Filed under: Television/Film
Up and coming chef Ben Sargent had just been given his very own half hour Food Network TV show--all about him and chowder, his specialty. With the sun barely up one morning in May, cameras followed him around the Fulton Fish Market. He stocked up on monkfish, live eels, and giant clams that looked like tubular aliens. The work was scrutinizing, but the last day on camera promised to be easy: a Brooklyn waterfront party where he cooked and his friends gnoshed. Like the cameras weren't even there.The day arrived. Sargent happily and somewhat drunkenly prepared his chowder. He looked up, and Bobby Flay stood in the audience--the fiery haired Iron Chef, no less. Suddenly, Flay was on him, shaking his hand and challenging him to a chowder cook-off, right then and there.
This wasn't Sargent's show at all. This was Food Network's Throwdown with Bobby Flay and he'd just been had.