April 27, 2021 • 26 mins
In their debut episode, hosts Bobby Flay and Sophie Flay cover what it means to get dressed up!
In this episode you’ll find out:
- What makes a dining experience an “occasion?”
- In which era does bobby think he should have lived?
- What types of special dining experiences are available to us today?
And of course, listen along to hear Bobby teach Sophie a simple recipe that you can cook for your next special occasion.
Follow Host’s Bobby Flay and Sophie Flay on instagram to get future updates on their brand new podcast, “Always Hungry” from iHeartRadio.
Bobby Flay: https://www.instagram.com/bobbyflay
Sophie Flay: https://www.instagram.com/abc7sophie
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Everybody. Welcome to the very first episode of Always Hungry
from My Heart Radio. My name is Bobby Flay, and
I'm here with my daughter and co host Sophie. Hi. There,
I'm Sophie Flay. What's up? Everybody? So excited to be here,
But I am feeling a little hungry. Well, don't worry
about that. I'll be cooking in a minute. So but first,
let's explain to everybody what they've been here on this podcast.
All right, good idea. So you're my dad, Bobby Flay,
(00:27):
the Iron Chef, also known as super Chef. Yeah, I
would like you to continue to refer to me as
that from here on in. Sophie, thank you very much.
I mean, I am a chef group in New York City,
you know, my whole life. I'm gonna approach this podcast
from my perspective being someone you know from a different
generation than you. But that's enough about me. Why don't
we tell everybody about you? Let's do it all right?
(00:47):
So you know food, you know growing up in my household,
and you aren't exactly a professional cook, but everybody should
know that you're actually a community journalist here in l A.
That's right. I'm a community journalist at ABC seven Los Angeles.
So I'll be bringing a local reporters perspective and the
perspective of a much younger generation, and I'll try to
teach you a thing or two along the way, all right, bringer,
(01:09):
So in each episode of Always Hungry, we will pick
one single theme, will cook a recipe based on that theme,
and then we'll sit down at the table together and
eat and discuss. Some of those themes will be as
simple as a specific dish like burgers or tacos, but
other themes will be larger concepts, like travel stories or
what makes a good restaurant. And today, for our first episode,
our theme is getting dressed up. Let's do it? Sounds good.
(01:31):
Let's head to the kitchen. Okay, so what are we
doing to that. We're gonna make a potato pancakes with
tramp fresh and caviar and smoke. Stand. This is a
dish that I made you for New Year's Eve. It's
a very highbrow dish because there's caviar and stuff like that.
But and you don't actually have to do that, But like,
I wanted to do something a little bit sort of
like fancy, because we're talking about like getting dressed up
(01:52):
for dinner and the sort of idea behind what that
really means. So basically what I'm doing here, I have
a potato and Idaho potato that I'm grading on like
a cheese grated on the big eyes. If you notice,
I'm grading it into a kitchen towel. You get the moisture. Well,
I'm going to squeeze out all the water content so
(02:13):
we can make these potato pancakes nice and crispy. So, yes,
the moisture exactly, you're right. So we wrap it up
in the towel and then basically we just like squeeze
it out. You can see, like you see all the
juice coming way through the towel. You want to dry
out the potato as much as you can. Okay, I'm
tired to work out. I've never seen that before. So
(02:35):
then we'll put the drained out potato in a bowl
and then an egg just like making. You know, the
Jewish culture they call these lattas their potato pancakes. So
then I'm using some flour. This is actually Wondrouf flour,
which is like flour that's already even steamed and it
just dissolves really well, and then some salt and pepper,
and that's basically it. I'm going to mix this up.
(02:56):
Is this how you would make like a potato latka? Yeah,
it's like the same thing. And you said that, I
didn't hear you said. Oh no, I didn't hear you
said the Jewish culture. Oh oh sorry, no, I literally didn't.
Welcome back today we're talking about I'm sure if the
right word is etiquette, but the approach to getting dressed
(03:17):
up when you go out to dinner or lunch. You know,
you go to a restaurant, like what do you wear?
I mean, obviously it depends on a lot of things.
So it depends on how formal the restaurant is, like
where you are in the world, yes, right, and then
you know, time of day definitely lunch, dinner, late night,
so I'll go first. Okay, what are you laughing at?
(03:41):
Why are you laughing? Because you know, because you know
I want to talk about this. Yeah, okay, I do
want to talk about it. So I mean, for you,
what's the difference between like really dining out, getting an
experience and just like going out for a bite to eat.
You're talking about this like putting on a suit, having
this whole experience dressing up. But we would not do
the same if we went to melons or something like that.
You know, of course, if if if all of a sudden, like,
(04:04):
oh are you hungry? Yeah, I'm hungry, let's go get something.
What do you want to cheeseburger? Okay, that's one thing.
It doesn't matter what you wear. Probably not. I think
that you know a reservation that you made weeks in advance,
it's a special occasion, it's somebody's birthday, or you have
like a really really like important date, or even a
business dinner. I think that that's that's an occasion, and
(04:26):
I think that those occasions should be highlighted by what
you wear. You know. What's funny is like, I remember
distinctly we used to go on these father daughter trips
to Europe, which were great growing up. And I remember
distinctly one of our trips. I was like wearing spot
pants on the plane, and you were like, I can't
believe you're wearing spat pants on the plane, is what
I said to you. Yes, I was like what you
were like, I just wouldn't dress like that on a plane.
(04:46):
I was like, Bro, you have got to be getting
me that you're shaving of you from wearing spot pants
on the wall. It wasn't. I just know, I know, parenting,
it's called I know. But I think that you're also
something that's like a great about you is and you're
very modern, but you have like a classic mindset about
certain things, like you love to get dressed up. You
love to wear a nice suit, like if you're going
(05:07):
on a date, you get dressed up. You know that
sort of thing. Like, yeah, I was not You're not
laid back in that sense. I literally think that I
should have lived in a different era like the forties
and fa I mean seriously, because I like wearing really
classic beautiful clothing and you can and I have to
make excuses to find experiences to do it, you know
what I mean, Like in the winter in New York,
(05:27):
like I love wearing like an amazing fedor right, yes
you do, yes you yes, sir, Yes you do. I'm sorry,
that's that, you know, that's what's happening. But you know
what I would love to get dressed up for is
like a dining experience with a guy who's doing like
live jazz or like someone who's doing a great like
Frank Sinatra Netslee sort of thing. Okay, so those are
(05:49):
like supper clubs and they don't exist anymore. And that's
what I'm talking about, Like, that's the era I wanted
to live in, right, you know, we're like it's Friday
night and you're going through the supper club and you're
gonna have dinner at this table, and you're gonna like
tip the matri d for a good table because he
knows you. I mean, it's a whole thing. It's like
the whole thing. And then like and then this great
(06:09):
band or a band leader or whatever comes out and
sings jazz or as a crooner or something like that.
You know, it's Frankie Valley or it's Frank Sinatra or
so the that doesn't exist anymore, right, so listen, it's
just people don't do it. Yeah, I would love to
do something like that. Yeah, that's so um like marvelous
mismaisl totally. Well, that's exactly right. I mean, look at
(06:30):
the clothes in that show, spectacular exactly. Yeah. I try
to get those old school experiences that I talk about today.
The place that I really like to go is the
Grill because it feels old school but New. I mean,
it's a very famous place. It's it's in the Seagram's Building,
which is the actual restaurant itself is landmarked, so there's
only so many things you can do to it. And
(06:51):
even though there's a new restaurant in there called The Grill,
you know, it's like table side service. The captains or
a tuxedos. You know, they're are buttoned up. They serve
like sort of French style. They did a lot of
table side stuff. And when I go there, the first
thing I do before I sit down is I go
to the bar and I order a perfect martini. Okay,
(07:14):
I'm going to have the quintessential New York experience, So
I'm gonna start with the martini that I'm gonna go
to my table and I'm going to have a spectacular
dinner and it's gonna be long, and it's gonna be fun,
and everybody's gonna be dressed up, except so the guys
next to me. We were wearing T shirts but at
my table, like we're living in the Roaring twenties. Yeah. Well, actually,
(07:36):
you know there's a spot here in l A called Delilah.
Have you ever been there? No, it's an a wood
Group restaurant. You know, it kind of like turns into
a club bar like later as the night goes on.
But they do have live jazz and amazing performers and
like you know, these beautiful feather costumes. It it's very
much Roaring twenties esque. But yeah, they do a great
(07:58):
job of capturing that, you know. I think it's like
Tudayas and Sunday's Day of Life jazz. It's super fun.
Here's the thing. A restaurant is many things. You know,
as a chef, I always want the food to be
the most important thing in a person's experience. The bottom line, Sophie,
is that service is much more important to people than
the food. So if you have a great meal and
(08:19):
bad service, people aren't coming back. If you have great
service and mediocre food, they tend to come back more
as if somebody who cooks for a living. I hate that,
but that's the truth. Yeah. So obviously food and service
and the ambiance design, all those things play into an experience,
and I think that when you're going to a restaurant,
I think it behooves you to think about, you know,
how are you going to address to play the part
(08:41):
in that role at night, you know, in a way
I want to know what you want to know what
your sound track is. What's my soundtrack to your movie?
It's got It's definitely some Frank Sinatra to start funny. Yeah,
we're gonna move on to Jay Z okay, okay, and
(09:01):
then we're one of the club. Okay. So we have
a pan, a good amount of oil. It's starting to
smoke a tiny bit. And then what you do is
you put like a little spoonful of the potato mixture
in the pan and then you press it down with
the back of the spoon and so it gets thinner.
(09:21):
You want your pan to be hot. You want your
painting pretty hot because we want the potatoes to brown, right. Yeah,
And it's just a few ingredients. You can make these
at home. This is great. You can just put our
cream on top of them, or so the apple sauce.
This is like a Christmas New Year's Yeah, this is
a really fun or very festive. I think I remember
(09:42):
eating a bunch of these on your usine. Well I
can't remember. Yeah, for other reasons. Okay, So basically what
you want to see here now, if you notice you
can see like right around the edges, they're starting to
get crispy, so to get brown. And that's what you want. Obviously,
you don't want the potatoes to cook threw so we
can turn the heat down after we flip them over.
See that, Yes, that's what you want. I mean, you
(10:02):
want that nice, that nice crispy edge, so that when
you bite into the smoked salmon, the crame fresh and
the caviarts on this great vehicle. This crispy potato. It's
like a little potato chit, yeah, but better. But like
(10:34):
I was in a restaurant which was formerly the Four
Seasons restaurant. This is a very very buttoned up, midtown expensive,
you know, beautiful service restaurant, and there were people just
like in T shirts sitting there and like, listen, if
that's the why they want to express themselves, be my guest.
I just to me, it doesn't match the experience. I
(10:55):
get that. But also people are just dressing more casual
these days. You know, I live mostly in New York City.
You live in Los Angeles, and the difference the way
people get dressed here. I mean everybody wears sneakers to dinner. Well,
everyone wear sneakers everywhere, everywhere so it's sneakers, jeans, and
a T shirt and maybe like a little bomber jacket. Yeah, okay,
nobody's putting on a suit. Nobody's putting on a tigh
(11:16):
every I mean, you never see it. When we were
thinking about this episode, one restaurant that came to mind
that I thought to look up that they have a
location in New York. They have location in l A.
It's Catch, the restaurant Catch, and I looked on the
website to see if they had a dress code because
there's only so many places I feel like that actually do,
but Catch does. We kindly ask our guests to abide
(11:38):
by this smart casual dress code of Catch restaurants. No
beach wear, athletic tops, T shirts or sweatpants, casual shorts,
flip flops, excessively revealing clothing. Okay, I understand exactly what
they're trying to do. They're trying to like have some decorum.
Now at the same time, it's casual decorum. They're not
telling people you have to wear a jacket and tie
to come to Catch. What they're saying is, don't make
(12:00):
believe you're coming from the beach to come here, right,
have you ever had a dress code at any of
your restaurants, not specifically, do I want people just wearing
tank tops, shorts and flip plops in my restaurant? I
probably don't. When I asked them to kindly leave, I
don't think I would. Okay, Well, let me ask you this.
You're about to open a brand new restaurant in Las Vegas,
very exciting. Are you going to have a dress code?
(12:22):
Is there a way you'd like people to dress? Okay?
So that's a great question, and actually it's an interesting
conversation for this particular restaurant. The restaurants called the Malfie,
so clearly it's about the Amalfi Coast. So if you've
been to the Amalfi Coast, or if you know anything
about the Amalfi Coast, you understand that it's very warm
weather destination. It's right on the tiering ec and people
(12:43):
addressed in bathing suits and linen you know, really sort
of very smart so to speak, linen shirts, and you
know they're in shorts but life shorts. No, seriously, you know,
I like, there's a lot of style on the Amalfi Coast,
but it's very casual style, and you know, people are
gonna be drinking apparel spritses and Campari spritses, and and
(13:06):
the restaurant is designed with that sort of feeling in mind.
We're trying to provoke the Amoufie coast in the middle
of Caesar's Palace. I mean, it's gonna happen. And that's
That's the great thing about places like Caesar's Palaces Vegas
is they bring your fantasy to life. And so obviously
it's my job. One of my jobs is to make
sure that you know, you're getting that feeling through the food.
(13:27):
So it's gonna be a lot of like fish and pastas,
and it's gonna feel casual but buttoned up. And so
maybe that's the dress code casual were buttoned up. When
people say how should we dress, that's the first thing
just came to mind. So maybe that's what it is.
Just like what does that mean to you? Though? It
means that like where your best your buttoned down pink
salmon no no, no, no, no no no. Like I
(13:50):
think at the very high end of it, sports jacket
and you know, a college shirt and you could be
wearing chinos, or you can be wearing a great pair
of jeans. You could be wearing eakers. You could be
wearing a great pair of shoes, sort of like resort
were going out at night, you know for the ladies.
Maybe they're wearing like a great summer dress or something.
I don't know. Yeah, you tell me. I mean, here's
(14:12):
the thing. It's also a Vegas like people have their
Vegas outfits and they want to flaunt them. I totally
get it. Whatever you want to eat, pasta and fishing,
that's where you should come. That's a pretty good dress code.
You always cook things so fast. Yeah that might sound stupid,
but you like tend to skip a lot of steps.
(14:35):
I feel like to make things just quicker. No, I'm
less skipping steps. What I'm doing is I'm using your knowledge. No,
it's not just the knowledge. What happens is I'm multitasking
things you're not even seeing, right, And that means that
I'm doing a bunch of things all at the same time.
Where a lot of people, like a home cook, might
do things in succession, I'm doing things all at the
same time. That also means that I get the food
(14:56):
out faster. Also, I use every pot in the house, right.
You do creative masks, they're like golden brown. Yeah, that's
the cake. When you're making these potato pancakes or these
laca is, if the oil isn't hot enough, two things
are gonna happen. Number one, it's not gonna get brown,
it's gonna be soggy. And also, if the oil is
(15:17):
not hot enough, it doesn't repel away from the potato.
It becomes part of the potato. So then they get creasy.
It okay, all right, And then you want to take
a paper towel and you just want to use to
drain some of the oil for a second. But while
they're still warm, what do you do? What do you
what would you do right now while they're still warm salt?
(15:39):
Because what happens is this is like for French fries
or potato chips or potato pancakes, the oil is going
to hold onto the salt while it's still warm. And
now they're seasons. Okay, let those cool down for a
second and then we can start put them together. When
I take a trip to Europe, for instance, if I'm
(16:02):
in Rome or Barcelona or Paris or something like that,
I specifically bring suits. I get dressed up for every meal,
which is an unusual thing. For somebody who's a tourist
to do, especially American tourist, they're very very casually or
even when they travel. You use it as like an opportunity.
I use it as an opportunity to get dressed. And
also it's almost like living the movie of your life.
(16:22):
I want to fantasize that I'm actually living in that
city and as a local, because a lot of locals
do that in places like in Europe, they get dressed
up just to go have lunch. And I always think
that you can never be overdressed. You can be underdressed.
It's really hard to be overdressed. I love the idea
of going to lunch in a great suit in some
(16:43):
European city or even in the United States, I mean
for sure in New York City or Los Angeles, whatever
it is, and like having, you know, having a great
bottle of wine and having a wonderful lunch and sharing
it with somebody that either care about or your business
lunch or whatever it is. I just love that that's
a rarity these days. I love the term dressed smart.
What does that mean to you? Business casual? Here's the thing.
(17:04):
When you say something like that, it's very open to interpretation.
Dress smart to me, and you could be very very
different things. I think what they're trying to say is
be sensible and have some respect, respect to to the
establishment and speaking the people around you. I mean, I
think that that's really what it comes down to. But also,
like I don't know, Like I love wearing a suit.
I love wearing a blazer. Yeah, I love it. I
(17:27):
love a good tailored suit. When we go to like
some big horse races something and we have lots of people,
I'm always in a suit, yeah, and so is everybody else,
and we're still having a good time. For some reason,
people think that if you get too dressed up, you're
taking the fun out of it. To me, it's the opposite.
When I totally agree. So when I'm dressed up, I
feel like I'm about to have a good time. Like
(17:47):
you know, that's right. Yeah, no, I I totally agreed. Well,
here's the thing. I love clothes, and I don't get
ample opportunities in my everyday life to put a really
great suite gone. I have a bunch of suits that
I like. I like shopping for them and I like
wearing them, and I try to find opportunities to wear
them because usually I'm in my chef code or an
(18:08):
apron or some jeans and you know, I'm cooking in
a kitchen somewhere, or I'm wearing a plaid shirt on
beet Bobby Flay, which everybody makes everybody makes fun of
before that a thing. Are you kidding? You get that
feedback people say to me there's no plaid shirts left
in the world because you have them. All, Oh my god,
that's so funny. Well, yeah, they're right. So just that
so everybody understands. Like, I have a person who helps
(18:30):
me with wardrobe named Courtney who's been with me forever,
and we have this conversation all the time. I kind
of make fun of herm like how did you find
yet another shirt for me to wear? And her her
thing is like, look, you're a guy in his fifties
and you're in casual wear to do this show, Like
what other things that you think you're gonna wear? You know,
it's like we've done, We've done the Henley's T shirts.
(18:53):
Look kind of sloppy. Phase. Yeah, okay, I didn't have
a best phase. So God, I felt the funniest photo
of you and you were young, you must have been
like your twenties and you're wearing these like striped overalls.
So you know what I'm talking about and chilling. Yeah,
(19:15):
that was the worst shot of grilling and chilling. Okay,
So first of all, stop like looking for stuff. Okay,
by the way, that sounds me Okay, congratulations. Anyway, we're
not talking about this, We're talking about something else. What's
(19:43):
the salmon situation here? So the salmon situation, so we
have some grave blocks here, which is cured salmon um.
You could use smoked salmon. I think that grave blocks
is a really good way to go, especially with something
like caviare, because you know, if it's a very strong
smoked salmon, you'll blow it out of the water. So
you want something kind of mild. Has dill on. It's
very beautiful. I love the dill on the smoked salmon. Yeah,
(20:03):
but that's a very classic cured salmon ingredient. And then
some crime fresh of course, and then and then caviare.
So basically, you know we're gonna lay this, so we
go potato pancakes, salmon creme fresh, and then a little
dollar of the caviar on the top. I mean, the
caviar is really sort of a luxury. And you know,
if you don't like caviar, you still't feel like eating it.
(20:24):
I mean you could stop with the salmon and the
crime fresh so good, yeah, delicious, And we could put
some chives on here if we want to see but
I think we're not going to do we use the
whole little jar of caviar. We're fancy today. There you go,
so pretty, so fancy. It will be a hundred dollars.
(20:44):
I can promise you this. I didn't invent this dish,
but I love making it so good. Yeah, yeah, alright,
let's go get trusted. When you go about the dinner
in a nice restaurant, what do you think about were
you going after dinner? Yeah, what the schedule of the
(21:07):
night is. But I don't know, Like I don't wear
a lot of high heels, Like I just don't. Why not?
What's the reasoning? Comfort? Comfort? And also like upscale streets
style is so in right now? How do you describe
that upscale style? I guess upscale is based on brand,
but expensive street style. I mean, if I don't spend
(21:30):
a lot of money designer brands, that's not really my thing.
But so if you were going to address me in
street style? What would it be? Oh, I wouldn't hiding
you in the glosst Sophie style? What I address you?
You used to like to hang out with me. You
know that I love hanging out with you. Just we
(21:50):
just you know, we have boundaries. Okay, I know my place,
you know yours. I don't know, Like, if I'm going
out to a nice dinner, I'd probably wear like boots,
like a boot with like a heel. Yeah, but I
wear a lot of sneakers. I love sneakers. I love
sneaker culture. Like that's I'm to um. Yeah, Sometimes I
go to Kith. I really like the app Goat. It's
(22:11):
like a specialty sneaker app. There's not one place in particular.
So you're not throwing on a dress. You're not throwing
a little black dress. Maybe I am, But I can
wear that with sneakers. Interesting. Yeah, And do you feel
like you dressed differently than now that you live in
Los Angeles versus we used to live. No, I think
I dressed pretty similarly. I grew up in Fairfield, that's
such a preppy town, and I really wanted to be
(22:32):
good at dressing preppy. And I never was. I always
gravitated more towards like New York or l A, like
you spent a lot of time in New York too,
Yeah exactly, But yeah, I probably wouldn't wear sneakers to
like catch or like mast rows. But I don't know.
I wouldn't put it past me. It's just different. It's
just different. Like if you were going to lunch in Italy,
you wanted to dress up right, like you would wear
(22:54):
a suit, but you might also wear sneakers. Well, yeah,
because that's sort of the fashion of the moment, people
wearing sneakers with Oh you know what you said to me,
You were like, if you go to sushi, what do
you wear? Yeah, well exactly. Let's just run through a
couple of ideas, Like I want to hear more about
what somebody in your position, you know, you go out
on dates or you go out with friends, you're in
your mid twenties, you live in this fun city, Like
(23:16):
sushi is a big deal, right, Like people like go
out to sushi a lot. I guess we do. Yeah,
if you do, like omakase, that's a little bit more
dressed up, right, But like you're more likely to find
me at Kasunori and at the sushi bar. Kazunori is
the place that you took me. Yes, okay, So if
you go to Kazunori with your dad, yes, versus going
(23:38):
out with your girlfriends to Nobu, you're dressing differently, yes, okay,
take me through it. If I'm going to if I'm
going to Kasunori with you, I'm wearing you don't bring
your wallet? Oh my god. I politely offer and you
push my card away just definit way I never happened. Never. Um,
(24:00):
I'm with you, I'm wearing jeans and a T shirt,
maybe a sweater, maybe like a leather jacket, sneakers for sure.
I'm going to know Boo with the girls, which I
don't know where we're getting the money for that. It's
a special locage. Somebody's birthday's Whitney's birthday, right, we are
(24:22):
probably wearing the same thing. No, well no, I mean
we're getting like a little more dressed up. Like I
feel like I'm always wearing jeans, like in some capacity,
like a black jean maybe like a blouse, crop top situation,
leather jacket and like black booties. So really, anytime you're
like going out with your girls like in l A
for instance, Like if you went to Best to you
(24:43):
you'd be wearing the same thing. Yeah, I mean I
think you could probably be a little more casual there.
I don't know, Like I'm not really a dress girl.
I really want to be a dress girl, but I
just I don't know. It's just really not me. But
you have such great style. Thanks. I think are dressed
up is not so so different from our every day
I mean it's just a lot of black. Yeah, it's
(25:04):
not a lot of color. I'm not wearing a lot
of color and wearing a lot of black, a lot
of black, white and blue. All right. Well, on that note,
were we going to dinner tonight? No boo on you?
Sounds good to me, yellow Tail, let's get at it.
Always Hungry is created by Bobby Flay and Sophie Flay.
(25:24):
Our executive producer is Christopher hasiotis. Always Hungry is produced, edited,
and mixed by Jonathan Haws Dressler. Always Hungry is engineered
by Sophie Flay. Sophie, you engineered this. You bet you
couldn't even plug in a microphone without me. That's so true. Uh.
For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, don't ask me
(25:44):
to hook it up. Visit the I heart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Thank you, Sophie for gonna say five three
Everybody. Welcome to the very first episode of Always Hungry
from My Heart Radio. My name is Bobby Flay, and
I'm here with my daughter and co host Sophie. Hi. There,
I'm Sophie Flay. What's up? Everybody? So excited to be here,
But I am feeling a little hungry. Well, don't worry
about that. I'll be cooking in a minute. So but first,
let's explain to everybody what they've been here on this podcast.
All right, good idea. So you're my dad, Bobby Flay,
(00:27):
the Iron Chef, also known as super Chef. Yeah, I
would like you to continue to refer to me as
that from here on in. Sophie, thank you very much.
I mean, I am a chef group in New York City,
you know, my whole life. I'm gonna approach this podcast
from my perspective being someone you know from a different
generation than you. But that's enough about me. Why don't
we tell everybody about you? Let's do it all right?
(00:47):
So you know food, you know growing up in my household,
and you aren't exactly a professional cook, but everybody should
know that you're actually a community journalist here in l A.
That's right. I'm a community journalist at ABC seven Los Angeles.
So I'll be bringing a local reporters perspective and the
perspective of a much younger generation, and I'll try to
teach you a thing or two along the way, all right, bringer,
(01:09):
So in each episode of Always Hungry, we will pick
one single theme, will cook a recipe based on that theme,
and then we'll sit down at the table together and
eat and discuss. Some of those themes will be as
simple as a specific dish like burgers or tacos, but
other themes will be larger concepts, like travel stories or
what makes a good restaurant. And today, for our first episode,
our theme is getting dressed up. Let's do it? Sounds good.
(01:31):
Let's head to the kitchen. Okay, so what are we
doing to that. We're gonna make a potato pancakes with
tramp fresh and caviar and smoke. Stand. This is a
dish that I made you for New Year's Eve. It's
a very highbrow dish because there's caviar and stuff like that.
But and you don't actually have to do that, But like,
I wanted to do something a little bit sort of
like fancy, because we're talking about like getting dressed up
(01:52):
for dinner and the sort of idea behind what that
really means. So basically what I'm doing here, I have
a potato and Idaho potato that I'm grading on like
a cheese grated on the big eyes. If you notice,
I'm grading it into a kitchen towel. You get the moisture. Well,
I'm going to squeeze out all the water content so
(02:13):
we can make these potato pancakes nice and crispy. So, yes,
the moisture exactly, you're right. So we wrap it up
in the towel and then basically we just like squeeze
it out. You can see, like you see all the
juice coming way through the towel. You want to dry
out the potato as much as you can. Okay, I'm
tired to work out. I've never seen that before. So
(02:35):
then we'll put the drained out potato in a bowl
and then an egg just like making. You know, the
Jewish culture they call these lattas their potato pancakes. So
then I'm using some flour. This is actually Wondrouf flour,
which is like flour that's already even steamed and it
just dissolves really well, and then some salt and pepper,
and that's basically it. I'm going to mix this up.
(02:56):
Is this how you would make like a potato latka? Yeah,
it's like the same thing. And you said that, I
didn't hear you said. Oh no, I didn't hear you
said the Jewish culture. Oh oh sorry, no, I literally didn't.
Welcome back today we're talking about I'm sure if the
right word is etiquette, but the approach to getting dressed
(03:17):
up when you go out to dinner or lunch. You know,
you go to a restaurant, like what do you wear?
I mean, obviously it depends on a lot of things.
So it depends on how formal the restaurant is, like
where you are in the world, yes, right, and then
you know, time of day definitely lunch, dinner, late night,
so I'll go first. Okay, what are you laughing at?
(03:41):
Why are you laughing? Because you know, because you know
I want to talk about this. Yeah, okay, I do
want to talk about it. So I mean, for you,
what's the difference between like really dining out, getting an
experience and just like going out for a bite to eat.
You're talking about this like putting on a suit, having
this whole experience dressing up. But we would not do
the same if we went to melons or something like that.
You know, of course, if if if all of a sudden, like,
(04:04):
oh are you hungry? Yeah, I'm hungry, let's go get something.
What do you want to cheeseburger? Okay, that's one thing.
It doesn't matter what you wear. Probably not. I think
that you know a reservation that you made weeks in advance,
it's a special occasion, it's somebody's birthday, or you have
like a really really like important date, or even a
business dinner. I think that that's that's an occasion, and
(04:26):
I think that those occasions should be highlighted by what
you wear. You know. What's funny is like, I remember
distinctly we used to go on these father daughter trips
to Europe, which were great growing up. And I remember
distinctly one of our trips. I was like wearing spot
pants on the plane, and you were like, I can't
believe you're wearing spat pants on the plane, is what
I said to you. Yes, I was like what you
were like, I just wouldn't dress like that on a plane.
(04:46):
I was like, Bro, you have got to be getting
me that you're shaving of you from wearing spot pants
on the wall. It wasn't. I just know, I know, parenting,
it's called I know. But I think that you're also
something that's like a great about you is and you're
very modern, but you have like a classic mindset about
certain things, like you love to get dressed up. You
love to wear a nice suit, like if you're going
(05:07):
on a date, you get dressed up. You know that
sort of thing. Like, yeah, I was not You're not
laid back in that sense. I literally think that I
should have lived in a different era like the forties
and fa I mean seriously, because I like wearing really
classic beautiful clothing and you can and I have to
make excuses to find experiences to do it, you know
what I mean, Like in the winter in New York,
(05:27):
like I love wearing like an amazing fedor right, yes
you do, yes you yes, sir, Yes you do. I'm sorry,
that's that, you know, that's what's happening. But you know
what I would love to get dressed up for is
like a dining experience with a guy who's doing like
live jazz or like someone who's doing a great like
Frank Sinatra Netslee sort of thing. Okay, so those are
(05:49):
like supper clubs and they don't exist anymore. And that's
what I'm talking about, Like, that's the era I wanted
to live in, right, you know, we're like it's Friday
night and you're going through the supper club and you're
gonna have dinner at this table, and you're gonna like
tip the matri d for a good table because he
knows you. I mean, it's a whole thing. It's like
the whole thing. And then like and then this great
(06:09):
band or a band leader or whatever comes out and
sings jazz or as a crooner or something like that.
You know, it's Frankie Valley or it's Frank Sinatra or
so the that doesn't exist anymore, right, so listen, it's
just people don't do it. Yeah, I would love to
do something like that. Yeah, that's so um like marvelous
mismaisl totally. Well, that's exactly right. I mean, look at
(06:30):
the clothes in that show, spectacular exactly. Yeah. I try
to get those old school experiences that I talk about today.
The place that I really like to go is the
Grill because it feels old school but New. I mean,
it's a very famous place. It's it's in the Seagram's Building,
which is the actual restaurant itself is landmarked, so there's
only so many things you can do to it. And
(06:51):
even though there's a new restaurant in there called The Grill,
you know, it's like table side service. The captains or
a tuxedos. You know, they're are buttoned up. They serve
like sort of French style. They did a lot of
table side stuff. And when I go there, the first
thing I do before I sit down is I go
to the bar and I order a perfect martini. Okay,
(07:14):
I'm going to have the quintessential New York experience, So
I'm gonna start with the martini that I'm gonna go
to my table and I'm going to have a spectacular
dinner and it's gonna be long, and it's gonna be fun,
and everybody's gonna be dressed up, except so the guys
next to me. We were wearing T shirts but at
my table, like we're living in the Roaring twenties. Yeah. Well, actually,
(07:36):
you know there's a spot here in l A called Delilah.
Have you ever been there? No, it's an a wood
Group restaurant. You know, it kind of like turns into
a club bar like later as the night goes on.
But they do have live jazz and amazing performers and
like you know, these beautiful feather costumes. It it's very
much Roaring twenties esque. But yeah, they do a great
(07:58):
job of capturing that, you know. I think it's like
Tudayas and Sunday's Day of Life jazz. It's super fun.
Here's the thing. A restaurant is many things. You know,
as a chef, I always want the food to be
the most important thing in a person's experience. The bottom line, Sophie,
is that service is much more important to people than
the food. So if you have a great meal and
(08:19):
bad service, people aren't coming back. If you have great
service and mediocre food, they tend to come back more
as if somebody who cooks for a living. I hate that,
but that's the truth. Yeah. So obviously food and service
and the ambiance design, all those things play into an experience,
and I think that when you're going to a restaurant,
I think it behooves you to think about, you know,
how are you going to address to play the part
(08:41):
in that role at night, you know, in a way
I want to know what you want to know what
your sound track is. What's my soundtrack to your movie?
It's got It's definitely some Frank Sinatra to start funny. Yeah,
we're gonna move on to Jay Z okay, okay, and
(09:01):
then we're one of the club. Okay. So we have
a pan, a good amount of oil. It's starting to
smoke a tiny bit. And then what you do is
you put like a little spoonful of the potato mixture
in the pan and then you press it down with
the back of the spoon and so it gets thinner.
(09:21):
You want your pan to be hot. You want your
painting pretty hot because we want the potatoes to brown, right. Yeah,
And it's just a few ingredients. You can make these
at home. This is great. You can just put our
cream on top of them, or so the apple sauce.
This is like a Christmas New Year's Yeah, this is
a really fun or very festive. I think I remember
(09:42):
eating a bunch of these on your usine. Well I
can't remember. Yeah, for other reasons. Okay, So basically what
you want to see here now, if you notice you
can see like right around the edges, they're starting to
get crispy, so to get brown. And that's what you want. Obviously,
you don't want the potatoes to cook threw so we
can turn the heat down after we flip them over.
See that, Yes, that's what you want. I mean, you
(10:02):
want that nice, that nice crispy edge, so that when
you bite into the smoked salmon, the crame fresh and
the caviarts on this great vehicle. This crispy potato. It's
like a little potato chit, yeah, but better. But like
(10:34):
I was in a restaurant which was formerly the Four
Seasons restaurant. This is a very very buttoned up, midtown expensive,
you know, beautiful service restaurant, and there were people just
like in T shirts sitting there and like, listen, if
that's the why they want to express themselves, be my guest.
I just to me, it doesn't match the experience. I
(10:55):
get that. But also people are just dressing more casual
these days. You know, I live mostly in New York City.
You live in Los Angeles, and the difference the way
people get dressed here. I mean everybody wears sneakers to dinner. Well,
everyone wear sneakers everywhere, everywhere so it's sneakers, jeans, and
a T shirt and maybe like a little bomber jacket. Yeah, okay,
nobody's putting on a suit. Nobody's putting on a tigh
(11:16):
every I mean, you never see it. When we were
thinking about this episode, one restaurant that came to mind
that I thought to look up that they have a
location in New York. They have location in l A.
It's Catch, the restaurant Catch, and I looked on the
website to see if they had a dress code because
there's only so many places I feel like that actually do,
but Catch does. We kindly ask our guests to abide
(11:38):
by this smart casual dress code of Catch restaurants. No
beach wear, athletic tops, T shirts or sweatpants, casual shorts,
flip flops, excessively revealing clothing. Okay, I understand exactly what
they're trying to do. They're trying to like have some decorum.
Now at the same time, it's casual decorum. They're not
telling people you have to wear a jacket and tie
to come to Catch. What they're saying is, don't make
(12:00):
believe you're coming from the beach to come here, right,
have you ever had a dress code at any of
your restaurants, not specifically, do I want people just wearing
tank tops, shorts and flip plops in my restaurant? I
probably don't. When I asked them to kindly leave, I
don't think I would. Okay, Well, let me ask you this.
You're about to open a brand new restaurant in Las Vegas,
very exciting. Are you going to have a dress code?
(12:22):
Is there a way you'd like people to dress? Okay?
So that's a great question, and actually it's an interesting
conversation for this particular restaurant. The restaurants called the Malfie,
so clearly it's about the Amalfi Coast. So if you've
been to the Amalfi Coast, or if you know anything
about the Amalfi Coast, you understand that it's very warm
weather destination. It's right on the tiering ec and people
(12:43):
addressed in bathing suits and linen you know, really sort
of very smart so to speak, linen shirts, and you
know they're in shorts but life shorts. No, seriously, you know,
I like, there's a lot of style on the Amalfi Coast,
but it's very casual style, and you know, people are
gonna be drinking apparel spritses and Campari spritses, and and
(13:06):
the restaurant is designed with that sort of feeling in mind.
We're trying to provoke the Amoufie coast in the middle
of Caesar's Palace. I mean, it's gonna happen. And that's
That's the great thing about places like Caesar's Palaces Vegas
is they bring your fantasy to life. And so obviously
it's my job. One of my jobs is to make
sure that you know, you're getting that feeling through the food.
(13:27):
So it's gonna be a lot of like fish and pastas,
and it's gonna feel casual but buttoned up. And so
maybe that's the dress code casual were buttoned up. When
people say how should we dress, that's the first thing
just came to mind. So maybe that's what it is.
Just like what does that mean to you? Though? It
means that like where your best your buttoned down pink
salmon no no, no, no, no no no. Like I
(13:50):
think at the very high end of it, sports jacket
and you know, a college shirt and you could be
wearing chinos, or you can be wearing a great pair
of jeans. You could be wearing eakers. You could be
wearing a great pair of shoes, sort of like resort
were going out at night, you know for the ladies.
Maybe they're wearing like a great summer dress or something.
I don't know. Yeah, you tell me. I mean, here's
(14:12):
the thing. It's also a Vegas like people have their
Vegas outfits and they want to flaunt them. I totally
get it. Whatever you want to eat, pasta and fishing,
that's where you should come. That's a pretty good dress code.
You always cook things so fast. Yeah that might sound stupid,
but you like tend to skip a lot of steps.
(14:35):
I feel like to make things just quicker. No, I'm
less skipping steps. What I'm doing is I'm using your knowledge. No,
it's not just the knowledge. What happens is I'm multitasking
things you're not even seeing, right, And that means that
I'm doing a bunch of things all at the same time.
Where a lot of people, like a home cook, might
do things in succession, I'm doing things all at the
same time. That also means that I get the food
(14:56):
out faster. Also, I use every pot in the house, right.
You do creative masks, they're like golden brown. Yeah, that's
the cake. When you're making these potato pancakes or these
laca is, if the oil isn't hot enough, two things
are gonna happen. Number one, it's not gonna get brown,
it's gonna be soggy. And also, if the oil is
(15:17):
not hot enough, it doesn't repel away from the potato.
It becomes part of the potato. So then they get creasy.
It okay, all right, And then you want to take
a paper towel and you just want to use to
drain some of the oil for a second. But while
they're still warm, what do you do? What do you
what would you do right now while they're still warm salt?
(15:39):
Because what happens is this is like for French fries
or potato chips or potato pancakes, the oil is going
to hold onto the salt while it's still warm. And
now they're seasons. Okay, let those cool down for a
second and then we can start put them together. When
I take a trip to Europe, for instance, if I'm
(16:02):
in Rome or Barcelona or Paris or something like that,
I specifically bring suits. I get dressed up for every meal,
which is an unusual thing. For somebody who's a tourist
to do, especially American tourist, they're very very casually or
even when they travel. You use it as like an opportunity.
I use it as an opportunity to get dressed. And
also it's almost like living the movie of your life.
(16:22):
I want to fantasize that I'm actually living in that
city and as a local, because a lot of locals
do that in places like in Europe, they get dressed
up just to go have lunch. And I always think
that you can never be overdressed. You can be underdressed.
It's really hard to be overdressed. I love the idea
of going to lunch in a great suit in some
(16:43):
European city or even in the United States, I mean
for sure in New York City or Los Angeles, whatever
it is, and like having, you know, having a great
bottle of wine and having a wonderful lunch and sharing
it with somebody that either care about or your business
lunch or whatever it is. I just love that that's
a rarity these days. I love the term dressed smart.
What does that mean to you? Business casual? Here's the thing.
(17:04):
When you say something like that, it's very open to interpretation.
Dress smart to me, and you could be very very
different things. I think what they're trying to say is
be sensible and have some respect, respect to to the
establishment and speaking the people around you. I mean, I
think that that's really what it comes down to. But also,
like I don't know, Like I love wearing a suit.
I love wearing a blazer. Yeah, I love it. I
(17:27):
love a good tailored suit. When we go to like
some big horse races something and we have lots of people,
I'm always in a suit, yeah, and so is everybody else,
and we're still having a good time. For some reason,
people think that if you get too dressed up, you're
taking the fun out of it. To me, it's the opposite.
When I totally agree. So when I'm dressed up, I
feel like I'm about to have a good time. Like
(17:47):
you know, that's right. Yeah, no, I I totally agreed. Well,
here's the thing. I love clothes, and I don't get
ample opportunities in my everyday life to put a really
great suite gone. I have a bunch of suits that
I like. I like shopping for them and I like
wearing them, and I try to find opportunities to wear
them because usually I'm in my chef code or an
(18:08):
apron or some jeans and you know, I'm cooking in
a kitchen somewhere, or I'm wearing a plaid shirt on
beet Bobby Flay, which everybody makes everybody makes fun of
before that a thing. Are you kidding? You get that
feedback people say to me there's no plaid shirts left
in the world because you have them. All, Oh my god,
that's so funny. Well, yeah, they're right. So just that
so everybody understands. Like, I have a person who helps
(18:30):
me with wardrobe named Courtney who's been with me forever,
and we have this conversation all the time. I kind
of make fun of herm like how did you find
yet another shirt for me to wear? And her her
thing is like, look, you're a guy in his fifties
and you're in casual wear to do this show, Like
what other things that you think you're gonna wear? You know,
it's like we've done, We've done the Henley's T shirts.
(18:53):
Look kind of sloppy. Phase. Yeah, okay, I didn't have
a best phase. So God, I felt the funniest photo
of you and you were young, you must have been
like your twenties and you're wearing these like striped overalls.
So you know what I'm talking about and chilling. Yeah,
(19:15):
that was the worst shot of grilling and chilling. Okay,
So first of all, stop like looking for stuff. Okay,
by the way, that sounds me Okay, congratulations. Anyway, we're
not talking about this, We're talking about something else. What's
(19:43):
the salmon situation here? So the salmon situation, so we
have some grave blocks here, which is cured salmon um.
You could use smoked salmon. I think that grave blocks
is a really good way to go, especially with something
like caviare, because you know, if it's a very strong
smoked salmon, you'll blow it out of the water. So
you want something kind of mild. Has dill on. It's
very beautiful. I love the dill on the smoked salmon. Yeah,
(20:03):
but that's a very classic cured salmon ingredient. And then
some crime fresh of course, and then and then caviare.
So basically, you know we're gonna lay this, so we
go potato pancakes, salmon creme fresh, and then a little
dollar of the caviar on the top. I mean, the
caviar is really sort of a luxury. And you know,
if you don't like caviar, you still't feel like eating it.
(20:24):
I mean you could stop with the salmon and the
crime fresh so good, yeah, delicious, And we could put
some chives on here if we want to see but
I think we're not going to do we use the
whole little jar of caviar. We're fancy today. There you go,
so pretty, so fancy. It will be a hundred dollars.
(20:44):
I can promise you this. I didn't invent this dish,
but I love making it so good. Yeah, yeah, alright,
let's go get trusted. When you go about the dinner
in a nice restaurant, what do you think about were
you going after dinner? Yeah, what the schedule of the
(21:07):
night is. But I don't know, Like I don't wear
a lot of high heels, Like I just don't. Why not?
What's the reasoning? Comfort? Comfort? And also like upscale streets
style is so in right now? How do you describe
that upscale style? I guess upscale is based on brand,
but expensive street style. I mean, if I don't spend
(21:30):
a lot of money designer brands, that's not really my thing.
But so if you were going to address me in
street style? What would it be? Oh, I wouldn't hiding
you in the glosst Sophie style? What I address you?
You used to like to hang out with me. You
know that I love hanging out with you. Just we
(21:50):
just you know, we have boundaries. Okay, I know my place,
you know yours. I don't know, Like, if I'm going
out to a nice dinner, I'd probably wear like boots,
like a boot with like a heel. Yeah, but I
wear a lot of sneakers. I love sneakers. I love
sneaker culture. Like that's I'm to um. Yeah, Sometimes I
go to Kith. I really like the app Goat. It's
(22:11):
like a specialty sneaker app. There's not one place in particular.
So you're not throwing on a dress. You're not throwing
a little black dress. Maybe I am, But I can
wear that with sneakers. Interesting. Yeah, And do you feel
like you dressed differently than now that you live in
Los Angeles versus we used to live. No, I think
I dressed pretty similarly. I grew up in Fairfield, that's
such a preppy town, and I really wanted to be
(22:32):
good at dressing preppy. And I never was. I always
gravitated more towards like New York or l A, like
you spent a lot of time in New York too,
Yeah exactly, But yeah, I probably wouldn't wear sneakers to
like catch or like mast rows. But I don't know.
I wouldn't put it past me. It's just different. It's
just different. Like if you were going to lunch in Italy,
you wanted to dress up right, like you would wear
(22:54):
a suit, but you might also wear sneakers. Well, yeah,
because that's sort of the fashion of the moment, people
wearing sneakers with Oh you know what you said to me,
You were like, if you go to sushi, what do
you wear? Yeah, well exactly. Let's just run through a
couple of ideas, Like I want to hear more about
what somebody in your position, you know, you go out
on dates or you go out with friends, you're in
your mid twenties, you live in this fun city, Like
(23:16):
sushi is a big deal, right, Like people like go
out to sushi a lot. I guess we do. Yeah,
if you do, like omakase, that's a little bit more
dressed up, right, But like you're more likely to find
me at Kasunori and at the sushi bar. Kazunori is
the place that you took me. Yes, okay, So if
you go to Kazunori with your dad, yes, versus going
(23:38):
out with your girlfriends to Nobu, you're dressing differently, yes, okay,
take me through it. If I'm going to if I'm
going to Kasunori with you, I'm wearing you don't bring
your wallet? Oh my god. I politely offer and you
push my card away just definit way I never happened. Never. Um,
(24:00):
I'm with you, I'm wearing jeans and a T shirt,
maybe a sweater, maybe like a leather jacket, sneakers for sure.
I'm going to know Boo with the girls, which I
don't know where we're getting the money for that. It's
a special locage. Somebody's birthday's Whitney's birthday, right, we are
(24:22):
probably wearing the same thing. No, well no, I mean
we're getting like a little more dressed up. Like I
feel like I'm always wearing jeans, like in some capacity,
like a black jean maybe like a blouse, crop top situation,
leather jacket and like black booties. So really, anytime you're
like going out with your girls like in l A
for instance, Like if you went to Best to you
(24:43):
you'd be wearing the same thing. Yeah, I mean I
think you could probably be a little more casual there.
I don't know, Like I'm not really a dress girl.
I really want to be a dress girl, but I
just I don't know. It's just really not me. But
you have such great style. Thanks. I think are dressed
up is not so so different from our every day
I mean it's just a lot of black. Yeah, it's
(25:04):
not a lot of color. I'm not wearing a lot
of color and wearing a lot of black, a lot
of black, white and blue. All right. Well, on that note,
were we going to dinner tonight? No boo on you?
Sounds good to me, yellow Tail, let's get at it.
Always Hungry is created by Bobby Flay and Sophie Flay.
(25:24):
Our executive producer is Christopher hasiotis. Always Hungry is produced, edited,
and mixed by Jonathan Haws Dressler. Always Hungry is engineered
by Sophie Flay. Sophie, you engineered this. You bet you
couldn't even plug in a microphone without me. That's so true. Uh.
For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, don't ask me
(25:44):
to hook it up. Visit the I heart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Thank you, Sophie for gonna say five three
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!