{"id":141775,"date":"2026-02-22T14:30:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T14:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/141775\/"},"modified":"2026-02-22T14:30:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T14:30:08","slug":"i-was-a-judge-on-bobby-flays-food-network-show-and-it-taught-me-about-keeping-your-cool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/141775\/","title":{"rendered":"I was a judge on Bobby Flay\u2019s Food Network show, and it taught me about keeping your cool"},"content":{"rendered":"

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. \u2014 Your weekly restaurant column has been 86\u2019d to honor a reader\u2019s request: she needs to laugh today, not cry in her coffee. Fair enough. The world seems heavy, so let\u2019s lighten it\u2014ideally with a Buono Bakery pastry in hand, or even last night\u2019s Seabass Taverna fish and veggies revived with a poached egg.<\/p>\n

A few of you recently asked about when I judged Bobby Flay on Beat Bobby Flay. Picture bright TV lights, a live audience perched above like an amphitheater, and Bobby Flay just steps away doing his unflappable Flay thing while I stand there smiling, trying to take it all in\u2014pearls on, of course.<\/p>\n

The episode was shot in 2019 but didn\u2019t air until February 2022. COVID-19 appeared, tilting perspectives sideways, and I\u2019d forgotten about the whole thing until it resurfaced like a slow-cooked memory. It was dubbed Smoove Moves<\/a>, with sharp-talking comedian JB Smoove<\/a> and celeb chef Michael Symon<\/a> stirring up some fun while chefs Mia Castro <\/a>and Brandon Carter handled the real cooking. Depending on the source, it\u2019s Season 29, Episode 1\u2014or close enough.<\/p>\n

The producers sent a car out to Staten Island, which for me was surreal enough. I rode up the FDR from the Brooklyn Bridge, taking in what used to be the Ma Bell building and the former Fulton Fish Market<\/a>\u2014just a native New Yorker feeling small in the face of Manhattan\u2019s history and the opportunities it has offered so many.<\/p>\n

Lights, makeup, Flay<\/p>\n

At the Food Network studios somewhere on the East Side, in the \u201ctalent area,\u201d a makeup person dabbed powder on my face while I met my fellow judges\u2014James Briscione<\/a>, a chef fresh in from the Left Coast, and Chris Cheung, a Brooklyn dumpling-shop owner\u2014<\/a>for the first time. A production assistant led us through a maze of hallways and then\u2014boom\u2014we stepped into a glowing fishbowl of a set, a live audience perched above, and Bobby Flay standing there calm, blue-eyed, and laser-focused.<\/p>\n

Under those lights, the world shifts: steel taps on cutting boards, garlic hits hot oil, and harsh lamps blaze in an otherwise chilly studio\u2014and there I was, trying to eat like a lady on national television and make St. Joseph Hill Academy proud. I scanned the crowd for a Staten Island face\u2014there\u2019s always one\u2014but not that day. So I channeled my inner food beast and thought: Focus, yo.<\/p>\n

The producers said \u201cgo,\u201d and I tasted two versions of arroz con pollo. One was respectable\u2014solid chicken with intentionally sticky rice. The other was another edible universe: pimento, culantro, maybe a little aioli, and a crisp shard of chicken skin that transported me straight back to a Bronx apartment where I first warmed up to arroz con pollo.<\/p>\n

\"PamelaJudges James Briscione, Pamela Silvestri, and Chris Cheung, as seen on Beat Bobby Flay, Season 27 . (Courtesy of Food Network)<\/p>\n

In my early restaurant days, the Bronx ladies I worked with became my family. Lourdes\u2019 pernil, her arroz con pollo\u2014those dishes are seared into a food grunt\u2019s memories. And as I stood there in that studio, every one of those years rushed back: cleaning deep fryers (still my favorite job), working the line shoulder-to-shoulder, deveining shrimp for a colleague in the weeds. Somehow, in a few simple bites, everything came together.<\/p>\n

And yes, since everyone asks: Mia Castro beat Bobby Flay. Her arroz con pollo, straight from her Abuela\u2019s heart, deserved the crown. Bobby got flayed. Womp womp.<\/p>\n