"bobby flay" news and stories

As The Next Food Network Star winds down its sixth season, we here at Slashfood are taking time to chat with the final contestants about their experience on the show.

Click through for our interview.

As The Next Food Network Star winds down its sixth season, we here at Slashfood are taking the time to chat with the final contestants about their experience on the show.

Click through for our interview.

Marcus Samuelsson may have recently been crowned Top Chef Master for bringing African cooking to Bravo's judging tables. But he's not the only New York chef introducing the flavors of the continent to armchair chefs in Middle America.

Chef Pierre Thiam has attracted quite a bit of attention for his two Senegalese restaurants in Brooklyn, Yoele and Grand Dakar. Add to that a well-received cookbook, and you've got an Iron Chef virgin just waiting to be subjected to all the screaming, hyperbole and whiplash camera moves of Kitchen Stadium.

Of course, Thiam is so stately and composed, it was difficult to even detect a bead of sweat as he faced off against -- who else -- the reigning King of Big Flavors, Bobby Flay. The secret ingredient, papaya, seemed to favor the cooking style of Flay -- who described it as the "ugly cousin of mango" -- more than that of Thiam, but we were willing to give the episode a chance. Hyper-polished (and super-sauced) South-American-influenced cuisine versus spare, almost vegetarian Afro-Asian ingenuity? Bring it on.

Even if you don't know the name, chances are you've encountered Curtis Stone. In the few years since Australia exported the camera-friendly, Bachelor-esque beefcake upon these shores -- presumably in an attempt to atone for foisting Vegemite upon us way back when -- he's been everywhere.

Maybe you've seen his show Take Home Chef on TLC, wherein Stone straddles the line between helpful stud and creepy sociopath, strutting around L.A. supermarkets picking up unsuspecting (and sometimes completely actress-y) young women who need, um, culinary assistance at home.

If not, he's no doubt peered back at you from the pages of People magazine -- specifically, their "Sexiest Men Alive" issue -- with that calculated, boy-next-door-meets-sexy-surfer-with-sun-highlights vibe. Or maybe you've seen one of his countless talk show appearances and asked, "Is Oprah having a Rod Stewart lookalike contest?" or maybe, "Isn't that that Jamie Oliver guy?"

Juliesue and Matthew Goldwasser may be the biggest fans of the Mesa Grill ever. The Boston couple spent $722 to buy their way into a sold-out dinner prepared by Bobby Flay at the Las Vegas outpost of his restaurant as part of the 2010 Vegas Uncork'd food festival.

They spent that money because the tickets, face value $190 a person, were sold out. It was Matthew's birthday and they had failed to get tickets to the event the year before.

"All I want for my birthday," Juliesue recalled her husband saying a few months ago, "is to attend that Bobby Flay dinner in Las Vegas."

The couple, whose first Mesa meal was at the Las Vegas location four years ago, now plan vacations around trips to the Bobby Flay-helmed restaurants in New York, the Bahamas and Las Vegas.