I don’t why. But I love to watch Beat Bobby Flay on the Food Channel. Maybe it’s that Bobby Flay is such an accomplished chef and restauranteur. Or maybe it’s just that he’s such a charming gentleman and all around good guy. But that doesn’t really matter. In any case, the format of the show is the same, week after week:
Two competing guest chefs go head-to-head cooking a dish with an ingredient Bobby chooses. They have to make that ingredient the star of their dishes. One of those two chefs is declared the winner by two celebrity guests who may or may not know anything about food. That winner qualifies to compete against Bobby Flay, at which point Bobby always asks, “What’s your signature dish?” That’s the dish Bobby and his competitor then cook. Their dishes are judged in a blind taste test by three chefs, restaurant owners, and/or cookbook authors. Bobby usually wins. But that doesn’t matter, either.
Though he never appeared on Beat Bobby Flay, I recently had the opportunity to interview the world-famous food celebrity, Chef Jacques François de Beaujolais. What follows is a transcript of the interview, identifying Jacques as Chef and identifying yours truly as YT. The transcript has been edited for brevity and as close as I could get to clarity:
YT: Good afternoon, Chef Beaujolais.
Chef: Bon après-midi. My friends call me Beau.
YT: Thank you, Beau. I wonder …
Chef: That’s Chef Beau to you.
YT: I see. Chef Beau, I love Beat Bobby Flay. But I’ve never seen you on the program.
Chef: I don’t like TV.
YT: Right. But I’ve seen you on Iron Chef America.
Chef: That’s different.
YT: How so?
Chef: Did you see Bobby Flay on there?
YT: Not the night you were on. No.
Chef: I rest my case.
YT: Okay, then. The whole Beat Bobby Flay thing notwithstanding, I’m going to ask you a question Bobby always asks the guests on his show: What’s your signature dish?
Chef: Eggs Florentine without the spinach.
YT: But spin …
Chef: The secret is in the way you crack the eggs.
YT: What?!
Chef: You know. Eggs. They’re ovular thingies, laid by chickens and other female birds, reptiles, fishes, insects, and some …
YT: I know what the hell eggs are! But Eggs Florentine gets its name from the French tradition of associating spinach with the city of Florence, Italy.
Chef: Ah. A mere linguistic trifle, my dear boy.
YT: But without the spinach, there’s no association with Florence.
Chef: Don’t look at me. You’re the one who brought it up.
YT: But what difference could it possibly make how you crack an egg?
Chef: Actually, it’s œuf.
YT: Huh?
Chef: Yeah. In French, egg is œuf.
YT: Okay. What difference could it possibly make how you crack an oof?
Chef: Ooh. That must have hurt.
YT: What?
Chef: It sounded as if you were just punched in le ventre.
YT: Good grief. Are we done here?
Chef: Si vous voulez bien. I must check on my Eggs Florentine.
YT: [head explodes]
