EXCLUSIVE: Bobby Flay owes his career to an Easy-Bake Oven

Welcome to Dining With the Stars, a series where we sit down with celebrities and chefs to discuss all things food. Grab a seat at our table to find out their favorite restaurants, dream dinner party guest list and more delicious details.

For 30 years, has invited millions of home cooks and pros alike into his kitchen through shows like “Grillin’ & Chillin,” “Boy Meets Grill,” “Beat Bobby Flay” and “Iron Chef America.”

Flay, who turns 60 in December, has had an interest in food nearly his entire life. After dropping out of high school after his sophomore year, Flay got a job filling in as a busboy at a restaurant in Manhattan’s theater district for two weeks. The busboy returned, which should have been the end of Flay’s kitchen career.

Little did he know those two weeks were just the start of a remarkable culinary career.

“‘Would you like a job in the kitchen?’ I heard from a distance,” Flay Flay writes in his new cookbook, “Chapter One,” out Oct. 29. “With one foot literally out the front door, I spun around and, without much enthusiasm, responded, ‘Sure.'”

Flay took a seat at our table for this edition of Dining with the Stars to discuss his first memories of cooking, what he thinks chef-driven television shows get right about the industry and the ingredients he always keeps in his pantry (and why the answer is ).

You infamously received an Easy-Bake Oven as a child. What is your earliest memory of cooking?

I think I was like 5 or 6. I was watching the commercials during cartoons and after school specials and stuff like that. And I could not believe that you could actually bake a cake from a light bulb. I needed to see it for myself. I asked for an Easy-Bake Oven and my parents got it for me.

Was it just pure intrigue?

Pure intrigue. I don’t know when I started watching, but I started watching some cooking shows, like Julia Child and “The Galloping Gourmet.”

As all children do.

I was interested in them. I still don’t know why, but I was. And there was something definitely there, but I wasn’t really cooking quite yet. I did start cooking with my mom a little bit more, but not very much.

“Chapter One” is part memoir, part cookbook. How did you decide to organize and write your story in this way? And why did you think now, at this stage in your career, was the time to write it?

Well, I don’t really consider it a memoir. I wrote essays about all my restaurants, a couple of the shows and stuff that have been really important to my career. But that’s really what it is. It’s sort of, like, very focused essays about those things. There’s not a lot of in-depth, “never heard before” kinds of things. Maybe there are, but it’s not that kind of thing. I’m not talking about a bad childhood or anything like that. Because, frankly, I didn’t have one.

Because you had an Easy-Bake Oven.

It’s really about the 100 dishes that have been basically the 100 most important dishes of my career, and kind of bringing them to life, updating them for the modern kitchen today and then putting some text to it.

You pare down thousands of recipes that you’ve developed to just 100. Is there one recipe that you think epitomizes your style and approach to cooking?

It actually wasn’t that difficult and I’ll tell you why. Because when I started looking at all the recipes that I have in my database, the ones that were important just stuck out so easily. It was just like, of course, yes, absolutely. It was a little difficult getting it to 100 but it wasn’t hard picking out the ones that were important.

What would you tell someone who’s thinking about a career in the restaurant industry?

Well, it depends how old they are and where they are in their life. Let’s just say somebody who’s in high school, because that’s when I started. Take summer jobs. Don’t drop out of high school, like I did. Stay in school, but take summer jobs in restaurants that you think are good, that you like, in your community, and see if you like the business of the restaurant business. It’s a very, very specific kind of business. I think it’s a great place to learn how to work alongside other people. It gives you discipline. It allows you to be creative. It allows you to make people really happy who you’re serving or cooking for. But I think having practical experience in a restaurant is really important for you to make your next decision because it’s not for everybody. But if it is, it’s a good thing to know.

What do you think that shows like “Iron Chef” or “The Bear” get right about the industry and what it’s like to be a chef?

Well, I think “” does a great job. I thought the producers were incredibly smart. They definitely utilized some real life people to consult and get a real sense of what it’s like in the kitchen. I don’t like some of the negative stuff that goes on in that show, but I also love the camaraderie of it all, and a sense of pride and a sense of teamwork as as a brigade.

I think (being a chef) is an intoxicating thing. To me, there’s nothing like working the line. I’m a line cook at heart and that’s why I can cook all these on all these competition shows with speed and accuracy because I was a line cook basically so much of my career. Even my restaurants now, I’m always cooking.

“Iron Chef,” obviously, was a competition show, so there was a lot of trauma there and intrigue, but the cooking was all real.

Go-to comfort food?

Cheeseburgers.

Cooking at home or dining out?

Oh, wow. I mean, both. I like doing both. I like going to other people’s restaurants and eating so I don’t have to do the dishes, so to speak. But I also love cooking at home. I cook at home for my friends and family all the time.

Favorite food city in the world?

New York. Number two is London.

Dream dinner party guest list?

Muhammad Ali, Michelle Obama, Michael Jordan, Miles Davis, Wolfgang Puck, Julia Child. I’ve actually had meals with almost, not all of the people, but a good amount.

Must-have pantry ingredients?

Great olive oil, a handful of different vinegars, capers, anchovies, olives (green and black), arborio, rice and tequila.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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