FOLKS: CHEF BOBBY FLAY

A hard man to beat.

When did I first meet Bobby Flay? Good question. It was that long ago. One of the indelible moments early on involved the famed, gargantuan ‘South Beach Wine and Food Festival,’ a stretch limo, (his) and a pissed off woman. Let’s save that for the Ancient History files! Much more to my liking was when he came to Miami to shoot one of his Food Network shows. Might have been around 2002, or so. I’m convinced there are two Bobby Flays. One is a bit of a ‘push me and I’ll push you back harder’ tough-skinned New Yorker. That is not the Bobby I know. I’ve said this before about other chefs known from the media versus in-person. If I didn’t know them one-on-one, I might not like them one single bit! But thankfully I got to know the real Bobby. I have a few years on him, but we were part of that first (or second depending on how you are counting) wave of American chefs coming up in the 80’s. That meant a lot of events in various locales coast to coast. Back to when he came to my restaurant in Coral Gables, a beautiful area of Miami. We are standing outside the front door of NORMAN’S in the photo. 

Bobby’s laugh is infectious. It erupts from deep within. He laughs especially hard at life’s ironies. ‘The goofs,’ as maybe Kerouac might have put it. The script called for us to go to an indoor/outdoor market I have adored since my first visit in ’91. Back then, I was the wide eyed one marveling at the row upon row of the exotic array of Latin and Caribbean produce. Yuca, guanabana, cherimoya, boniato, tamarind. The translated name of the place is “The Palace of Juices” (Palacio de los Jugos). It started off as a juice place … but mushroomed over time in a kind of happy-random way over the years to include not only the produce but a cavalcade of prepared foods. You can sit under a covered area and have a full-on, stick-to-your-ribs meal there before taking home your goods. When you enter a place like this with a camera crew, heads begin to turn. Not everyone wants to be on camera down here. Not then, not now. This is a place where 95% of the shoppers are speaking in their native tongue, almost invariably a form of Spanish. As a native New Yorker, Bobby was totally cool with it all. I lost sight of him at one point. Then I realized he was helping an ancient, white-haired abuela put her bulging box of plantains in her trunk across the parking lot. I marveled at the vista and thought to myself, the fierce competitor of TV’s ‘Beat Bobby Flay’ has a kind and beating heart!

The shoot was us walking around checking out the fruits and tubers primarily. This was when I got to play the ‘in the know’ role to Bobby’s attentive info gatherer. After we finished that planned scene, and the camera folks headed over to the restaurant to set up for the next we’d do, Bobby and I got to take a break. It is times like these that even with cameras all around we chefs get to grasp the roots of what we fell in love with about food in the first place. We ordered up some of the juices. He loved the guanabana. And for me a ‘tamarindo.’ Many words are so much more melodic in the original language. We loaded up two plates with lechon asado, black beans,  maduro plantains and sat on the picnic benches under the swirl of fans and the music of a patois of languages in the magic that Miami still can muster. 

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His blurb for my cookbook, “New World Cuisine”. 

“Norman is one of the great food visionaries of our time.”—- Bobby Flay

(From my cookbook, “New World Cuisine” published by Random House, 1997).

I was discussing with Bobby Flay, the terrific young chef from New York City, the hazards of attempting to overcome culinary misconceptions with your own clientele.  We were having lunch at his restaurant, Bolo, which features a new, Spanish-inspired cooking.  Bobby recalled taking a few hooks to the chin when opening Bolo and serving authentic paella using the short-grained rice that is the true, genuine rice of Valencia. I enjoyed hearing this because I had been similarly tattooed for years for the same “mistake.”  We knew they were wrong.

For my recipe to, “Paella Americana” please become a subscriber. Cheaper than a plane ticket to Spain. And then some!