interview: bobby flay and lori loughlin

You know the expression, when it rains, it pours?

Well I do. It was foremost on my mind when, smack dab in the middle of New York Fashion Week, I was contacted by Hellmans with the opportunity to interview superstar Food Network chef Bobby Flay. Meeting Bobby Flay is one of those opportunities I could only have dreamed of when I first started this blog (almost three years ago!) and didn't take me long to say OMG YES PLEASE.

Yup, pretty sure those were my exact words.

And, wow, I'm not going to lie -- it was pretty awesome. I loved the Food Network long before I had my own blog, so meeting one of its biggest stars made me feel like I was really hitting the big time! Add Lori Loughlin, who is so talented and so unbelievably pretty, to the mix and I was basically totally overwhelmed.

Bobby and Lori started the event by cooking up some great dishes (one of which is pictured below) with Hellman's Mayo as a main ingredient. They also mentioned a new fantastic partnership between Hellman's and Share Our Strength, a charity that combats childhood hunger with a focus on healthy, nutritious food for kids who need it. (Want to know more? Go to Facebook to build a virtual sandwich, and Hellmans will make a donation to Share Our Strength!)

After the cooking demonstration was over, I had a few minutes to chat with Bobby and Lori. I started off with a question that I'm always curious about -- what's the balance, for such a huge food personality between being a performer and being a real chef? He was quick to respond: "Being a chef is who I am and what I do."

We talked a little about how the Food Network has changed the way people think of cooking -- it's gone from being a chore to being something people really enjoy and use as a creative outlet, and a good part of that is because television and celebrity chefs have made cooking exciting and glamorous in a way that's new and pretty amazing.

I asked if there was anything he'd tried to make and hadn't succeeded at, and he laughed -- anything that involves flour, sugar and eggs is, apparently, kryptonite to chefs, even for Bobby Flay.

We got a little sidetracked bonding over both of our Texan spouses (his wife is from Dallas, and of course Chad is from Houston) -- apparently, on a regular basis, his wife wakes up and the first words out of her mouth are what she wants to eat. I think if I were married to Bobby Flay, I'd probably wake up demanding buttermilk biscuits too.

I asked Lori how she balances her career with her family (somehow that's always the question for successful women, isn't it?) and she talked about teaching her kids to cook, being as prepared as possible for mealtimes during the week, and how she'd always rather be in her own kitchen than running around getting take-out for her family. When I have a family of my own someday, I hope to be exactly the same way.

More photos below -- many thanks to Hellman's for inviting me to this awesome event!