Bobby Flay: All right, trivia. 

Dan Pashman: All right, I'm ready. 

Bobby Flay: All right, Dan. What does Peking duck and porchetta have in common?

Dan Pashman: Crispy skin? 

Bobby Flay: Well, that's true, so I'm gonna give you half credit ...  

Dan Pashman: This is Bobby Flay, chef and star of Food Network shows like Beat Bobby Flay and Triple Threat. Within five minutes of sitting down in the studio, he’s turned the tables and started asking me questions. He gives me the answer he was looking for to the Peking duck/porchetta question:

Bobby Flay: A lot of times the restaurants that are known for them don't actually make them themselves. 

Dan Pashman: Interesting.

Bobby Flay: They take a long time and you need a lot of room to make them. And there's, like, places that make Peking ducks. There's places that makes porchetta. And they drop them off at these, like, either restaurants or sandwich shops and stuff like that, and they're great. It's just that they're not doing it in their tiny little space.

Dan Pashman: Right.

Bobby Flay: Two of my favorite things. I just like the slow cooking and the slow roasting of both of those things. It just makes the meat incredibly tender. It's always very juicy, and then you get the crispiness of the skin.

Dan Pashman: Yeah.

Bobby Flay: Contrast of texture is everything. I mean, everything.

Dan Pashman: Yes. Look, Bobby, you're preaching to the choir here.

Bobby Flay: Yeah.

Dan Pashman: There's a term for it. It's called “dynamic contrast”.

Bobby Flay: Hmm.

Dan Pashman: That's what sensory scientists call it.

Bobby Flay: Ooh, I like that.

Dan Pashman: Dynamic contrast. 

Bobby Flay: Dynamic contrast. 

Dan Pashman: When different textures together in the same bite.

Bobby Flay: I like that.

Dan Pashman: Yeah.

Bobby Flay: I'm gonna write that down.

Dan Pashman: Yeah, write it down.

Bobby Flay: Yeah. Dynamic contrast. I like that. You said scientists came up with that?

Dan Pashman: I learned about that. I did a show at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia.

Bobby Flay: That's so funny, so did I ... Just kidding.

[LAUGHING]

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: This is The Sporkful, it’s not for foodies, it’s for eaters. I’m Dan Pashman. Each week on our show we obsess about food to learn more about people. You know Bobby Flay. He’s one of Food Network’s biggest stars. He got his break on Iron Chef and has since gone on to host several shows of his own, including Beat Bobby Flay, which remains a mainstay on the network today. He’s made cameos in Entourage and Portlandia. He’s written more than a dozen cookbooks, including his latest: Chapter One, which has not only recipes but also anecdotes and reflections on his career thus far.

Dan Pashman: But Bobby really got his start as a restaurant chef. As he told me, that’s still how he sees himself. Over the past 30-plus years, he’s opened a dozen restaurants and experienced the highs and lows of the business, getting a lot of great reviews and having to deal with some bad ones. He’s become one of the best TV cooking competitors ever, while contending with people who say TV chefs can’t actually cook. We’ll get into all that in our chat. 

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: Bobby grew up in New York City. He describes the range of food he ate at home as “limited.” He had his first experience with cooking when he asked his parents for an Easy Bake Oven, at age 8. 

Bobby Flay: I'm sitting at home, after school specials, whatever I was watching — I did watch a lot of Julia Child and The Galloping Gourmet. But lots of commercials for the Easy Bake Oven and I could not believe that you could actually bake a cake with a lightbulb, so I had to see it for myself.

Dan Pashman: And I gather your father had mixed feelings about getting his son … 

Bobby Flay: My father was just like, "Oh wow, okay."And I was like, "No, no, I also want a baseball mitt."

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS]

Bobby Flay: But I mean, I have to go ... I have to see this, yeah. 

Dan Pashman: Right, right. And was it everything you dreamed it would be? 

Bobby Flay: It really was, actually.

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS]

Bobby Flay: I mean, I don't know what they're like today. I think there's ... They're very different than they used to be, but they used to give you these little silver trays that you would fill up with cake batter and like, you would use like Duncan Hines cake batter, pour it into the cake pans, and then you would sort of line them up into the inside of the oven and, literally, the light bulb would bake the cake.

Dan Pashman: Do you remember the first time you used it? 

Bobby Flay: Yeah, I mean more or less. I mean, I remember doing it. Yeah.

Dan Pashman: And how did it feel?

Bobby Flay: It felt great. I was just, like, shocked by the whole thing. It didn't make me a better baker. I'm still not a good baker.

Dan Pashman: Right.

[LAUGHING]

Dan Pashman: On its face, the Easy Bake Oven suggests that Bobby was into cooking as a kid, that cooking was important to him. 

Bobby Flay: It was, but I didn't realize it was until I started cooking for a profession and then I was like, oh, wait a second, I used to like cooking at home.

Dan Pashman: Right.

Bobby Flay: But it wasn't like drop out of high school, go get a job. Of course, it's going to be cooking because that's my love of my life — not at all.

Dan Pashman: Right.

Bobby Flay: I mean, so it was just one of those things where I kind of thought about it as an afterthought.

Dan Pashman: When I was getting ready to interview Bobby, I’ll be honest, I was surprised to read he’s just 59. Not because of how he looks — he looks like he could be a lot younger than that. But I would have guessed he was older just because he’s been around for so long.

Dan Pashman: As I learned, he has been. He just got into cooking professionally when he was really young. He sort of stumbled into it.

Dan Pashman: So growing up, what kind of student were you?

Bobby Flay: [SCOFFS] Non-existent.

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS]

Bobby Flay: You know, I mean, part of the problem was that there's no question I have, like, a learning disorder. But you know, when I was going to school, they weren't testing for that. So basically they were like, "Oh, he's just ... He's not motivated." You know, I would always get, “Your son Robert is very — he's very bright, but he's not applying himself.”

Dan Pashman: Hmm.

Bobby Flay: Okay, how many times have I heard that in my life?

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS]

Bobby Flay: I had no interest in applying myself because I didn't want to learn that way. I couldn't open an English textbook and hold on to the knowledge. And so I — basically, I did no homework, none, zero. And so I — you know, I failed, you know, every subject cause I wouldn't do the work. After moving around a bunch of different schools and, you know, getting kicked out of a couple of schools and then I finally quit as a sophomore and I went to work.

Dan Pashman: Bobby dropped out of high school, and got a temporary job as a busboy at the legendary Broadway restaurant Joe Allen. He was just filling in while another busboy was away. So once that guy came back, Bobby thought his job at Joe Allen was finished. But as he was walking out of the restaurant …

Bobby Flay: Chef basically grabs my wrist and says, "Do you want a job in the kitchen?" I was like, "Sure." I mean, literally, that was my enthusiasm.

Dan Pashman: Right. [LAUGHS]

Bobby Flay: Like, if I had, like, friends to meet that day, I would have said, no, I can't. 

Dan Pashman: You know, in Hollywood, the chef would grab your wrist and you would suddenly realize that the clouds would part [Bobby Flay: Of course.] and your life path would become clear to you.

Bobby Flay: Right.

Dan Pashman: That's not what happened. You were just like, okay, whatever. But at some point, something must've clicked for you that like, oh, there's a passion here.

Bobby Flay: I do remember a handful of weeks later, where I woke up in the morning, and I was staring at the ceiling, laying in bed, and thinking to myself, "I can't wait to go to work today." I was excited about something, where I had never been excited about going to school. You know, it took me working with my hands. Listen, I'm not the first kid that needed to learn by using his hands versus a textbook. But what it tells you is that we need way more vocational education in this country. Because not everybody learns in the traditional way, including me. It literally changed my life when I picked up a knife and somebody taught me how to use it.

Dan Pashman: I've heard something similar from other chefs and TV [Bobby Flay: Yeah.] food folks that I've talked to. Jamie Oliver sat right where you're sitting and he was like, man, if they were diagnosing different things when I was a kid, I would have had it all. You know, I couldn't learn. I couldn't ... I was terrible in school. And something about you get into a kitchen and it's working with your hands. And it's the sort of — the intensity of cooking because time is such a factor, it requires total focus that kind of like requires you to lock in. And there's something about it that just seems to click.

Bobby Flay: You know, there's so many wonderful things about cooking and cooking in a restaurant, in particular, for me. Cooking in a restaurant has taught me so many great lessons of life. You know, how to work and get along with people, how to help somebody out who's in the weeds, allowing somebody to help you when you're in the weeds ... It also teaches you to organize yourself. It teaches you speed, you know, and being productive, creating something either good or bad or indifferent, but also working on it to get it to the point where you feel great about it. It's a process. You know, it's not like you just cook a steak, you put a sauce on it, and it's perfect. That never really happens the first time. Any dish that I make the 10th time is so much better than the first time I made it, just because adjustment is important. And then ultimately, you're feeding somebody. You're creating something to gratify somebody else's pleasures. 

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: After a couple of years working at Joe Allen, Bobby left to attend the French Culinary Institute in New York. He graduated in 1984, and got a job working with the chef and restaurateur Jonathan Waxman.

Bobby Flay: Jonathan was the first person to tell me, or show me, what good food was. I was working in some other restaurants that were not, let's say, high-end food restaurants. And then when I went to work for Jonathan, it was a different ballgame. I mean, I worked at — the first restaurant that I worked in it for Jonathan was a restaurant called Bud's, which was a contemporary Southwestern restaurant, and that's where I that's where I found my love of you know fresh and dried chili peppers and fresh corn and blue corn, like before it was in a bag, right?

Dan Pashman: Right. [LAUGHS]

Bobby Flay: You know, this is like way early on. And I was like, "What?" I'm a New York City kid, and I'm like, "What are these ingredients?"

Dan Pashman: Right. I think it's hard, so hard for people to understand that, you know, how regional America still was then, you know, like there were whole cuisines, regional cuisines that you just wouldn't find in the Northeast.

Bobby Flay: Of course not. One of the great things that I've been able to do is travel the country. Because when I look at a map of America, I don't see cities and states. I see ... I see ingredients. You go to the Southwest and you see red and green chilies and all those Southwestern ingredients that are just so fabulous. You know, you go to the Pacific Northwest and there's like all the wild salmon and the halibut and the Dungeness crab and hazelnuts and, you know, beautiful Pinot Noir. You know, you go to the Midwest, obviously, it's a meat and potatoes kind of place. And then, of course, the barbecue belt — Florida, all the Cuban and Argentinian inspiration down there, which I love those — I love those flavors and ingredients. I mean, America is an amazing place. That's why — I mean, it's happening a lot less than it used to. But you would go to a place like France, and you would say, "I'm an American chef," and what would they say to you?

Dan Pashman: Oh, you make a cheeseburger?

Bobby Flay: Yeah, exactly — and mac and cheese.

Dan Pashman: Right. [LAUGHS]

Bobby Flay: And, you know, I get it. I hope they don't still feel that way, because hopefully, you know, we've proven ourselves as a superpower when it comes to cuisine.

Dan Pashman: Right,

Bobby Flay: This country is an amazing place for food, period.

Dan Pashman: One of the chefs that Bobby began following early in his career was Wolfgang Puck. Puck had opened Spago in L.A. in 1982 — it became a celebrity hotspot. Bobby says Wolfgang Puck was changing the way Americans looked at food, right in front of his eyes.

Bobby Flay: When I was cooking at Joe Allen, as a very young cook — and don't forget, no internet, no communications, no cell phones, nothing — so how do you hear about what's going on? Well, every once in a while somebody would bring in a menu that they stole from Spago and they would talk about this young Austrian guy who's putting smoked salmon and duck sausage on pizzas. And every Hollywood star was going there and it was like the place to go, but the food was great. I wanted to work there. I went out there, I got an interview, Jonathan helped me get an interview. I didn't get hired. For whatever reason, it just didn't happen, but I was obsessed with Wolfgang's approach to not just food, which was very important, but also his approach to the energy of his restaurants. And I thought to myself, this guy has Spago and then he opened Chinois on Main in Santa Monica.

Dan Pashman: That was like a Chinese French thing?

Bobby Flay: Yes. Okay, which was probably one of my all-time favorite restaurants to ever open. I used to get off the plane in Los Angeles and go there.

Dan Pashman: What was it about his cooking and the energy of his restaurants that was different and that appealed to you?

Bobby Flay: Because it was the first time that we accepted that great food in America didn't have to be in a stodgy French dining room. It could be whimsical and also great. The food at Spago was — and Chinois — like when they first opened, it was, like, game changer. And obviously, it was copied by people all over the place. But I love the idea that he could  more than one restaurant in a different cuisine, and he was the person that I idolized.

Bobby Flay: He was cooking his ass off. He was always in a chef coat with a towel over his shoulder. By the way, there's ten of him.

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS]

Bobby Flay: Whenever I go to one of his restaurants, I turn around and he's like, "Hey, what's up, Bobby?", and he's — and there he is [DAN PASHMAN LAUGHS] in his chef coat with the towel over his thing. And he's like, "What do you want to eat tonight?", I'm like, wait, what? Like, it's crazy. 

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHING] Yeah. 

Bobby Flay: This guy just never stops working. And it's a great ... It's a great example. You have to always work.

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: In 1991, at age 26, Bobby struck out on his own and opened his first restaurant, in New York City. It was called Mesa Grill, and it featured those Southwestern flavors that he’d fallen in love with — the same flavors that would become his signature. In a lot of ways, the restaurant was a reflection of what he had taken from Jonathan Waxman and Wolfgang Puck — bold, high-quality, regional cuisine in an environment that was upscale, but also fun, not fussy. 

Dan Pashman: When Mesa Grill opened it was one of the hottest restaurants in New York, if not the whole country. Bobby won his first James Beard Award, and both The Times and New York Magazine gave the restaurant great reviews. A couple years later, he opened a second successful restaurant in New York, called Bolo. Then a couple years later, Bobby got a call from Food Network. Now remember, Food Network was the first cable channel to do nothing but food. And when it launched, the number one reaction among the general public was: A whole channel that’s nothing but cooking? Bobby had a similar attitude.

Bobby Flay: I thought it was gonna last a week.

Dan Pashman: Right. [LAUGHS]

Bobby Flay: I was like, "24 hours of food? What do you mean?"

Dan Pashman: Right.

Bobby Flay: Like, after, you know — after pork chops and lamb chops, what else is there?

[LAUGHING]

Bobby Flay: Clearly, I was wrong. 

Dan Pashman: Right, [LAUGHS]

Bobby Flay: You know?

Dan Pashman: As were a lot of folks. But so you're — and you end up in this show Grillin' & Chillin' with this, like, barbecue ...

Bobby Flay: I created it.

Dan Pashman: Right. Yeah.

Bobby Flay: I created it and named the show. I mean, we had no idea what we were doing. It was the worst television in history. Food Network was a startup cable network. They had very little money. And I was in New York, and I was in Mesa Grill, so at least they knew my name because of the restaurant. And I could get there by subway or taxi. There weren't flying people in from L.A. to be on these shows. 

Dan Pashman: Right. 

Bobby Flay: And so I got a lot of like, last minute calls, "Can you come and be a guest on this? Can you come and be a guest on that?", sure. And then I pitched them this show. I was like, you need an outdoor cooking show. How about a grilling show? Here's some recipe ideas. I think it should be called Grillin' & Chillin'. I'm a city boy. There's a guy named Jack McDavid, who I know. He can be the country guy — contrast. And they were like, "Um ... Okay."

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHING]

Bobby Flay: We shot 42 shows in 7 days. 

Dan Pashman: Oh my god. [LAUGHS]

Bobby Flay: Six in a day. No editing. One after the other.

Dan Pashman: Right. 

Bobby Flay: Boom, boom, boom. It taught me how to do cooking shows very quickly.

Dan Pashman: Yeah. [LAUGHS]

Bobby Flay: I still do it that way ...

Dan Pashman: Yeah.

Bobby Flay: ... uh, in some ways.

Dan Pashman: So I want to play for you, Bobby — I actually — I queued up a clip here of Grillin' & Chillin'. 

Bobby Flay: You should burn this. 

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] The internet never forgets, Bobby.

Bobby Flay: Yeah.

Dan Pashman: So this is you with Jack. Now, you're just for — you're basically — you're cooking all this food. You're at a sort of picnic table out in a ... on a green lawn with a lake in the background. It looks like you're kind of in the middle of nowhere.

Bobby Flay: We're on the backlot of the Home Shopping Network in Clearwater, Florida.

Dan Pashman: Okay. [LAUGHS]

Bobby Flay: I want to be ... I want to be specific.

Dan Pashman: Yeah.

Bobby Flay: Also, I'm, like, completely out of shape here. My daughter was 10-days-old. 

Dan Pashman: Oh my god.

Bobby Flay: So I know exactly when it was. 

Dan Pashman: Right. So, you're cooking up some snapper here. Let's just ... Let's just watch a little bit. Just tell me what your observations are.

CLIP (BOBBY FLAY): … And I like to leave the skin on. Ensures ... it ensures moisture on the ... from the bottom to the top. And it also — I think the presentation is good, too. So I'm going to just season them with salt and pepper ... on both sides. You got the pepper mill there, Jack? 

CLIP (JACK MCDAVID): Ah ...

CLIP (BOBBY FLAY): Uh, thanks.

CLIP (JACK MCDAVID): Come in handy.

[LAUGHING]

Bobby Flay: I mean ...

CLIP (BOBBY FLAY): Okay. What is happening? 

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS]

CLIP (BOBBY FLAY): Welcome back. We got some red snapper and corn husks on the grill. I'm gonna take them off right now ...

Bobby Flay: This is painful.

CLIP (BOBBY FLAY): Here you go.

Bobby Flay: Who can watch this?

CLIP (BOBBY FLAY): We cook them for about ... about 8 minutes total. Somewhere between 7 and 9 minutes, I would say.

Dan Pashman: Now, while you're talking, Jack's over there. He's cooking the next thing he's making. 

Bobby Flay: I don't know what he's doing.

Dan Pashman: Right. [LAUGHS]

Bobby Flay: But the bottom line is we didn't know what we were doing.

Dan Pashman: Right.

Bobby Flay: I mean they would literally throw the food on the picnic table and they were like, go. 

Dan Pashman: This is industry parlance, live to tape, it means, like, it's not technically being broadcast live, but they are recording it as if it's live. 

Bobby Flay: Right. 

Dan Pashman: So they're not going to make internal edits.

Bobby Flay: No internal edits. 

Dan Pashman: They have to record it ... You have to record it in the exact amount of time, basically to the second, that you need the finished show to be. 

Bobby Flay: Correct. 

Dan Pashman: But with no changes inside. 

Bobby Flay: Correct. 

Dan Pashman: So if you stutter, if you pause, if you forget a word, if you burn the fish … 

Bobby Flay: You burn the fish. 

Dan Pashman: We're going with it. What are some of your other thoughts rewatching that old footage? 

Bobby Flay: Um, I'm really mad at you for showing this.

[LAUGHING]

Bobby Flay: I mean, it's like ... I mean, in some ways, I sound somewhat alike. Obviously, not as polished as I would be today if I did it, but you know, it's just me. And I think that's what — that's part of my longevity, which is that I have a repertoire of I know how to cook. That sounds, like, so simple, but the bottom line is it's not always true. And I think it's incredibly important that you — like, somebody can really, really, really cook and has a great repertoire. Because even if you're successful off the bat, you're going to run out of things to talk about.

Dan Pashman: You're talking about on TV ...

Bobby Flay: Yes.

Dan Pashman: If you're successful on TV. 

Bobby Flay: Yes, exactly. I mean, you can see I was like, there was a moment there that — you probably didn't even notice it. I … Of course, I noticed it because I'm watching myself. But I took whatever, it was a piece of fish or whatever was off the grill, and I looked at it, and I was like, "Cook it for like, um, ...," like I really thought about the time. I was like, about eight minutes. I was really thinking about what I was doing. I was cooking. You can't fake the cook part. You can try, but people are too smart and too savvy. You either know how to do this or you don't.

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: Coming up, Bobby’s TV career takes off, and he learns that being on TV doesn’t always earn you respect. Then later he tells me about the dish he came up with in a dream. Stick around.

MUSIC

 

+++ BREAK +++

 

Dan Pashman: I don't have enough time to go into full detail on all the things I love about my AmEx Gold Cards. And yes, it is cards, plural. I have a personal AmEx Gold Card and a Business AmEx Gold Card. What I love about the personal AmEx Gold Card is that I get 4 times points when I go out to eat, and 4 times points on groceries, up to 50,000 points annually. When I travel for work, I rack up more AmEx points that I can then use to take my family on a trip. I love AmEx customer service. When I have an issue, I get a live human being on chat very quickly. Plus, there's all kinds of AmEx offers. I'm always getting, like, money back on this or that. And look, if you're an eater like me, the AmEx Gold Card is the way to go. Gold Card holders can enroll and earn up to $120 in dining credits after paying in participating partners up to 10 bucks each month. You can get $100 back annually on eligible U.S. Resy purchases with the AmEx Gold Card. Honestly, with my AmEx Gold cards, I just feel like a V.I.P. and I always feel like I'm racking up points. And the great thing with AmEx points is you can use them across a range of airlines and hotels in all different places. You'll always find a way to use them. AmEx Gold can help elevate your dining experiences, allowing you to discover new restaurants, connect with your family and friends, and explore exciting flavors all while earning rewards points. That's the powerful backing of American Express. For terms and to learn more, visit AmericanExpress.com/withAmEx.

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: Welcome back to The Sporkful, I’m Dan Pashman. Last week on the show, we take a look back at the groundbreaking documentary Super Size Me, which came out 20 years ago. This scrappy, low-budget documentary turned Morgan Spurlock into a star, but a lot of questions remain about the legacy of the film. We talked to some of the people closest to Morgan at the time, including his then-girlfriend Alex Jamieson, who was with Morgan when he got the idea for the film. 

CLIP (ALEX JAMIESON): And he was like, "Well, what would happen if I just ate nothing but McDonald's for a month?" And I was like, "Please don't do that." And he was like, "Wait a minute! that's a great ...", like, that's literally what happened. We had a fight on the couch and I was like, "Please don't do this!" [LAUGHS] ...

CLIP (ALEX JAMIESON): And Morgan's attitude was, "Well, if I feel like crap, it'll be a good movie. And if nothing happens to me, it'll be a great advertisement for McDonald's. And I'll see if they'll want to buy it." And I was like, "Oh my god, dude. Okay, go ahead." [LAUGHING]

Dan Pashman: We also get into the 2017 letter that derailed Morgan Spurlock’s career, and called into question how much of Super Size Me was real. That episode is up now, find it where you got this one.

Dan Pashman: Okay, back to Bobby Flay. A few years after Grillin' & Chillin' launched, Bobby was invited to compete on a hit Japanese TV show called Iron Chef.

[IRON CHEF THEME MUSIC]

Dan Pashman: It was one of the first cooking competition shows, in which a challenger chef would face off against an “Iron Chef.”

CLIP (NARRATOR): We are ready to bang a gong ...

Dan Pashman: And it had a theatrical, campy vibe. Time Magazine described its “histrionic introductions, bad dubbing, overexcited play-by-play announcers, and B-level celebrity judges.” But Times said the real draw was “watching a cocky chef get his comeuppance at the hands of an Iron Chef, who rarely loses.”

CLIP (NARRATOR): All right, the New York summit battle. Iron Chef Morimoto against Bobby Flay …

Dan Pashman: On the show, the legendary Japanese chef Morimoto beat Bobby when they competed in New York. And then Bobby made an even bigger splash when he beat Morimoto back in Tokyo. 

Dan Pashman: Food Network eventually made their own version, Iron Chef America,

CLIP (NARRATOR): This is ... Iron Chef America.

Dan Pashman: And Bobby was a regular for over a decade.

CLIP (NARRATOR): Iron Chef Bobby Flay ...

Dan Pashman: That led to another TV show of his own, Throwdown with Bobby Flay,

CLIP (BOBBY FLAY): In this episode of Throwdown, we're bringing the heat ...

Dan Pashman: And then his signature show Beat Bobby Flay, which is exactly what it sounds like.

CLIP (BOBBY FLAY): Each week, one great chef will try to take me down in my house ...

Dan Pashman: Chefs go head to head with Bobby in a cooking competition. But the twist is that they both have to cook a version of the guest chef’s signature dish, which should give Bobby’s competitor an advantage, right? And yet, Bobby seems to do pretty well.

Bobby Flay: Everybody says you win all the time. The answer is I don’t. I win 65-70 percent of the time, so I win more than I lose but I don’t win all the time. And it’s totally fine, I don't — it does not bother me one bit. I just love doing the show and I love being able to cook. 

Dan Pashman: Even as he was doing more TV, Bobby continued running his restaurants, and opened new places in Vegas and the Bahamas. He even started a burger chain. But the TV shows were what made him a household name.

Dan Pashman: When you first started getting more into TV, were you thinking of it as, like, something that would be a big part of your career? Like, like how are you thinking that this would fit into your work? What were you hoping that it would lead to?

Bobby Flay: Okay. I still don't think it's a big part of my career. One of the most important things to me is being able to balance the world that I live in, which is being a chef of my restaurants in the real world without television. And then of course, then there's food television, which has become an important part of my life, too — very hard to balance both. When you become a chef on television, your skills have all of a sudden dissipated to the world. You're just a TV chef.

Dan Pashman: So this is the perception. 

Bobby Flay: Yeah, of course. 

Dan Pashman: Especially among like, you know, more … 

Bobby Flay: Other chefs. 

Dan Pashman: Other chefs, right. 

Bobby: Exactly, who don't have TV shows.

Dan Pashman: Right. [LAUGHS]

Bobby Flay: Um ... [LAUGHS] that's okay.

Dan Pashman: Right.

Bobby Flay: Listen, I mean, I get it. I don't agree with it. And I used to get upset about it years ago. I don't anymore. 

Dan Pashman: What changed? 

Bobby Flay: Um, I got over it. I mean, cause …

Dan Pashman: Also, you know, you get older.

Bobby Flay: Well, yes.

Dan Pashman: You have a certain amount of success.

Bobby Flay: Also, I created a show called Beat Bobby Flay. Anytime you want to go, I'm ready.

Dan Pashman: Right. [LAUGHS]

Bobby Flay: So if you want to show up and show me the skills, I'd love to do it. I don't care, win or lose. I just want people to show up and show me what they got.

Dan Pashman: But it’s interesting, like you say, there is an assumption that you cook on TV, you're not a real chef. Some of that is just sort of professional resentment. 

Bobby Flay: Yeah.

Dan Pashman: But there was a quote, Jeff Gordinier profiled you in The New York Times back in 2014 and he wrote, “Of all the chefs of the last two decades who have tried juggling the roles of hands-on cook, TV star, face of an expanding entrepreneurial empire, and human being with some dignity left, Mr. Flay may be the least prone to slip.” He says, “There's a reason Mr. Flay has declined offers to swivel his hips on Dancing with the Stars.” So, what do you think has been the key to that for you, to become a TV star without losing that chef cred?

Bobby Flay: Food first. Always. Food first. The TV stuff is fantastic, but — and it's a great opportunity, and I love doing it, but I always think about it from a food first standpoint. I don't think about it of: This could be a really cool concept for a show. I think about how the food's going to be the star and how we're going to create something that kind of lives around it. That's the most important thing. You know, I have a show called Triple Threat, which is a show that I don't cook on, but I have three chefs who are the house chefs. And in the first two rounds, I give them two ingredients. The difference between what I give them, in let's say, Chopped, or some of these other shows where they give them mystery baskets, is I give them two ingredients that actually make sense together, which is completely the polar opposite of what everybody else does.

Dan Pashman: Right. They're trying to get the most ridiculous ...

Bobby Flay: Yeah, who cares about that?

Dan Pashman: ... combination, because it makes it seem more, whatever. 

Bobby Flay: Yeah, and also the judges don't want to eat it. 

Dan Pashman: Right. 

Bobby Flay: That's the BTS information. Because, if you pair gummy bears with anchovies and peanut butter, like, yeah.

Dan Pashman: Right. [LAUGHING]

Bobby Flay: Like, honestly, how good is it gonna be? 

Dan Pashman: Right, right. 

Bobby Flay: But if I give you, you know, potatoes and blue cheese. Like if you're a great chef, there's 30 dishes that you can think of in the next 10 minutes. The question is: What choices are you going to make? Cause the other chef has the same opportunity and then they make beautiful food. To me, that's what's ... That's what's key about longevity, making great food.

Dan Pashman: Right, and it's not a gimmick with that way. 

Bobby Flay: No, not one bit. 

Dan Pashman: To me, if I want to try out a new pizzeria, I want to try the margherita. 

Bobby Flay: I agree. 

Dan Pashman: Don't give me a pizza with 47 toppings on it.

Bobby Flay: I agree.

Dan Pashman: Let me see if you can make a margherita. 

Bobby Flay: Yeah, I'll do the other toppings later. 

Dan Pashman: It occurs to me that between your time on Iron Chef, Throwdown and Beat Bobby Flay, by my count, you have probably been in close to 700 TV cooking competitions. You've competed. I haven't double-checked, but it's hard for me to imagine there's anyone out there in America who's competed more times on television cooking than you have. Would you say you're generally a competitive person? 

Bobby Flay: I am, but I also know how to lose. And I always tell my — we call them "The Titans" on Triple Threat. I'm like, guys, nobody cares how you win. Everybody cares how you lose. You know, growing up a kid who — I mean, I didn't tell you as we have documented, I didn't go to school in any successful way, but I did play a lot of sports. We were taught how to lose and shake hands and be sportsman-like. And I think, like, getting that part of you, as a young person, really helps you in your adult life, because in adult life, we lose a lot. 

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: TV made Bobby a star, but he always thought of himself primarily as a restaurant chef. His restaurants were his top priority, none more so than his first one — Mesa Grill, the place that put him on the map. As I said, Mesa Grill was a national sensation when it opened, and it remained a hotspot for a long time. Eventually, it got a second review in The New York Times and kept its two-star rating, meaning very good. By 2008, 17 years into its run, it was time for a third Times review, this one by the critic Frank Bruni. 

Bobby Flay: I always tell people, you know, "What do you have nightmares about? I have nightmares about the New York Times Restaurant Critic." And so, you know, these people were in my dreams a lot when I had restaurants in New York. And, Frank was the only New York Times Restaurant Critic to give me a not good review. Mesa Grill got reviewed for, like, the third time and he took a star away from me, and I was devastated. I mean, devastated. And, um ... I called him, which you're not supposed to have … The New York Times Restaurant Critic and the chefs of New York basically have a wall up between them. I mean, we all know that they're there because we know, but we make believe we don't. It's the whole thing. And you have to respect their ... you know, their sort of …

Dan Pashman: Right, they like that sort of veneer of distance because they're .. 

Bobby Flay: They want it. 

Dan Pashman: Right, because they're critiquing you.

Bobby Flay: Right.

Dan Pashman: They don't want to come across as being too chummy.

Bobby Flay: No, you're not going up to the table and saying, "Welcome, we're sending in food," ever.

Dan Pashman: Right.

Bobby Flay: I mean, that's — I'm sure people do it, it's a mistake. You just do your thing and you hope for the best. And he gave me — he took a star away from me, and I called him. And he was sure I was going to rail him about my review, and I said, "Frank, I just want to thank you for coming in. There's thousands and thousands and thousands of restaurants in New York City, and you picked Mesa Grill to come to and re-review. I'm really sorry that we weren't able to satisfy you in the way that I was hoping to. And the bottom line is, I think at this very moment, you're right, and thank you for taking the time, and this is a great lesson for me." [COUGHS]

Dan Pashman: What was Frank's response when you said that to him?

Bobby Flay: He said I was the only chef that had ever done that. Easy to call him when he gives you some sparkling review, but when he doesn't, I think they deserve the same attention. And I went into the restaurant, gathered the entire staff, because you can imagine what the staff is feeling.

Dan Pashman: Right, they're ...

Bobby Flay: Everybody.

Dan Pashman: They're all upset.

Bobby Flay: Everybody. And I was just like, "I want everybody to understand something. This is me. This is all on me. You guys do a great job every single night, but I need to look at this a little bit differently." You know, it didn't end my career, but it certainly hurt my ego. You know, I take those things very, very seriously.

Dan Pashman: You have to.

Bobby Flay: Absolutely. 

Dan Pashman: You wouldn't have accomplished everything you've accomplished if you didn't take those things personally. 

Bobby Flay: Yeah, for sure. I lost that day. I had a lot of drinks that night.

[LAUGHING]

Bobby Flay: That was ... Phew, that was a tough day. 

Dan Pashman: There are some successful chefs who would have dealt with that by going into the kitchen and throwing pots and pans all over the place.

Bobby Flay: No. That was never my move. I mean, that doesn't get you anything.

Dan Pashman: Right.

Bobby Flay: I mean, I'm .. I use my authority for inspiration. 

Dan Pashman: What specifically did you change? 

Bobby Flay: I read the review 500 times. I changed some dishes. I agreed with basically almost everything he said — trust me, it wasn't an awful, awful review. He just wanted it to be better than it was at that moment, and he was probably right. And so, I went in there and did what I should have done, you know, probably two months earlier, which was tighten everything up that was on the menu, take a look at every dish that was on the menu, and if they weren't really good, take them off, and then come up with some new innovative things. You know, at that point, when your staff is down, you need to give them something to lift them up. And the way I do it is through creativity. Give them some things to think about, some new dishes to be excited about. And that's what I did.

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: Those changes seemed to work, but five years later, Mesa Grill was facing other issues. The rent was about to triple and the financials no longer made sense. After a 22-year run, Bobby had to close it.

Dan Pashman: As I said, his latest cookbook, Chapter One, includes recipes and reflections from his career. So naturally, it's got a lot of recipes connected to Mesa Grill. He told David Chang in a recent interview that writing the book really made him miss the restaurant. So I asked Bobby why he misses it so much.

Bobby Flay: My most comfortable place is in my restaurants. It's the first time as an adult that I don't have a restaurant in New York City. This is my home. [LAUGHS] I leave my apartment — I live in Tribeca. I leave my apartment and I'm like, "Wait, where am I supposed to go?"

Dan Pashman: Right. [LAUGHS]

Bobby Flay: When I had two or three restaurants in New York, it made it really easy. Pick one and then go to the one after that. You know what I mean?

Dan Pashman: Right.

Bobby Flay: That was my life. That's the life of a chef. It's like you go to your restaurant and you do whatever you need to get done, whether it's being in your chef whites or hiring somebody or I don't know maybe firing somebody — anything. You know talking to the chefs, inspiring people, whatever it is, that was my life in New York City. So now my life in New York City is going to other people's restaurants, [LAUGHING] which is a lot easier, [Dan Pashman: Right, right.] and probably a lot more satisfying sometimes. But I do miss putting my apron on, which I consider the shield from the rest of the world. When I put my apron on in my restaurants, I feel like … safe.

Dan Pashman: Even though Bobby no longer has a restaurant in New York, he does still have two in Vegas: Brasserie B, which has French-inspired dishes, and Amalfi, with coastal Italian food. And he’s very involved in those places.

Bobby Flay: Like, I have to go to Vegas next week and I'm changing a bunch of things for the fall. Like I'll call ahead of time and be like, "We're gonna do these eight new dishes or ten new dishes. Get me the ingredients." And so when I get out there, I start cooking everything and, you know, six of them might be, like, really good. One of them might be off the charts great, and we're, like, high-fiving each other after we taste it. And then there's, like, one or two that are, like, "I just can't make this work." Like, on paper, in my head, when I dreamt it up, it was great. But I — for whatever it is, I can't execute it the way I want to. Scrap it. Edit. Goodbye. 

Dan Pashman: And when are those ideas coming to you? 

Bobby Flay: When I sit down and think about it, I get into a zone. Sometimes I do dream about finished dishes, but that's usually because I'm in that mode already. I need to sit down with a yellow pad, and a pen or pencil, not a computer.

Dan Pashman: Right. 

Bobby Flay: And I need to start — and what I do is I pick cookbooks off my shelf, usually not my own, sometimes my own. And I start rifling through the titles of the recipes and I see ingredients that I want to use – endive, frise, portobello mushrooms — whatever it is, you know, and I start writing them down, like, "This is good for the fall ...," and I just make a list of them. 

Dan Pashman: Of ingredients. 

Bobby Flay: Of ingredients. And then all of a sudden the ingredients are rolling through my head. And on the other side, it's like one from column A, one from column B. 

Dan Pashman: Right. 

Bobby Flay: And on the other side, I'm like, I need a pasta dish, I need a rice dish, I need a chicken dish. And all of a sudden, like the mushrooms wind up with the chicken and the butternut squash winds up in the pasta. That's how I start getting going. And then all of a sudden my juices start flowing, where I can sit in front of a piece of paper for days. And then all of a sudden, once I start going, I can write the whole menu in 12 minutes.

Dan Pashman: Is there a dish that you can think of that actually came to you in a dream?

Bobby Flay: When we had Bobby Flay Steak in Atlantic City, I made it all about lobster and steak. Atlantic City was all about surf — like bad surf and turf years ago. 

Dan Pashman: Right. [LAUGHS] 

Bobby Flay: But like, you know, obviously for Bobby Flay's Steak, it was like very, very high-end ingredients, et cetera. And I remember thinking about like, "What could be fun with lobster that like Atlantic City would love?" And I came up — I dreamt about this dish where people were shooting oyster shooters with lobster. And it was like either tequila or vodka with the lobster, with the oysters, and some hot sauce and some horseradish. And people were shooting and they became a huge success, and I dreamt about that.

Dan Pashman: I dream about food a lot. I've been told that I make chewing noises in my sleep because I'm like … But I don't ... I'm not really dreaming of anything that hasn't been created yet. I'm just, — it's usually donuts. 

Bobby Flay: Pasta. 

Dan Pashman: Yeah. Right. [LAUGHING] 

Bobby Flay: What kind of donuts do you like?

Dan Pashman: There's not many donuts I don't like, but I probably lean more towards cake donuts than raised donuts. I love a buttermilk … A glazed buttermilk.

Bobby Flay: Okay.

Dan Pashman: I don't need all these newfangled flavors. I don't need cacao nibs or passion fruit. Just like, gimme it, like, with a little bit of that buttermilk tang and the way that it, like, opens up on top ... 

Bobby Flay: Uh-huh. 

Dan Pashman: So you get those little peaks and valleys. 

Bobby Flay: Yes. Mm-hmm. 

Dan Pashman: And then you get the crustiness of the glaze on top of the crusty top. 

Bobby Flay: Right. 

Dan Pashman: And then the doughy inside. You get dynamic contrast.

Bobby Flay: Dynamic contrast. Exactly.

Dan Pashman: How about you? What's your favorite donut? 

Bobby Flay: The opposite. 

Dan Pashman: Okay. [LAUGHING] 

Bobby Flay: I like Doughnut Plant donuts.

Dan Pashman: Yeah, I mean, I do like them.

Bobby Flay: I mean, I have to say, I think that they're by themselves.

Dan Pashman: Their peanut butter and jelly donut ... you know, their jelly donut innovation is huge. You know how they make them square? 

Bobby Flay: Yeah. 

Dan Pashman: They get the thin ribbon throughout with their technique. 

Bobby Flay: It's like the coconut cream donut, too.

Dan Pashman: Yeah, I mean, but that is so smart. Because that's the problem with a jelly donut. Who wants a giant glob of jelly in the center? 

Bobby Flay: No, they're ... 

Dan Pashman: Have they patented that? 

Bobby Flay: I don't know. But their donuts are killer. I mean, seriously, killer. 

Dan Pashman: Yeah. 

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: You don't usually revisit decisions once you've made them. But the decision to close Mesa Grill is not 100 percent settled. You write that sometimes you think about the idea of a Mesa Grill 2.0, which you say would be a restaurant inspired by that first success, but with more mature eyes and taste buds at the helm. 

Bobby Flay: Mm-hmm. 

Dan Pashman: What do those more mature eyes and taste buds know that the younger you didn't know?

Bobby Flay: I think a lot of chefs, me included, when you're younger, it's all about bells and whistles and look at all the things I can do on this plate. And then when you get a little bit older and mature as a cook, and you get more confident, it's like Coco Chanel, something comes off the plate. I think the more confident and better you get, the simpler the food. And so I think that that's what it would be. Now, I think about different iterations of Mesa Grill 2.0 all of the time. And ... But the problem is, is that Mesa Grill, like, people remember Mesa Grill the way they want to remember it. 

Dan Pashman: Right.

Bobby Flay: Could I ever bring back that feeling? And that's the problem with reopening restaurants that already lived. And it's why I never really did it. I always opened up restaurants that were new, or a version of. Like Gato was the next step from Bolo. So like, maybe there's a next version of what Mesa Grill was. 

Dan Pashman: Right. 

Bobby Flay: But, those flavors and ingredients, I mean they make your taste buds dance in the best way.

Dan Pashman: You can see how those flavors all come together in Bobby’s new book, Chapter One – and it’s not all Mesa Grill and Southwestern food. It’s really a survey of everything he’s done in his career to date, from Iron Chef America to his current restaurants in Vegas. But if it’s a look back at his career so far, why is it called Chapter One?

Bobby Flay: the title Chapter One is obviously supposed to be thought provoking, right? I mean, I didn't start cooking 10 days ago. 

Dan Pashman: Right. [LAUGHS]

Bobby Flay: So, you know, the question is: What does that mean, Chapter one? You know, what's the next chapter or is there going to be a next chapter or is this it? I feel like I'm just getting started. It's one of the great things about food is there's no expiration date on how long you can do it. It's for your whole life.

MUSIC 

Dan Pashman: That’s Bobby Flay, his book Chapter One comes out tomorrow, October 29th. Of course, you can pre-order it right now. It’s a cookbook but also has stories from throughout his career. Make sure you check it out, it's really good. And hey, we’re going to give a copy of it away to a lucky listener who subscribes to our newsletter! All you have to do is go to sporkful.com/newsletter and subscribe there by November 18th. You’ll automatically be entered to win this and all of our other giveaways. If you're already on our mailing list, you’re automatically entered. If you sign up now, maybe you'll win the Bobby Flay book? Maybe you'll win something in the future. You'll get an occasional email from me, so everybody wins. Contest is open to U.S. and Canada addresses only. Sign up for the newsletter now at sporkful.com/newsletter. 

Dan Pashman: Next week on the show, who was James Beard? I talk with his biographer John Birdsall about the man who gave his name to the famous food awards. He was also a pioneer in food TV, and a gay man struggling with how much he could show his identity. That’s next week. 

Dan Pashman: While you’re waiting for that one, check out last week’s episode about Super Size Me and its legacy, twenty years later.

Dan Pashman: And hey, did you know that you can listen to The Sporkful on the SiriusXM app? Yes, the SiriusXM app, it has all your favorite podcasts, plus over 200 ad-free music channels curated by genre and era, plus live sports coverage. Does your podcasting app have that? Then there's interviews with A-list stars and so much more. It's everything you want in a podcast app and music app all rolled into one. And right now, Sporkful listeners can get three months free of the SiriusXM app by going to SiriusXM.com/sporkful.