Chef Christian Petroni shares his life growing up in the Bronx and his journey to being a member of the Food Network family. This week on Food Network Obsessed, host Jaymee Sire chats with chef and restaurateur Christian Petroni about his Bronx-Italian heritage and his signature sweaters. He talks about his Gabagool lifestyle brand and gives Jaymee a vocabulary lesson before diving into his garlic bread obsession that inspired a tattoo and the TV-inspired names of his chickens. He talks about how he was approached for Food Network Star and the gratitude he feels for his Food Network family. Christian shares the story behind his trusty pepper grinder bat and his experience on Tournament of Champions.
Chef Christian Petroni shares his life growing up in the Bronx and his journey to being a member of the Food Network family. This week on Food Network Obsessed, host Jaymee Sire chats with chef and restaurateur Christian Petroni about his Bronx-Italian heritage and his signature sweaters. He talks about his Gabagool lifestyle brand and gives Jaymee a vocabulary lesson before diving into his garlic bread obsession that inspired a tattoo and the TV-inspired names of his chickens. He talks about how he was approached for Food Network Star and the gratitude he feels for his Food Network family. Christian shares the story behind his trusty pepper grinder bat and his experience on Tournament of Champions.
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JAYMEE SIRE: Happy Friday and welcome to Food Network Obsessed, the podcast where we dish on all things Food Network with your favorite Food Network stars. I'm your host Jaymee Sire. And today, we have a true Bronx Italian with us, to talk all about how both his New York and Italian influences informed his cooking style.
And if you've ever wondered what gabagool means, he gives us a generous vocabulary lesson. We talk about his signature sweaters, his chickens named after Sex and the City characters, and everything else in between, including his time on Tournament of Champions. He is a chef and restaurateur from the Bronx, a Food Network star winner, and has appeared on TOC, Guy's Grocery Games, Chopped, Beat Bobby Flay, and Restaurant Hustle-- All on the Line. It's Christian PetronI
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Christian, welcome to the podcast, so excited to have you on. Although I'm a little disappointed you're not wearing one of your signature sweaters. I know our viewers-- our listeners can't see, but I am wearing my homage to your cardigan game, which is very strong. How many sweaters would you say you own?
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: I am kicking myself right now because I can see a stack of my go-to sweaters, like my current rotation of about of about one, two-- I'm counting like this. So there's five sweaters there. It's always hard, when you're a bigger dude, to find the things that you feel comfortable in and confident in, right?
And when you find that thing and you have an opportunity to grasp onto it. You know what? I just got a brand new one. I'm like a gentleman. I feel like more gentlemanly. My timber will go deeper. And we will modulate even better now that I have this sweater on. So thank you.
JAYMEE SIRE: You're welcome. I think you definitely are looking the part now, more like the Christian that we know and love from television and from Instagram, by the way. I've been stalking your Instagram account, which is hilarious. I wonder, are you the one like doing all the Photoshopping and memes? Do you someone helping you? How does this work?
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: My buddy, my new buddy, Bearded humor. He just seemed like the sweetest human being on the planet. He's got a sweet family. And he's a hilarious comedian. And he started making these fun gabagool garlic bread memes. I wrote him like, hey, keep them coming. Send me a bill. I'm enjoying this too much. And he is-- I for the first time in my life have banked content.
I'm so stocked up with gabagool memes that I don't-- I'm like, I don't even know how to get them out to the world. I got to just start firing these things off like every 15 minutes. So like I'm compiling everything right now. And I'm trying to figure out what to do with my Instagram account, my second Instagram account, which is Gabagool Media, where I sell all my stuff. With all this great content that's been coming in, it's not even based around me at all.
I think that we might evolve this thing into a real fun meme page related to food, related to just the things that-- all the fun Sopranos, gabagool, cured meat memes. The more random, the better. So it's like an exciting time to just be in this space right now. Because as you know, the world is your oyster. And you have the outlets to be creative in so many different ways nowadays.
JAYMEE SIRE: Absolutely, I support it. I will be your first follower on the new meme account. For anyone that doesn't know the Italian-American lingo, maybe didn't watch Sopranos, what is gabagool?
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: You got to take it back to the motherland when you're talking about gabagool. And gabagool is essentially derived from the word Capocollo. Capocollo is a cured, Italian meat. Sometimes it's the pork butt that's been cured and tied in a net, the loin sometimes. It varies, right? What happens is in Italy, every region of has its own language. They call it dialects.
But you put somebody from [INAUDIBLE] in a room with somebody from Napoli, or Sicily, or Calabria, they possibly may have a hard time communicating. The words are changed that much. So the word Capocollo in like a Neapolitan, Southern Italian dialect comes out as like a capocoll, capacoll, capacol, capagol, capagol, gabagol, gabagool, right?
[LAUGHTER]
What happened was this funny phenomenon of my generation, which is like first generation Italian. And my parents came to this country when they were immigrants, when they were teenagers. And then it goes down to the second, third, fourth which is beautiful.
And it's really a great thing that a lot of these next generation of American Italians want to embrace their culture. That word is turned into gabagool made famous by the Sopranos. It's like just having fun. It's a fun word. You think gabagool, Google. It's a nonsense word.
JAYMEE SIRE: It is. That's the first thing I thought. Like a silly word, but it's fun.
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: It's just a silly-- it's just a fun, silly word. It's not even so much about where it derives from. It's just like-- it's fun to say. It's like fun to wear. I got my gabagool sweat pants on right now.
JAYMEE SIRE: Oh, right? Oh, cool.
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: Yeah, these are like-- it's a really fun outlet. Now, it's rocking and rolling. I'm so proud of this brand, gabagool. And now I just feel like it's bigger than a hoodie, or jogging pants, a t-shirt. Gabagool, this fun word that can relate to memes, and to food, and to whatever the hell you want it to mean.
JAYMEE SIRE: Well, as you mentioned, a lot of those memes are also centered around the cheesy garlic bread, which your obsession is real for the cheesy garlic bread. Where did that start?
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: It was like a few months before we opened my first restaurant. Going into that first restaurant, that first year leading up to it, it wasn't meant to be this family style, red sauce thing. It was going to be a little bougeer, a little more like fancy, chef driven, Italian--
JAYMEE SIRE: Really?
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: Oh, yeah. --Italian with a twist, sweet bread raviolis, and lasagna, with foie gras in it.
JAYMEE SIRE: Wow.
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: Oh, my god.
JAYMEE SIRE: Very fancy.
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: Yeah, very fancy. That was the feel of what that restaurant was going to be. I was really stressed out. We were under construction. And we're about a month away and almost ready to open. And a friend of mine took me down to a red sauce joint in the Bronx for lunch.
I remember being in a fog. I'm just like, oh, I get overwhelmed. I was taken out for a break for some lunch at this red sauce joint. I actually grew up going to this place. It was owned by some partisans of ours, which they were from the same part of Italy as my parents. My godfather was one of the owners. And he was the waiter.
So when my mother would go to Italy throughout the year to go visit her mom, and dad when they were still alive, my dad didn't cook. So we had dinner every night at the Venice. And I'd go in there, I'd get chicken parm with steak fries. Uncle Phil knew exactly what to bring me.
The tablecloths, the red walls, the cigarette stains on the ceiling, the payphone in the back, the old-- I mean, when I went back, right before we opened the restaurant, the place had not changed since I was a kid. And I was so excited. That's where they make a shrimp parm, an abomination--
JAYMEE SIRE: A shrimp parm?
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: Oh, my god. It's like a-- it's a sin, a sin. But I mean, one of the best things in the world. So shrimp parm with steak fries, paniolo vodka, chicken parm steak fries, chicken marsala, all these things. So we go back to this restaurant for lunch to just unwind. In front of me lands a wicker basket that's lined with like crumpled up tin foil. And inside of it was a stack of oozy, gooey, buttery, garlicky, garlic bread.
JAYMEE SIRE: Yum.
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: Now, you got to understand, this is like-- this basket of garlic bread-- and I've never seen garlic bread with mozzarella cheese melted over it, believe it or not, eight years ago. I've only seen garlic bread with garlic butter or some parsley, delicious, nonetheless. But with melted cheese?
I was so like, oh, my god. What is going on here? And before I can even gather up the words, I was so excited. I remember how excited I was to just dig into this garlic bread, right in like a movie. A bowl slides right over next to the garlic bread of piping hot marinara sauce.
JAYMEE SIRE: Oh, [INAUDIBLE].
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: Eight years ago, I don't know, as a young chef who was really into this forward thinking, Avant Garde style of Italian that I always really thought I wanted to do, to see that garlic bread in that moment, god is my witness. It changed everything. And the concept for that restaurant, in that moment, swerved into what became my thing, which was Fortina. Garlic bread changed my life.
JAYMEE SIRE: You do have an SS garlic bread tattoo, do you not?
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: I do, all right. And that was years ago. Me and my beautiful wife, Sherry, we had this awesome apartment in Stamford, Connecticut looking over this canal. And across the street was this concrete plant. Doesn't sound very romantic or sexy at all.
[LAUGHTER]
But I loved sitting on my balcony and watch these tugboats come in from the Long Island sound down this canal right under my window. And then they would do these maneuvers. They had these big containers that are in the water. That were filled with concrete or stone. And they would bring them to this concrete factory, these tugboats. And to watch them working, and the guys jumping off, and tying ropes, and towing.
It was so-- it's so beautiful. It is ballet. It is lovely. It is wonderful to watch. And then when you look into a little bit of the history and the culture of New York City tugboat captains and teams, it's a very cool world that nobody really knows about. My cousin Frankie was a lobster-- is a lobster fisherman in Brooklyn. And I know that's a whole other world as well.
So I'm always intrigued by that stuff. So I got the tattoo, on my shin over here, of a tugboat called the SS Garlic Bread. It's just-- I like my tattoos to just be tied to a memory and when I think about that tattoo, I think about the great times I had with my wife Sherry, when we were young whippersnappers with no kids, living in an apartment.
JAYMEE SIRE: I love that you talk about that your tattoos are tied to memories. Reading and listening to different interviews you've done, some of those memories back in Italy as a kid are those that have really shaped who you are today and your love of food.
Can you just take us back to that time and what you remember specifically like as far as food memories back in Italy? I mean, you're going there in the summers like every single summer, which I mean, probably at the time didn't seem as cool as it does now, thinking back.
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: No, I don't want to go swimming yet [INAUDIBLE]. I don't want to go. I don't want to go to an island, and the terrain, and sea. It's beautiful.
JAYMEE SIRE: That sounds terrible.
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: Terrible, it was all normal. It was living on this little island off the coast of Naples called Ponza. Ponza is like 3 and 1/2 miles long, a few thousand people. My father was born there. My mother's family and my mother moved there. And it's a beautiful place.
It's a fishing is the main pesce spada, which is swordfish is the main fish. The gambrero rosso, the red shrimp, me and my cousin Lauren, the last time we were there, ordered some very, simply prepared red shrimp. That were done on the [INAUDIBLE] a restaurant called Casa di Assunta, beautiful, view over the port.
And it was just salt and shrimp cooked on a flat top. And I remember, there were two people at the table that could care less about it. Sherry and my cousin's husband were like just having like yapping away. And we both ate the shrimp and looked at each other. And like we only had a tear coming down our eye because it was like eating-- it was so sweet and salty with natural salinity of the ocean, like gosh.
We never had shrimp like this. So that's later in life when I'm finally able to appreciate stuff. But as a kid, we would be running down to the beach and spend the whole day and work up such an appetite. And lunch was the big meal. And we would come up. And there'd be the breads, and the meats, and the stuff sitting around, some fruit. And then the main dish could be something like pasta lenticchie, so like lentil soup. I'm looking at my mom, like ma, it's 110 degrees outside.
[LAUGHTER]
Like we don't want lentil soup. We want cheeseburger. How much pizza are we going to eat? All right, we'll have pizza again, like whatever. We ate it. And it was delicious when we ate it because that's what our food was whenever we ate it. Whenever it wasn't delicious, we would just put up a fight. That's why I discovered prosciutto cotto.
I just wanted a friggin ham sandwich so bad, I remember, like just like a ham sandwich. This is like a month into the trip. My nonna would get these rolls. They're hollow and they're soft. What my nonna would do is split them for me. And she would buy prosciutto cotto, which is essentially prosciutto that hasn't been cured, but it's been cooked or steamed. It's ham, guys.
JAYMEE SIRE: It's just ham
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: It's ham.
JAYMEE SIRE: But really good ham.
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: Yeah, but it tastes Italian, because of their accents, the pig's accent.
JAYMEE SIRE: Yeah, it still is better.
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: Yeah, and my nonna would slice a piece of caciocavallo, and put a couple little slices of prosciutto cotto in there. I think they were able to find mustard probably. And they put a smear mustard in mayo. We call that fusion now, American-Italian.
But it was all normal, whenever in the last 10 years, the handful of times that we've been able to go back because we do try to go back whenever we can. I haven't been back in about three years, which is tough. It's so funny, these Italians. They use calamari as currency.
[LAUGHTER]
It's like, oh, this guy came back from Italy. Oh, did you bring you any calamari? No, I didn't bring any calamari. Oh, you didn't bring any calamari? They didn't send no calamari for you? Oh, my god. And then the calamari in the freezer is like gold, you have calamari nights. And the calamari is squid, right? It's like a filet mignon of squid. It's so meaty and beautiful. It is truly an incredible ingredient.
When we arrive, the tradition, and I pray, I pray to be able to experience this a few more times. We arrive and I have this picture as well. And she does this tomato sauce, this spicy tomato sauce that she brazes the rings of this squid in garlic tomato sauce chilies, olive oil. And she makes this spaghetti, a really thick spaghetti, a dry spaghetti, but like the thickest gauge you can get.
And she makes this dish that, oh, my god. My jaw right now is locked thinking about it because that texture-- and it comes out on a little plastic plate. We're in the cantina. Our cantina is our kitchen, and our dining room, and our living room, essentially, at the same time. But it's one space. It's shipped into the side of a hill, into a cave.
JAYMEE SIRE: Oh, my gosh.
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: Yeah, and that's still our cantina to this day. And you're able to actually dig deeper in and expand it. And there's homes that are fully built into the side of the hills on this island, this volcanic island that you would never even know were in the side, that you were in a cave. Essentially, they look like it's a house, the front of a house. And you walk in. So it's pretty wild. And it stays nice and cool too, which helps in the summers.
JAYMEE SIRE: I mean, it sounds like a terrible time. I can understand why you didn't--
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: The worst.
JAYMEE SIRE: --you didn't want to go.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Coming up next, Christian tells us about his experience on Food Network Star, plus we talk about Tournament of Champions and Restaurant Hustles. So stay tuned. No, it sounds like your family is obviously so important to you as is the Food Network family.
And I do want to talk about that as we are on a Food Network Obsessed podcast. Let's go back to the Food Network Star, and you getting approached by the network to be on that show. What did you think about that opportunity initially, and what do you think now looking back?
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: I was scared. And I did not want to do it.
JAYMEE SIRE: Why?
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: Because I was like, wait, I got to go? We just had Beau, our first son. OK, I'm going to leave for a few months to film the show. And right there, that's scary to me. I love my family. I love my wife. I love my kids. I legitimately, am bummed when I have to go and travel. So I can be honest with you, I probably wasn't going to do it.
So I bring it to my wife, positive that she was going to be like, are you nuts? This kid is six months old. way Where are you going? And Sherry is like, you got to do it. I'm like, oh, no. So now, I'm procrastinating more. It's getting down to the punch line. I got to figure out what I want to do.
One night, I got a call from my manager. And he goes what the F, the expletive, did you do? What? How dare you? What do you mean? What I do? He goes, well, you signed the thing for Food Network Star. And that's also your contract, and ta, ta, ta. And you signed it and sent in. We never even talked about it.
I go, so you're doing-- you're doing the show? I don't think-- I don't know if you wanted to do the show. I know you were going back and forth. And I go, what? I go, Khan, what are you talking about? I never signed the contract. I'm on a roll. I'm like scared to do the show. I was still looking for guidance at that point. I was signing papers that my assistant accidentally slid in the last page of a 44 page contract.
JAYMEE SIRE: Oh, wow.
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: Whatever I had to sign, I signed it. I was in.
JAYMEE SIRE: So you didn't even know whether you were in and you were in?
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: No, I was like, all right. I got excited about it. I'm not going to say I went there kicking and screaming because I didn't. I had the support of sherry. So I was like, yeah, let me do it. I'm going to go. It's going to be great for the business. Everything I ever did I did to put a spotlight on the business. All I ever wanted-- I never meant to be famous. I was never meant to be on television, be recognized. It's so weird.
It's very cool, but it is weird because I think about every other chef that I get to confide in and talk to right now. And it's really cool because we all really started cooking in restaurants at a young age, like we never ever thought-- none of us ever thought we'd be on television. That anyone would ever care about what we were, at least me.
When I started cooking, it was right on the cusp of like, it wasn't the coolest thing to be in the kitchen. I didn't get a lot of dates back then because I was always working. It wasn't-- you were a rag or a vagabond though, 20 years ago. In a respectful way, we all took pride in it. But it was a different time.
JAYMEE SIRE: You say you didn't want to be on TV, but part of that show is not just the cooking but it's recognizing that talent that personality that people can really gravitate towards. So how do you think that you won that competition from the cooking and the TV perspective, like what made you stand out amongst all the rest?
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: Listen, I feel very lucky. I say it all the time. I feel very lucky that I get to be myself. It's not a put on, a couple of people made some comments, stop with the fake accent, stop with the shtick. Like dude, you grow up on 241, on White Plains Road in the Bronx, man.
OK, I won't be myself. And this is me. So the fact that I was able to go on a show like Food Network Star and be myself and do what I love to do, which is cook, obviously. I enjoy being there, maybe the chromosome in my brain that's supposed to make you nervous in front of a camera, it just feels natural. And that's just luck.
I feel very lucky and blessed that I-- for every opportunity. To this day, when I get to go and be on a set and they're just like, hey, man. Just do your thing, be you. And I'm just like, oh, I must sound annoying because I just walk around saying out loud like how happy I am to just be here. It's got to be obnoxious at this point to people. I could get emotional. I'm just so grateful for this whole world to be able to be talking to you, to be able to just do my little part, to make some folks happy. It's just very cool, very, very cool.
JAYMEE SIRE: It is something that not everybody can do. And to be able to do it, but also be enjoying yourself while doing it, I think is really, really special. And people may not remember, but you were also on Chopped back in 2010. And you won. And this is early on in the Chopped universe. What do you remember about that experience?
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: That was my big break. Andy Phorzheimer is my mentor. He's my restaurant mentor. And he owned the restaurant called Barcelona and Bar Taco.
JAYMEE SIRE: I used to live in West Hartford. So I know both of them well.
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: Yeah, all right, so you know what's up.
JAYMEE SIRE: I do.
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: Love it. I mean, Andy has been my champion for just-- since I was a young chef. And he made me a partner in a Barcelona and Greenwich, Connecticut at a young age. He gave me my first big break. He taught me how to actually understand the business side of a restaurant and be good at it. So he had arranged for all of his chefs to go down to the casting studio.
I remember, we were in this lobby of this casting office, waiting to go in, where everyone was waiting their turn. And there was one random person sitting in the corner on the coffee table, like on their laptop, just working. And all these chefs, and we're standing in there, well, just talking, being chefs, shooting the breeze.
You can imagine the conversations in a room, with eight or nine chefs, with no one listening, no one-- the person sitting down pretty much disappears. And everyone talking. And it was funny because then it turns out the person that was sitting down in the computer was Beth Schiff. She's such a G.
And what she did was got herself a raw sneak peek at all the chefs and their personalities, without the camera. I got the gig. And I competed. And I won. And I was happy. I was so happy because I was nervous about that one. I was so happy that it was over. I was so happy I won. Back then, season four?
JAYMEE SIRE: I mean, how many seasons are there now? Like 500?
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: 400, yeah, right? So season four, it was a lot. I've never been in that world before. And it was a long day. I remember it being like long day into the morning kind of day for me. The next week, they called us again, because they were doing top champions. And they wanted me to go on.
I was like, Andy, please don't make me do it. No, no, no, no, no, no. Please don't make me do it again. And Andy is good. And he's good, very persuasive that little fella. I went back on, top champions. I got eliminated in the first round by Marc Murphy because he would refuse to eat my dish that was cold smoked tippers, that apparently I was supposed to cook. And I made a tartare.
And Marc Murphy said, I'm not going to eat this, which then led to my pure hatred of Marc Murphy for many years until years later when I got the judge with him on Chopped. He took me out. He did not remember ever judging me. He took me out to lunch during our break. And Marc has become one of my dearest, dearest, dearest, friends. And he's one of the best human beings on the face of god's green earth. So I really care about Marc Murphy. But that's, yeah. So I went back on and lost.
JAYMEE SIRE: Well, you also got to hang out with a lot of your other Food Network friends on Tournament of Champions for the second time, by the way. You got beat out in the quarters by--
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: You got to bring that up, uh?
JAYMEE SIRE: I mean we got to talk about it. I mean it's a huge deal. Everybody was watching. Maneet Chauhan, obviously, the winner there. And this is a rematch following last year's loss. But I saw your Instagram post. You were so kind in your words about Maneet. And safe to say you were OK losing to her?
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: First of all, happy to be able to come running out of those doors with your favorite pepper mill bat.
JAYMEE SIRE: Which we need to talk about that too.
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: Oh, yeah. There's a little backstory there. And the [INAUDIBLE] blasting on the loudspeakers in a real actual studio audience. My television mentor Guy Fieri, who I adore, happy to be here. And then to go against Maneet and to lose against Maneet is like-- I want to say like, yeah, obviously. What? Maneet? What do you think is going to happen?
What Maneet can do in seven minutes with spices, the words don't convey the complexity. She is on another level.
JAYMEE SIRE: She's a beast.
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: I adore her. I get advice from her. She is a shoulder to cry on for me. In that picture that I posted of me and her, you can see her. I'm like I'm getting emotional thinking about it because you can see her. I must have been reading her something that must have been going on in my life.
And she's just-- you see her in that picture that Aaron May too, that I didn't even know about until he posted a couple of days ago, where she's just leaning in. Look at her, just look at her leaning in. If she can hug me in that moment and make me feel better, she could. All she could do is lean in because of COVID.
And yeah, man. That family, that family, it's just the best. I just love them more. And to be able to do Restaurant Hustle and to share that experience with Maneet, to be going through that, take that unique experience together while filming that documentary along with Marcus Samuelsson and Antonia Lofaso, that brought us close.
JAYMEE SIRE: You could tell.
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: She's just such a special person, oh, my god. That picture, Aaron posted it on a story. And I called him and said, you send that to me right now. He was like, hey, bubba, you know I sent that to you like four months ago, right? I was like, oh, OK. My bad.
JAYMEE SIRE: We have to talk about the pepper grinder. What is the story behind the pepper grinder? And where did you find that?
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: I was in Naples, Italy. I was in Napoli with Nick Nitti from Forno Rosso in Chicago, incredible pizzeria in Chicago and an incredible human being. And we were in Naples together just learning the culture, and eating, and having just an incredible, incredible experience.
And we went out, on the outskirts of Naples was this warehouse. Imagine like restaurant depot for restaurant equipment but it's in Italy. And it's everything you've ever dreamed about, every plate you've ever dreamed about owning, every tool, every pot. It was the most incredible place on the planet. I cannot wait to go back.
I bought a bunch of random stuff. It ended up becoming a PR trip. They gave me this really cool fork bracelet that I gifted to Billy Durney of Red Hook, of Hometown Barbecue and Red Hook Tavern. And I saw in the corner was this baseball bat.
And I was like, is that what I think it is? And I went over. And there's nothing on it that says Italy. The only thing is made in Italy, nothing on it that will ever tie it back to this little town outside of Naples. And it is totally has nothing to do with it. So obviously I bought it.
JAYMEE SIRE: How do you fit that in your suitcase? Like how does--
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: Yoh, I slept this thing around. It was like walking around with this baseball bat like intertwined within luggage. So this baseball bat ended up in a drawer, my food junk drawer a cabinet at the old house, which had my ice cream machine in there from Wearing, an air fryer that I never used, some bottles of wine. And that's where this baseball bat, pepper grinder lived, never to be touched for over a year or two.
And then Tournament of Champions, I got the call. I ran and packed my bag. And on my way out-- Sherry must have been like, we were getting ready to move. That's what was going on. So she had cabinets open. And like as I'm walking, I was like, laser sighted. I saw the bat.
And I go, this is it. This is the moment. We're going to use this baseball bat. And I grab it. And I brought it to LA. And I was like, hey, guys. I'm not going to look too scary if I walk in with a baseball bat? And I think that'll be fun. Guy was all about it. It's turned into memes. It's a whole thing. It is so much fun. It was so much fun. So like yeah, I got to figure out how to--
JAYMEE SIRE: We need some merch.
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: OK, yeah, hey, hey. Anyone listening, baseball bat pepper grinder [INAUDIBLE] a month or two. I'm really need to look into that because I have been getting lots of traffic on questions about the pepper grinder.
JAYMEE SIRE: I mean, it comes full circle and the memes that we started talking about a while ago. And I would love to keep continuing on with our story time. But we are going to wrap things up with a few rapid fire questions. And then we're going to ask you our final question that we ask everybody. So are you ready for the rapid fire?
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: Yes.
JAYMEE SIRE: OK, what did you eat for dinner last night?
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: Sicilian pizza from Frankie's, F and F Pizzeria in Brooklyn.
JAYMEE SIRE: All right, worst thing you've ever cooked?
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: Probably everything on Guy's Grocery Delivery.
JAYMEE SIRE: Favorite pizza topping?
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: Cheese and sauce pep,
JAYMEE SIRE: Just cheese sauce?
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: Cheese and sauce.
JAYMEE SIRE: I'm adding another one because we didn't get a chance to talk about this, but your favorite chicken, the name of your favorite chicken?
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: Oh my girls, named after The Office and Sex and the City. Favorite chicken, oh, my god. How do you even--
JAYMEE SIRE: How do you pick?
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: Phyllis, sweet Phyllis and Kelly, [INAUDIBLE] and Phyllis Vance are probably the top two. Kelly is a silky. And Phyllis is a-- she's a frizzle.
JAYMEE SIRE: A frizzle, OK.
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: My baby girls.
JAYMEE SIRE: And you mentioned that some of them are named after Sex and the City character. So which Sex and the City character are you? Are you a Carrie? Are you a Samantha? Are you a Miranda, a Charlotte?
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: I'm probably the sassy one.
JAYMEE SIRE: I mean, Samantha?
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: Yeah.
JAYMEE SIRE: OK I could see that.
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: Probably Samantha. And Samantha is a beautiful, beautiful barred rock chicken.
[LAUGHTER]
She is stunning.
JAYMEE SIRE: That makes sense.
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: She's a sweet girl too. Oh, she's so sweet. These chickens, I adore them.
JAYMEE SIRE: Favorite Food Network show that you're not on?
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: Best Thing I Ever Ate.
JAYMEE SIRE: Oh, that's a good one. Next chef that you would like to battle?
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: Michael Vultaggio.
JAYMEE SIRE: Really?
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: Head to head. I'm almost guaranteed to lose because he is-- I've been saying it before, we even had our man crush and knew each other, I used to say like that kid is not of this planet. That food that he cooks is not on this planet. So I'd like to just see how badly I would lose against him.
JAYMEE SIRE: OK, that's fair. I co-hosted an episode of Beat Bobby Flay with him. And he was a lot of fun. Yeah, so I can understand where your man crush comes from. All right, final question that we ask all of our guests here on Food Network Obsessed. What would be on the menu for your perfect food day-- so breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert. You can travel wherever. You can travel in between meals, no rules on this question, just what are your perfect three meals and dessert?
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: Breakfast at my house in the Bronx growing up and my father's chocolate chip pancakes, like the real imitation syrup, the real imitation.
JAYMEE SIRE: The real imitation syrup.
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: Yes.
JAYMEE SIRE: So just sugar?
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: My own making up a butter rich version, like what? Yes. I'm not allowed to have it anymore.
[LAUGHTER]
Lunch would have to be Tony's Pier on City Island in the Bronx, a great little island with a lot of fish joints. And to get their basket of fried shrimp that they serve the same way with a coated in cracker meal over steak fries, with a little house salad, with an island dressing, and tartar sauce. That combo, when we were kids, we would go there and eat it in the car. And my father, we'd sit up, look at the water. And eat these baskets of shrimp as a treat.
Then we got dinner. Dinner has got to be Silvio's Italian restaurant in beautiful Yonkers, New York. Silvio is an incredible human being that is always there for his community. And he's got a slice joint with a beautiful restaurant that my father helped-- actually, helped him remodel recently in the back. And like his penne vodka, his shrimp parm, his chicken marsala, his potato croquettes, his broccoli rabe.
He nails it. And he's a dying breed. Silvio's and Yonkers, New York. And then when it comes to dessert, it have to be the Baked Alaska in Chicago. Guys, I haven't had Baked Alaska until like two years ago. And I've been dreaming about it. All I ever wanted, my whole adult life was Baked Alaska. And I did not get it to years ago.
OK, and Nick Nitti took me to RPM steakhouse in beautiful Chicago. He goes, there's one thing you got to have here. And that's all we're going to have. I mean, he says everything is fantastic, that we have four meals there. But there's one dish, it's miso crab. And it's like miso butter. And your eyes roll into the back of your head as you're eating it.
And I saw a Baked Alaska on the menu. And I could not believe my eyes. And I ordered it. And it was everything that I imagined it was going to be. And that never happens, as everybody knows, for a blind squirrel to get a nut sometimes. Baked Alaska, bury me, encapsulated inside of a Baked Alaska.
JAYMEE SIRE: That sounds like-- I mean, now, I feel like I need to seek that out.
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: And light me on fire like a Viking.
[LAUGHTER]
Sorry.
JAYMEE SIRE: I'm surprised there was no cheesy garlic bread involved in this day, but maybe you could have that as like an after dessert snack or something.
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: Oh, was snack an option?
JAYMEE SIRE: I mean, no, but I just feel like you need to sneak that in there.
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: I think garlic bread probably falls between every meal period, essentially.
JAYMEE SIRE: OK, there you go.
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JAYMEE SIRE: Yeah.
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: Garlic bread, it's an absolute given. No-brainer.
JAYMEE SIRE: Well, I need to go have some cheesy garlic bread now. And thank you so much for all of the stories, and the time, and so much fun talking to you. So thank you again for making the time.
CHRISTIAN PETRONI: Thank you. Happy to be here. It's an honor, for real.
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JAYMEE SIRE: What a fun conversation. I love Christian's warmth and optimism in the wake of so many changes this past year. You can catch Christian judging on the all new series, Grill of Victory, premiering Monday, June 21 at 10:00/9:00 Central on Food Network and streaming on Discovery Plus.
As always, thanks so much for listening. And make sure to follow us wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss a single thing. Of course, if you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to rate and review. We do love it when you do that. That's all for now. We'll catch you foodies, next Friday.
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