Cooking Demos

Despite his drunken antics at SOBEFest, Bobby Flay still managed to provide us with some useful tips on frying chicken, a dish we've always wanted to tackle at home but have frankly been a bit scared to try.

Thanks to the queen of Southern cuisine's diabetes drama, lowcountry staples like fried chicken might have gotten a bit of a bad rap lately, but Flay's not hearing any of it. "This whole thing about baking fried chicken: why?" he asked the audience. "Everything in moderation, yeah — but you have to go all the way."

According to the chef, there are three keys to good fried chicken: crisp texture, a golden brown color, and a just-cooked interior. Learn Bobby's best bird-battering and frying tips to master these three aspects when you read on ahead.

We've seen a lot of Bobby Flay cooking demos throughout the years, but over the weekend in South Beach, Flay was the funniest we'd seen yet.

"Wow, I'm wasted," the Food Network chef admitted to the crowd, after pounding down two giant mojitos in a row. The inebriated audience only encouraged him to drink more. For the most entertaining of Bobby's bytes, keep on reading.

Memorable drinks and bites aren't the only things at play inside the South Beach Wine and Food Festival tents — the Grand Tasting Village also holds an impressive lineup of cooking demonstrations from celebrity chefs and culinary personalities.

To my surprise, one of the most captivating (and entertaining) cooking demos came from Bravo's Bethenny Frankel. Although the Skinnygirl cocktails magnate was on hand to demonstrate pea guacamole and sangria, she really just wound up doling out zinger after zinger about sex and the Bravo network.

In between laughs, we did learn one great kitchen tip from her — how to make sangria even classier and more delicious. While prepping sangria, Bethenny swapped her ice for a bag of frozen mixed berries, a move she called cost-effective. We call it brilliant!

One of the most popular cooking demonstrations at the Food & Wine Classic every year is hosted by Top Chef judges Tom Colicchio and Gail Simmons. However, today's seminar was a little different, as Colicchio had to go to the hospital and couldn't make it. Luckily, another bald chef was on hand to stand in for Colicchio: Iron Chef Michael Symon!

Symon and Simmons cooked one dish each using the same ingredients, except Symon's dish was savory and Simmon's dish was sweet. The featured ingredients were pistachios and basil. While he cooked an amazing-looking ricotta and egg yolk ravioli, Symon got to talking. To see what he had to say about cooking with kids and more, read on.