TV Verdict

Chef Bobby Flay has made a career of putting himself in the hot seat on Food Network’s Throwdown with Bobby Flay and Iron Chef America, taking on culinary challenges across the country, but on June 7, he’ll be one of three judges in the fifth edition of The Next Food Network Star. The TV chef and restaurateur says putting his own dishes to the test helps him in weighing the ten contestants.

“It’s just being exposed to people who love food. Hopefully, if you’re on The Next Food Network Star, you’re somebody who loves food. I’m a lucky guy. I get to travel the country meeting people who are really great at what they do from a food standpoint. Also, you get to understand how passionate people are about what they do. I think that’s an important part of being a judge. I think being a judge goes far beyond, ‘Is it good? Is it not good?’ I think that, being a judge, you have a responsibility to critique with good reason. If something is not good and you think something could be better, you have a solution for it, not just, ‘This isn’t good. How could you actually feed it to me?’ … Then as a judge, you’re actually doing your job,” Flay said in a recent conference call.

THROWDOWN SHOWDOWN

Flay said this season’s contestants were probably the best yet. “I would say that everybody has pretty good food chops. They’re pretty experienced when it comes to cooking, but it’s anywhere from somebody being a home cook cooking for their family and their children like Melissa from Texas or there’s a guy named Michael from New York who worked in some top New York restaurants. Then there’s a guy outside of Washington named Teddy who actually I challenged in a throwdown–it was mussels and fries. And then there was a woman named Katy who I really liked a lot.”

The candidates all went through three preliminary stages, but they still have to meet a tough test. “Basically, there’s three things: obviously, they need to be able to cook with authority; they need to be able to be a good teacher and be able to inspire; if they have those two things, they need to be entertaining and hold the viewer.”

One of his favorite challenges was an outdoor grilling session in Miami, with “all these different kinds of fish, you know, fin fish and shellfish. Basically, they had to come with a dish that would actually go on the menu at a restaurant, and so I thought they were incredibly creative as to what they came up with.”

Flay doesn’t come up with all the challenges, although he does contribute ideas. The object is to keep contestants off balance to see how they react. “I mean, if everybody was perfect in every challenge, there’d be nothing to watch. I mean, basically the idea is that you want to take people out of their element a little to see how they do under pressure. It’s not just about, you know, acing the challenge. It’s more about when there’s an issue like there is in TV every day. How do you handle the pressure? So I think that, yes, sometimes the challenges are difficult but they’re difficult for a reason.”

THINK FAST

Flay says a culinary school foundation and the French technique he learned help with on-the-spot thinking. “It’s much easier for you to navigate your way around things that you haven’t done before as opposed to somebody that doesn’t have the foundation. That’s why, because of my experience, just cooking for a long time–basically most of my life–I feel like I can at least give it a pretty good shot. Obviously it doesn’t always work out; I feel like I can at least give somebody a good challenge.”

It also helps for the contestants to consider what they know. “There’s two things that you can tell people especially if they’re nervous about looking into the camera. By the way, to this day, I’m still nervous looking into the camera. I mean, I really am. Everytime they count me down–five, four, three, two, one–I still get nervous because there I am, it’s me and the camera, you know. … Maybe that might not go away, but I think the two things that are most important is that a, and you hear people say this and it’s harder than what it sounds, but you have to be who you are, you have to be yourself, and since it’s the Food Network, I tell people to cook within themselves, meaning that, do something you’ve done before. Even if it’s a new kind of challenge that maybe you haven’t done this particular thing or this dish before, make a part of it something that is familiar to you so that once you get to that place, you feel like you’re at home. I think that any little thing like that helps you get through the nervousness of those bright lights and that camera. … It’s definitely nervewracking for everyone.”

He offers advice for anyone who might want to pursue a culinary career. “First of all, you have to decide whether or not you want to do this as a profession. The best-case scenario is, a lot of times you’ll hear people say, “I love to cook at home. I want to be a chef.” Well, they’re very different. That doesn’t mean that one will translate to the other, but the best-case scenario is for somebody to go and for a month, go and beg a restaurant to let you cook in their restaurant or do whatever you can in their kitchen for a month. Don’t even get paid if you don’t have to. And just see if you like the environment.” Even when aspiring chefs go to culinary school, they only get the basic skills that they’ll be learning in an entry-level kitchen job. “There’s no magic to it. It’s got to be a slow, steady process.”

AND IN THIS CORNER

Flay said the ultimate person he’d love to put his food before is boxer Muhammed Ali. “I grew up watching him not only be the heavyweight champion of the world and probably at that point the most recognizable person in the world but he also had to deal with lots of political issues” as a conscientious objector in the Vietnam era. “If I could get into his kitchen, he wouldn’t have to do anything. I’d just like to hear his story and I’ll do all the cooking–plus he’s from Louisville and I love the food from Kentucky.”

Among Flay’s favorite regional foods are San Antonio’s Mexican cuisine, New Mexico’s red and green chilies and enchiladas, the Pacific Northwest’s shellfish, fish, crab, and halibut, and Southern fried chicken, collard greens, and barbecue. “My mouth waters thinking about all these different places in America.” His affinity for Southwestern cuisine came from Jonathan Waxman, “who in the mid-Eighties was the first person to bring California and Southwestern-style ingredients to the East Coast, and I fell in love with the ingredients working for him, and then I traveled to the Southwest and just honed my skills in those ingredients.”

Flay also points out that TV chefs are “role models” for healthy and better eating, both for adults and kids. “Most people know the hosts of the shows, the chefs of the shows, by first name. … It’s a familiar position to be in; it’s nice.”

However, it will present challenges for the winner, which he often provides advice about handling. “People are going to throw things at them all the time.”

The winner gets a six-episode series, and a chance to become a part of the Food Network roster for the long haul. “I want them to have six hundred shows of information in them.”

Perhaps one day the winner will even learn to love sea urchin, Flay’s favorite secret ingredient from Iron Chef.

The Next Food Network Star runs Sundays at 9 p.m. EST starting on June 7. Viewers can find out more about the ten finalists at Food Network online.