winner, who receives $25,000 and the chance to have his or her recipe featured nationwide at T.G.I. Friday's restaurants.

While his passion for cooking has only recently blossomed, Massa said it came naturally out of an everyday need to prepare food.

"I think a number of people like to cook, one way or another . . . because obviously you want to eat, you have to eat, and that's what I would do," he said.

The memory of his Italian mother's love for cooking has also stayed with him.

"I can remember her making her own sauces," he said. "She would get crates of her own Roma tomatoes, fresh, and she would make her own sauces."

For the show, more than 12,000 recipes were submitted by home cooks across America, but only 24 contestants made the final cut to compete on-air in one of six categories: comfort food, burgers, cakes, hot and spicy, desserts and hometown favorites.

It was Massa's Cheese Lovers 5 Cheese Mac & Cheese that Food Network chose as a contender in the comfort food round.

The onceinalifetime experience would have passed him by had it not been for his daughter Heather, Massa said.

"My daughter is the one who pushed me," he said. "I kept saying 'No, no, no.' But for whatever reason I blew it off until the last day and the last hour, (then) entered a bunch of different categories, and, lo and behold, Food Network calls me and says I made the cut."

The Food Network fan was surprised to hear the news, especially since he hadn't even tried the recipe.

"I built it on paper; I didn't make it before I entered it. That's what was so bizarre," he said. "After I was notified I made the cut, I was making that mac and cheese for everyone in the neighborhood."

As with all the food he creates, Massa focused on adding layers of flavor and a special twist to set his dish apart. Though the recipe calls for a roux to thicken the traditional béchamel sauce, Massa said it is actually pretty easy to make.

The depth of flavor comes from the use of five different cheeses—Gruyére, fontina, Parmesan, Australian white cheddar and bleu cheese—and the twist is applewood smoked bacon.

Before the show, Massa had only participated in—and won—one cook-off at the Ventura County Fair.

He said he was not nervous about competing or being filmed because he'd spent years doing interviews with the media after the notorious North Hollywood bank shootout—for which he was awarded the 1998 Medal of Valor.

"The cameras and the lights, that was no big thing," he said. "The thing where it became nerve-racking is where you're in front of the judges. . . . No matter how many shootouts you've been in, that's intimidating."

Massa said the greatest reward as a cook is when someone enjoys his food and that the best compliment he could receive is "That is really good."

Though he is retired from the LAPD, Massa works part time with the Burbank Airport Police. During the September taping of the show in Food Network's New York studios, Fieri joked with Massa that he would get him a Rambo Rick action figure.

"I said that was okay as long as you put a gun in one hand and a wire whisk in the other," Massa said, an image that perfectly illustrates the two sides of his life.

Massa said his time on "Showdown" has made him hungry for more onair food action, and he hopes to try out for "The Next Food Network Star" next year.

The winner gets a gig hosting their very own culinary series à la Fieri, who won the show in its second season.

Although Massa couldn't divulge if he took home the top prize or not, he said in an online Food Network video taped before the show that he already felt like a champion.

"I look at it as, I'm a winner just by being able to be selected out of the thousands of entrants," he said. "I'm overwhelmed by it."

Tune in Sunday night to see if Massa takes home the "ultimate" crown for his hometown. The season premiere episode of "Ultimate Recipe Showdown" airs at 9 p.m. Jan. 4 on Food Network.