Bobby on the beat. Hey everybody, welcome to Bobby on the beat. Thank you so much for listening. We're about six or seven weeks into this and we're having the best time. We're getting such great listenership and viewership. All my co-hosts and guests have been amazing. It's been a fun place to kind of have like a little bit of voice about my personal life, what's going on professionally, listen to that. If you noticed on the Golden Globes this past week, first of all, shout out to Nicky Glazer for totally killing it two years in a row. Full disclosure, Nicky and I have been good friends for a long time, I sent her a text, I said, who's gonna follow you after this? I mean, she's just been unbelievable as the host the last two years, the Golden Globes. She just kills it, she comes so well prepared. Listen, if you're sitting in the front row of the Golden Globe, you're fair game. And Nicky totally took full advantage of that in the very, very best way. I bring up the Golden Globes because first time ever they have podcast awards. I have to congratulate Amy Poehler for winning the best podcast of the year. She obviously has gotten such great guests and it's really nice to see podcasts get national attention in that way on one of Hollywood's biggest stages. I thought it was really actually ironic because actually Nicky brought it up during the Golden Globes and she was like, welcome to Hollywood where we haven't shot anything here for the last 10 years and it's really true. It's like nothing gets shot in Hollywood anymore. Anyway, I think California needs to start thinking about that, bring Hollywood back to where it was so everything doesn't start getting shot everywhere else in the world. It's kind of crazy. Anyway, that's just my feeling about what's going on out there. Couple of things I've been thinking about this week. Iceberg lettuce, like everybody else been thinking about iceberg lettuce this week. I just wanted to give a little backup to iceberg because iceberg is always the lettuce that gets picked over. What are you looking at before like that? You're like, I want to give a shout out to iceberg lettuce because I know everyone's been thinking about iceberg lettuce this week. Next time you see iceberg in the store, stop by and say hi. It's such a great lettuce, man. I mean, seriously, I'm giving it up for iceberg. I'm on the iceberg committee. My co-host today is the incomparable Brooke Williamson. Thank you so much. Chef Brooke Williamson. Wait, you got something on. Thank you. Also my life partner. That's why she's doing this right now. Thank you very much. What's going on Brooke? What's happening? So nice to have you again. Thanks for having me. You're my first repeat co-host. I love that. You're welcome anytime. Thank you. Feels appropriate. Yeah, so it does it? It does. Well, I mean, we do work together. Actually, we're working this week together on Triple Threat. That's why my makeup looks so done today. Yes, you look beautiful as usual. We are shooting, is it season five? Season five of Triple Threat. Season five, we're shooting 12 episodes of Triple Threat. If you haven't watched the show, you got to check it out. Brooke is one of the house chefs, so to speak, and Michael Voltaggio and Ayesha Narjaya, you guys are the titans of Triple Threat. I love that I just got home from work and I get to sit down to a podcast and a bowl of pasta. No, well, I feed people on my podcast. So you just wrote your first cookbook a couple of years ago. About a year and a half ago. Yeah, are you going to write another one? I think people underestimate how much work it really is. I don't know how you've written so many, honestly. We had a judge on Melissa Clark from the New York Times this week, and we kind of grew up in the business together. She's written 45 cookbooks, and I'm thinking to myself, how is that even? Yeah, how do you even do that? That's more than one a year in your adult life. I mean, it's kind of crazy. I actually don't understand it. She's so prolific. And here's a couple of cookbooks I've been checking out lately. If you didn't check out my podcast last week, please check it out. If you like Italy at all and you're interested in Rome, Katie Parla is my girl. She is the American girl in Rome, as we like to call her. And she wrote her latest cookbook about Rome, about where to eat there, what to do there. She is such an amazing resource. So I love her book. We haven't been to Rome together, have we? No. All right, that's definitely going to happen this year. We're going to do that this year. The other book that I'm checking out lately is the King Cook book. King is a restaurant owned by three women who are cooking simple, beautiful food, mostly kind of like, I would say, South of France and Italy. Lots of beautiful pastas and lots of kind of rustic food. Seafood, like straightforward. I actually went to their friends and family with Jonathan Waxman. Kind of. Reminds me of the kind of food that you cook, actually. Yeah, like very pristine, beautiful food. Thank you. OK, so that's the two books I'm reading this week. I have actually made a change in my publishing life, which I'm incredibly excited about. I was at Clarkson Potter for a very long time, very, very classic cookbook publisher. I did tons and tons of books with them. And the publishing industry has had its challenges like any industry. And I just felt like I wanted to do something different. And I found a group of people that, in my opinion, are doing something different and doing something that makes sense for today, especially for somebody like me. Like I've always bet on myself in anything that I do, in any business, in any restaurant. Lawrence and I, my business partner for 35 years, we've never had investors ever. We always went to the bank and signed our name on the dotted line and took a risk. Same, it's a huge risk. Took a risk on us. Now that said, I have partners in Las Vegas. My partners at Caesars Palace have been amazing partners for 20 years. That's a different business model. In the publishing industry, I found a group of people who started a company called Authors Equity, started by a couple of people. One of them, who I've gotten to know lately, is Madeline McIntosh, a stalwart in the publishing industry. You say her name and she's got the gravitas. Basically, it's a profit share model. If your book does well, everybody does well, as opposed to just getting a big advance and hoping for the best. And I really like this model because it makes everybody work harder for the same result. My publisher gave me a one-year goal to hit that was what I thought was virtually impossible. It was a reach. And we actually hit it in December. And we hit the one-year goal. And it was like, I could hear the bells and whistles going up. It was like, I've proven that I could sell a book. And that's an unusual thing to be able to do. So the next book is this more in the chapter one vein? It is. I'm not going backwards. So I'm doing a book. You know this is about me. I'm obsessed with Italy. Not just the food, the people, the place, the culture, the language. The three-hour coffee. The three-hour coffee. And so this book is going to be about Italy. I wouldn't say I am the expert of all experts when it comes to Italian food. But I'm obsessed with it. And I'm a student of it. So it's the Americans' perception of Italy. It's an American chef's obsession with the country. Obsession. Yes, with Italy. And so it's going to be a very beautiful book. It's going to have 100 full page pictures of dishes, of Italian food, some of which are classics, some of which are things that I have kind of messed with, some of the things from my restaurants. I read your preliminary table of contents. And it was drooling. Really? Yes. OK, good. I'm going to use the same designer from chapter one, Sue Barber. I'm going to use the same photographer from chapter one, Johnny Miller, who is absolutely amazing. The one thing I will tell you is that I write every word. I know. People don't think that about me. I love to write. It's something. And Emily helped shape it. And when she sees a sentence that literally makes no sense, she will tell me. And she'll fix it. I mean, for someone who didn't graduate high school, you're actually a pretty phenomenal writer. Thank you. You are. You have a way about getting your point across on paper that's quite poetic. Do you mean that from reading my books or from the love letters that I wrote? From reading your texts. OK. OK. I will keep those quiet. Anyway, so I just wanted to announce that because I love working with these guys. I think this is going to be a really fun collaboration. They've been in this business for a long time. They just have a new business model, which I absolutely love. It's time. Shout out, author's equity. We love that. Can't wait. I did make you something to eat today. Do I get to eat now? This is actually an Italian dish. It's Bucchettini and Mazzucciana, one of the classic dishes. I've been asking for this all week. One of the classic four pastas of Rome. Let me show you how I made it. Bobby on the beat. OK, Bucchettini and Mazzucciana. We're going to start with some guanciale, some onions, and some garlic. We're going to actually render off the fat of the guanciale. That's the pork jowl. Good flavor. Very classic of Rome. And we're going to save the guanciale, the crispy parts, for later. But leave the guanciale fat in the pan. And with the onions, with the garlic, we're going to throw some tomato over it and let that cook for about 35 minutes. You know, we want the tomatoes to cook, but we still want them to be nice and bright. And we're going to add a little colabia chili pepper, a little bit of sugar, a little bit of salt. We're going to make some Bucchettini, do the Bucchettini dance, and then let the Bucchettini cook for about eight or nine minutes. It's kind of a thicker, you know, sort of noodle, a tiny bit chewy, but that's the way it is. We're going to add the Bucchettini and a little bit of the pasta water to the tomato sauce with all that flavor in there. We're going to finish with a little butter. Pecorino, not Parmigiano. Pecorino's the classic. In Rome, you won't find a lot of herbs in this pasta, but we're going to brighten it up with some parsley. We're going to plate it with the tomato, with all that delicious sauce, and then a little extra pecorino on top, a little parsley leaves, of course, and that crunchy, crispy guanciale to go on top. And then you beg your girlfriend to taste it. Yeah, I think she likes it. Bobby on the beat. How is it? It's all over me. You like it? So good. You don't do leftovers. Not really. You know what happens with leftovers to me? I cook for a lot of my family and friends, as you know. And a lot of times, I cook for lots of people, and I'll make a bunch of dishes, and there'll be a lot of stuff left over. And I'll be like, OK, don't save that, because nobody's going to eat it. And then everybody says, no, don't throw it away. Don't throw it away. I'm going to eat it tomorrow morning. I'm going to eat it in the middle of the night, or I'm going to eat it. And you know what happens? I wound up throwing it out three days later. No, I know. Every single time. But also, you're the only person on the planet who cooks three meals a day. The problem is, is that there's never a meal where there's a void, because you're like, oh, there's some avocados on the counter. Let's make guacamole. There's some masa in the pantry. Let's make chili killis. Yeah, we do that. I walked in from work the other night. You had gotten off an hour before me. I left set an hour later. I walked in the door, and you were literally making fresh tortillas, and had a taco bar lined up with chicken thighs and two different salsa's, pickled vegetables. You were pressing fresh masa tortillas, and you were like, I'm not happy with the texture of this blue corn. Let's see what this blue corn looks. I found red corn. You had seven different types of masa in your pantry. Shout out Masienda. Good masa harina. I mean, but very few people do that. Like when they get home after a long day, put together a full taco bar. I'm just saying, there's always something happening in your kitchen, so the leftovers just don't get eaten. Ayesha said to me today, she was like, he cooks all the time, huh? And I was like, yeah, he does. I was like, no, he wakes up and talks about food. He talks about food all day. It's wild. I know, but I have to say, since we've been dating, I love it because I love to be able to cook for you, and just as importantly, I love cooking with you, which is always a nice thing. We had a really good dinner on the golden globes night. Right, you made short ribs. I made some polenta. I had the way easier job. You made a salad too. I made a salad and some like a castle franco. You wanted a castle franco, so we had castle franco short ribs. And I don't think either one of us were actually very hungry, so thank God your daughter and her boyfriend lives here. Yeah, right, Sophie and Trevor have been hanging out at my house because they're waiting for their apartment to be ready. But I love it because I get to feed everybody. All right, so speaking of our life together, so I gave you a ring as a sign of commitment. What did I call you the other day? My romantic partner. My romantic partner. Exactly. We're a permanent couple. Let's put it that way. Oh, sounds so permanent. I like that. A permanent couple. But I did give you a ring in London actually. On a park bench. Which was a little bit confusing in the moment. I mean, imagine opening like a little blue box with a giant diamond ring inside. And on a park bench. On a park bench, on a beautiful day in London. Regent Park in the Japanese garden. It was a perfect day. I know you opened it, you were like, I was like, is this real? Actually, what I exactly said was, what the fuck is this? I thought there'd be something interesting to tell about the story. Cause a lot of people ask about your ring. Like not just people magazine. One of the things that people that really know me know, and most people don't know is that my family has been in the diamond business for a long time. It's kind of a funny time right now in the diamond and jewelry world. I'll get to that in a second. But my grandfather, Willie Flay, started a diamond business in the diamond exchange, which was Bowery and Canal Street. My grandfather died, you know, many years ago, 25 years ago, and he gave the business to my cousin, Billy. So everybody knows my cousin Billy as cousin Billy. He's cousin Billy. Everybody who I know goes to Billy when they need something in that world. Because that world is scary if you don't know somebody. And if you see what's going on in 47th Street right now, these guys are like acting crazy. I mean, people are threatening each other's lives, screaming and yelling and this and that. It's like they're getting tons of like attention for social media, but like when it comes right down to it, and you're looking for an engagement ring to give to the person you want to marry, like this is like, first of all, serious investment. You want to be given value and you want to be able to trust the person. So like that's why my cousin Billy is like, I think he's like in the best position ever. Obviously your ring came from him. It was a process. I didn't call him up and be like, hey, give me, I need a ring. Like we went through it for like weeks and weeks and weeks. Did he ask you what it was for? No, he didn't ask me what it was for. What did you say to him? I said, I need a ring. For what? And you have to understand something. I've been married three times. So I've gotten a few rings from him. And for a while I was banned from buying rings from him. Was he like, all right, that's enough. Oh no, no, I got cut off. I got cut off from the diamond rings. Obviously he had met you and I said to him, I was like, I need a ring. There was no hesitation. He's like, come down. So I visited him because I wanted to show people out there what it's like to buy a ring like this. I went and met him to get this sized and walked out with these. Exactly. That's what happens. So I get it. He's great. Let's watch Billy's game. Bobby on the beat. Brooke's ring has gotten a lot of attention both on her finger and also like just in the media and stuff like that. People always ask me, where'd you get it from? How do you go about it? I think it's a really cool process. I've been lucky to have you and obviously our grandfather in my life, Trust Fact, he was huge in this business, right? When somebody comes to you, what do you say to them? Do you ask for price first or do you ask for like stones first? I think I go first with shape. What's the most popular these days? Right now, Round is still probably the most popular. Once you decide what shape stone you want, like what else do they have to think about? Once you do the shape, what I try to find out from them is what size stone they're looking for. Now this is where it gets a little funny. Typically, whoever's ever making the purchase has an idea, maybe looked online, what size and what price range they're in. The person receiving it may have a little bit different of a feedback. Ultimately, it's the budget. And carat is the weight, right? Carat is the physical weight of the dime. So some people like the show, like a bigger diamond, less or quality. Some people like the smaller. So that's really the variable you don't know until the customer comes in. It's the balance. Exactly, yeah, yeah. You have any stones here? I do. Let's look at them. Cut of the diamond, E.M. is Emerald Cut. E is the color, D is the best. So there's a very, what we call high-color diamond, E-color. And VS2 is the clarity, which is the purity, or impurities within the diamond. Open this up and you've got 205 Emerald Cut, E-color VS2 clarity. Crazy these things. Good things come in small packages. This is usually pre-setting. You want to look at the diamonds. Fast forward a little bit to, let's say, when you were in front of me. Typically, it's very difficult for the average lay person to tell something. Exactly, what do I say? Then I say, well, that's good because you can't see anything. Then I pinpoint what the imperfection is. So I really want them to know. It's like a house. I want them to walk in and see what's inside. There's been a lot of chatter about lab diamonds all over the place. What's your opinion? Funny you mentioned that. What's your sense of it? Broad spectrum is probably the biggest innovation in the industry since I'm in the business. You want to go to the bare bones. The FTC, Federal Trade Commission says, they're not fake. They're not natural, but they're not fake. They are the same actual chemical composition. Let me show you a lab-grown diamond comparison. The same exact diamond weight as the Emerald Cut. It's a different cup, it just to give you an idea. You get a laugh when we talk about price. Right, exactly. I want to hear about this. This diamond here is $17,000. To the customer. To the customer. This diamond here is $1,200. What? What do you think about lab? The person you're giving it to, that's the person that matters. If they're okay with it, I'm okay with it. Exactly. And you should be okay with it. It's allowing lots of people to kind of get into the jewelry settings. Settings, okay. So it's almost like a wedding dress, very personal. This is a white gold setting. It's obviously not the finished product, but it gives you a visual. Pop it into yellow. You went with the yellow bottom, correct? Yeah, because she liked yellow gold. That's considered a solitaire. Now do you want diamonds in the setting? It's called a halo, but you have to like this look. Oh, that's cool, yeah. To me, this kind of makes it, it's more about the ring than the diamond. You're trying to make it look like a jewelry piece as opposed to an engagement ring. I just love the stone so much. I didn't want anything to do with it. Your stone needed no help. That's in a plain, pop-based setting. So these three still, we're building up in as far as very simple, little bit less simple, and now something like this. Dude, you're the best. Anytime. Hopefully I won't be back for another one. No, I'm gonna say, you're done at this point. Stick the fork in you, go. Exactly. Peace. Bobby on the beat. It's gorgeous. How'd I do? It's perfect. Absolutely perfect. You're happy with it. I'm very happy with it. All right, good. Billy's the best. So if you need a diamond, go check him out. He will take great care of you. Totally. Triple threat this season. How do you feel like it's going? We can't give away too much. Yeah, of course. It's been a roller coaster of emotion. I mean, per usual. You win some, you lose some, you take some really personally. I mean, I gotta say Aisha, Michael, and I all, we take these fights, these battles incredibly personally. Especially when we throw it all out there and think we've done a phenomenal job and sometimes it just doesn't hit. But there are some really talented chefs coming in. I mean, yesterday was wild. Obviously I can't talk about it, but that was wild. We know probably 80% of the chefs that walk through the door. I mean, most of them are terrifying. And it's been a lot of fun. There have been some tears. I take it really personally. Especially when I feel like I've made really good food and it just doesn't resonate with the judge. It's frustrating. Here's my feeling. It's like, and you and I talk about this all the time because there's winning and there's losing. And I don't really care about losing. I really don't. Well, because you've proven yourself. You've proven everything that you need to prove you have. But still, no matter what, you're like... You can also out cook most people on this planet. Let me ask you this, Jimmy V. If he was judging you on triple threat, how do you think he would judge you? I think he likes my food. I think he's kind of like one of those straightforward, I wanna understand what I'm eating kind of guys. On New Year's Day, I made like a Moroccan braised chicken with couscous. Oh, that was delicious. And also I made a Dubai chocolate cake on New Year's Eve. I know, we made so much. We did make a lot of good food over the years. So much food. And he said he's not really a sweets guy. He's not really like a chocolate guy specifically. And he dug into that Dubai chocolate cake like his life depended on it. We made paella on New Year's Eve. We made steaks. I mean, we had so much great, we had those beautiful prawns in the plancha. So much food. Such great food. All we did was eat for like three days. It was eat, of course. But anyway, speaking of Jimmy V. So we sent him out to Sundell North, which is a burrito place. Hey, listen, Jimmy will try anything. So let's see what he thinks. Bobby on the beat. Jimmy V, America's Food Critic. Outside of Sundell North, it's a burrito shop, East Village. I went to college out in Tucson, Arizona. So I experienced real burritos. Sorry for those that eat Taco Bell. One of the things that they say is no rice. So they don't put any filler inside the burrito. I want each component that needs to be done properly. Let's go check it out. But don't drink the water. First impressions, it just seems like it's gonna be authentic and real. Jimmy V. I need Shana. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you too. We are trying to bring what is the authentic Mexican burrito from the north of Mexico. What people are the most amazed about is like, it has no rice. That for us is the authentic way. Because that's too much filler in there, right? It is too much filler. We prefer to go more protein forward. We sell about 7,000 burritos weekly. Nope. Which are stores are very small. We have two stores. We have one on the lower east side and we have on the west village. I'll hook you up with every day. Now with these are all your recipes? They're all my recipes. So you're a chef? I'm the chef and the owner. Found the little seat, making you feel like a little kid with a real big belly. Five burritos, lined them up. Oh, it's so soft. Going in, fight number one. Oh, that would have been bad. That is the real deal. Not getting this at one of those fast food places. Tortilla is perfect. It's light, there's little grill marks on it. To me, everything's flavored perfectly. We have four more to go. Say a prayer for me. We're going in whole for this one. Again, it's perfectly on the griddle. They toasted it, so I like it. You know, you have a little bit more texture this way. The beans, just smack it right in the head. This is a very soft burrito, through and through. So there's not a ton of texture on the inside of it. But this is the real McGillar when it comes to the beans too. I gotta put it down. Here's the carne asada. And I think the pronunciation is asada. Something I remember from being in the Salvador Dalí, Spanish Honor Society when I was in high school, that I got kicked out of, by the way. Nice chunks of meat, some guac in there, onion. Gonna go in for a natural bite, then I'm gonna dip. The meat is seasoned really well. There's nothing not to like about it. And there's everything too like about it. So there are they on top, and see what happens now. Nice, good flavor. Got a nice little bite to it. Red, which is I guess more of a Christmasy thing if I did them both at the same time. Everything is fresh and delicious. Hard to go three for three, so far they're three for three. Fully ambulance. They just do a really good job on the griddle. In Italian, they call this being a ga-vone. And I think I've mastered that right about now. Everything looks delicious, and we're gonna see if it matches the description that I'm looking at. And it does, not a surprise. This one has more peppers in it, not spicy. I don't know the peppers that are in there. Maybe poblano's, I'm not sure. They're excellent. Look at the crowd, everything's backed up, and I have my own tasting section over here. This one is the most intriguing one to me. This is a vegan version of a chorizo, but it's made with cauliflower. Looks like chorizo. Let's give it a shot. I would probably lean towards the others. When you come to a burrito place, you have to try the chips. We're gonna dip and rip, work the bite, and now we didn't even have to go over the border to get real authentic burritos. These burritos are serious, serious, serious. I love them. Gotta give me a hug. Come here. Aw, thank you so much. Jimmy's alive. Awesome. Siesta time. Bobby on the beat. I mean, if you get a hug from Jimmy V, that means that he likes the food. He refers to himself as AFC now. I know. AFC Jimmy V. He's the very best food critic now. We've ruined him. One of Jimmy's great party tricks is he is our connection to twice a year getting a table at Rao's, which is the impossible table of the world. And he knows everyone in there. If you think you can get a reservation at Rao's, you're wrong. I don't care who you are, it doesn't work that way. People own the tables, and that's just the way it is. And Jimmy's like, he's just in. We got a text on set a few days ago. He's like, what are you guys up to tonight? Exactly. Table at Rao's for people eight o'clock. Let's do it. Also, I love that those burritos. A grilled? Some of them are, and some of them aren't. Like the bean and cheese one was not. We definitely need to go there. I'm thinking like the day after a long night of cocktailing. Yeah, so like a hangover. Those things are giant though, and there's no rice in them, which is... Shockingly. Value-wise, it sounds great. The vegan one was his least favorite. Shocking. He's like, I think I'm gonna go with the other one. Oh, you don't like the cauliflower, Jimmy? Cauliflower, Cauliflower and chorizo. All right, well, if you see Jimmy V, you know, in your local neighborhood restaurant. If you recognize him, say hi. Say hi. He signs autographs and takes pictures. Yeah. Brooke, thanks for joining me today. Thanks for having me. I love you very much. You are the best. See you next time, everybody. Thanks for watching. YouTube, anywhere you listen to podcasts, check us out. Bobby on the beat. Thanks so much for being loyal listeners. I really appreciate it. Cheers. Nice ring. Bobby on the beat.
