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I just wrapped up my wild whirlwind weekend in the Big Apple. It was kind of a two-for-one deal for me: I taped a segment of Guy Fieri’s “Big Show” for The Food Network and since I was sort of in the neighborhood, I was able to compete in the Famous Famiglia Pizza Championship. The taping took longer than I expected and the contest, of course was over much too quickly.
The Food Network Studio is located in the Chelsea Market which is an amazing collection of stores, eateries, and offices housed in a former Nabisco factory. There are so many delicious foods for sale; it was torture not to just eat something from each store. The rehearsal and taping the actual show was really fun, and Guy Fieri is pretty much like he seems when you see him on TV – “off the hook” as he says. I was just surprised how long it takes to do something that looks so easy and seems like it should only take a few minutes. But I enjoyed the experience just watching everything going on and all the people doing their various jobs. We even had the opportunity to eat some of the yummy food that Guy cooked on show. I won’t spoil the rest of the show by telling you too much, but I think it might be fun to watch when it airs in December or January. Everyone from the Food Network seemed pleased with how things went, so you never know, maybe I’ll get a chance to do that again sometime.
Sunday’s contest was held right in the middle of Times Square – literally. That was kind of strange. I never thought I’d ever be in a contest where couple of wrong steps off the stage could get you run over by a car:) I’d also never seen a truck with pizza ovens in it, but that’s what they had. Those Famous Famiglia folks really thought of everything – they even had a jersey in my size. The pizza was easily the best I’ve ever eaten in a contest. As most of you know by now, I’m not that big of a pizza fan, but it was actually pretty good. Not too surprisingly, Joey won the contest and set a new record of 45 slices in ten minutes. I finished fifth with just under 30 slices.
More importantly though, was the service I was honored to provide a fellow contestant – I trimmed Crazy Legs' trademark dreadlocks backstage so he would look his best. I just hope it wasn’t like Sampson losing his strength, otherwise he’ll probably never ask me to do it again. I think everyone did very well and had a great time. As usual, I didn’t have as much time to spend with everyone as I would have liked before dashing home to get back to real work.
I did take an evening off last week to spend some time with ESPN’s E:60 crew when they came by the house. They had some interesting questions that I don’t remember anyone asking before. They were super nice guys, we enjoyed spending some time with them, and some of the neighbors were amused. I think the show is going to feature a discussion of whether competitive eating is a real sport and I guess my little segment will be part of that. Anyway, if it sounds like something you might enjoy, the show will be shown on Oct. 23 at 8 p.m. and Oct. 27 at 3 p.m. and 11 p.m. I've also put a link to it on ESPN in the Media section of this site. I hope you like it!
Be Lovely,
Juliet
