Bobby on the beat.
we're actually at the one hotel South Beach and we're going to be talking to Sophia Vagara
and checking out the food and wine festival which is it's a 25th year so let's go. Go South Beach give it up to one only, Bobby. Hey, hey, hey. Let me ask you but you've watched
“me Bobby fly every day. Okay. Baby loves it. So your baby loves it. How old is your baby?”
He's nine months and nine months. So excited. Oh my god. Watch me Bobby fly. Yes. What would be your signature dish? Red wine braids, short ribs, a raw truffle mashed potatoes with some crispy pinch at it and some chives. I'm awesome. Meatloaf? Yeah. Tell me about it. I just the way I do it. It's better than anybody else does it. Do you think you can be my meatloaf? I didn't say that. Oh, haha.
We won't have you off your meatloaf then. Okay. What would be your signature dish? My big answer. We bring in some with the chef. Have you watched me Bobby fly? Oh, that's honest. What would be your signature dish? I think I made a pretty mean tripping grits. It's dirty. Like I like make like the sauce. It's got like a lot of stuff in it. And it's like jargon. Her husband is obsessed with profit in here.
You're adorable, but she is smoking. I'm sorry. Guys, I'm here. I got Brooks. I would do a Florentine steak and a Pasta with Kiyanti Kiyana sauce that I love. This is Cracks from Trittoria 13 Gobi. Really? I love that's favorite dish. Let's cook it together. No, no. I'm just gonna come on and challenge me because I want to cook that. I would love you.
“You think you could be me? I do not. But what is the best cook?”
It's me too. I grew up better. She makes better. What's your signature dish that you challenge me too? I would be best at an outside skirt steak, but I don't think I could beat you at a steak or coffee. Really? What about you, dessert? Um, nothing but a crush around the Chimicherry steak situation, but who knows? But then she'd kill me on the other and then you go home victorious. Are you good cook? What's your best dish?
Well, but, you know, ribs. Yeah, that's my kind of stuff. They're on a smoker. Sit all day, drink, enjoy. Do you guys have a lot of drinks in your hand? You're supposed to do it. I guess so. I'm doing it all wrong. Well, we can't find the food. Oh, they didn't tell you. There's no food at the food on one vessel. Do you have what to be Bobby Frey? Yes, I do. Okay, full beer, signature dish. Oh, my god. I don't know.
Tresco steak. Your game's strong? I'm really good at eating it. I don't know if I'm really good at it.
“Well, you have to cook it. So, this is, uh, Sofia Regara is, uh, empanadas, uh,”
broke out of the chicken. I got the beef, love the pastry on it. It's so good. It's just just three years to get it dressed for a while. Really? Yeah, it's delicious. Oh, good. The chicken you went by the chicken? No. Bobby, I'm the beat. All right, welcome Sophia. Thank you so much for doing this. Um, I'm like thrilled to be able to talk to you. No, thank you.
Yeah, I obviously, like many people around the world have been a huge admirer of yours and it's so nice to see somebody like you do one thing for such a long time and then be able to do so many other things at the same time. It's one of the things that one of the reasons why I wanted to talk to you is because I kind of go through the same thing myself sometimes. You know, it's like you do one thing
and then people always want to think of you as a particular thing, you know. So like when, like,
it was grizzled, it was amazing. You know, and so obviously that was a huge departure from like, you know, obviously my favorite family. Like, how was, was that a struggle to find a role like that? Yes. After mine and family. It actually took me 15 years and I had to produce myself with my manager Louise because we couldn't find anything to that would feed me and that was in comedy because of course everybody wanted me to do comedy, but I don't know. I got crazy and I said,
I want to do these. But it wasn't ever like to show that oh, I can do something else. It was mainly because a character was so interesting for me. Right. And it was an amazing performance. Obviously you got so many great accolades from it, but it was just incredible. I want to talk to you about food because obviously as a chef, maybe that's the first thing I think about. And I love, I love when people are really into their
own culture, you know, obviously you're from Columbia and, you know, you're now making empanadas and Colombian coffee, which, you know, so what are you as the best coffee in the world? Why is it that, you know, you have obviously some amazing acting career and you want to also be in life style as well. Is that an easy thing for you to just to kind of fall into?
Well, it's been easy for me because I've always liked business and I always liked it.
You're like the business part of it. I love it. I actually feel like I always was acting or presenting to be able to do businesses. Right. It was more for that, you know, the exposure that you get. And then I got lucky and then I, you know, I was able to be part of shows like modern family that were watched all over the world, like in 80 countries. And then now I'm doing
A GT, which is huge also.
But I only do things that I really believe in. That's my number one thing because I've been you know, doing this for, I don't know, I'm 53. So I think it was, I've been working for more than 30 years. Right. So it has to be things that I believe in and also I started realizing that I could do this because of how many women or people would come to me like, what are you wearing?
What are you, how do you exercise? What is that lipstick? What is this? So it was always like
that people asking me asking me. You're inspiring people not even knowing it. You're just just being out there and so, and then people see what you're doing and they want to do what you do. Yeah. You said you like business. Are you a tough negotiator? No. You're not? No, no, no,
“that's why I have my money. That's, that's, that's incredible. It's wonderful. I know,”
I've always, obviously, been a chef my entire life. I dropped out of high school when I was 16. So I started working right away. And so I've been, I've been cooking my entire life and people know me because of television as a chef. And I always wanted to be like a newscaster. But, and I would work for new stations like the today show and CBS and the show, because I don't know, I just wanted to be an anchor. I mean, because you know how it is, it's like you want to do
something that you're not doing, you know? Totally. But nobody would ever give me a chance to be like, just stay in your corner. You're a chef. It's a good chef. Leave it alone, you know? I mean,
so it's always, it's always nice to see that you're, you're able to transition. But I want to ask
you a little bit about like fame because, you know, obviously, you're a very famous person. My daughter, who actually isn't newscaster. Sure. Yeah, she's 29. She always says to me, she's like, dad, you're the right amount of famous, meaning people know who you are, but you can do whatever you want. Like, I live in New York. I take the subway twice a day. I can stand in the lobby in the one hotel. People might come up and say hello to me in this net. But you're like this other kind of
famous where it's like, it's hard for you to just be amongst everybody without being mob. How do you
“feel about that? I mean, would you rather be a little bit less famous so you can do more things?”
You know, it's funny because one of the things that I've always had in my head, my head always
since I started working, I never wanted to feel the freedom to do everything. Like, I do everything.
Like, I go everywhere. You do whatever you want to do. I do everything. I drive myself. I'm like, I don't need like, I don't like the drama of the interaction of that. And also, I can get away. If I'm like, dress normally without my, you know, I'm like, and if I don't open my mouth, the problem is, if I open my mouth, they know who I am. But if I am, you know, just walking in New York without, yes, like, I'm just minding my own business. I mean, unless I do, I can't talk
with someone, but if I can, I can get away with it because I love doing things. Normal things. Yeah. Exactly. I mean, to me, that's the, that's the, that's the thing. Do you want to experience life the way that you want to experience it for sure? Let's talk about your infinitesis. Obviously, Columbia's such a cool country when it comes to cuisine, because I haven't been, I need to go. I need to go.
I need to go to Hanna. Yeah, I'm at a hand. Depending where you are in Columbia, the food is very different. There's soups and stews in one place, and then there's like, sort of Caribbean, kinds of flavors, like, you know, plantains and the coconuts and things like that. So, um, empanadas are rapists. To me, those are the things I, I think about first. Yes. What comes to Columbia food? So, how long is this? How long of the empanadas been on?
Well, this been, like, like, um, you know, like a project that I have been very, very excited about. It's one of the things that I'm doing right now that it's really like, uh, I'm passionate about. Also, because I'm working with my son Manolo who's like helping me with all of it, because he's the one that really knows about food and drugs and everything. I am like the, the tester. Like, I can taste and say, um, yes, there's no, yes, but he's
in charge of everything that he's happening with it. So, he's great because I'm working with him, but we decided together that we needed to do something with empanadas or with Latin food,
“because that's what we're about. Like, for example, I'm here in Miami now and for two days,”
I'm working, but I do need to see my family and what I was going to do, we're going to eat. Right. And what's, when you say we're going to eat, you're going to eat at home. You're going to go out to restaurants. Well, we could eat at home, but the problem is, is, like, right now, the list for tonight is already 25 people. Oh, my God. And it's just family and maybe one extra person that is not family or two person that are not family. So you go out.
So we go out because I only told them two days ago that I was coming to my aunt's own, and they would kill me if they had to cook for 20 something people in one day. So it's crazy because we always gather around food and that's our plan. It's not that we go anywhere.
We don't go to museums together.
organic. It's very Latin. They're very good, no. The pace is amazing. Yeah, it's amazing. And
every time that people try them, like they're hooked, like they don't eat one, they keep eating. Yeah. And so I'm very proud of this. And Manila has done such a great job because, you know, I don't really know what it takes to make an empanada. I know when they taste good or they don't,
“but he has made, you know, all the ingredients, the menus work. And I think we have a very,”
very special product here. So this beef, then there's chicken, and then there's fried chicken. Well, for you, I can. Yeah. Of course. There's beef, there's chicken. There's like a million, yeah. Yeah. There's even one that is like a dessert with a chocolate in high Nutella. And then this is cassava, right? No. That's up on the corner, but it got flat. I don't know what happened. It's not supposed to look like that. I don't know. What did you do to it?
No, no, you're supposed to be cooking for me. Don't blame me. This is, this is your cooking. I brought them here, I don't know what you did with them back there. Yeah. It's so good. This is like a cheese bread. But it's supposed to be popped up. I don't know what happened. They got flat. Okay. But they really, they really. It's the humidity in Miami. I went to Soul Cycle this morning downstairs. They have, the one hotel, this hotel is great.
It's amazing. It's so beautiful. I went to Soul Cycle downstairs in the lobby this morning, so I'm okay. I can work this up a little bit. What did you do to work out? I started working out very late in my life. I hated it. I didn't know it was amazing. I thought I was going to get away my whole life with being young and thin and sexy. But now things are starting to change, so now I have to work out. And I also had up knee problems, so I've been doing physical therapy
like for two years. But I work out at least like four times a week. I started doing Pilates because it's amazing. As a chef, you stand over a cutting board for dirt like this. You want your home? Yeah, so your neck? Exactly. Your posture was completely. And guys don't stretch no matter what.
We never want to stretch no matter what. No, I think you're right. And so Pilates has been great
for me because it just kind of elongated body and it helps you. But I'm sure it was super difficult the first time when, right? Because people guys say, I think it's all it's whatever that is. It's
“difficult. Yeah, very hard. You have to try and pour it. What about the coffee? It's so good.”
I mean drinking it. We were hanging out. It's so good. It's amazing. The coffee? It's like real Colombian coffee. Like I was super frustrated like, you know, I'm an actress. So mainly I live on a set. And there's not a more horrible that the coffee on the set. Perhaps services. It's horrible. And I don't like also the coffee. The famous coffee that everybody drinks over the United States. Yeah. I don't like it. For me, it tastes like it's burnt.
When you're drinking coffee, you want something strong or something like that. I like something strong. But I grew up in Colombia and I grew up in a coffee like I drink coffee without sugar. To me, you don't need to put sugar or milk or anything in the coffee because then you don't taste the real coffee. That's me. That's how I grew up. So for me, it's hard to go to any coffee shop. But yes, they put all sorts of things just to cover that they don't have good, good beans. Good coffee.
Yeah, of course. And so this was a project that I wanted to do for a long time. And it came all together like the perfect time because we found a way to buy the coffee from, how do you say coffee growers that are women direct over their women? They're all women. Wow. Yeah, they're coffee growers and there's a huge amount of women coffee growers in Colombia. So it's beautiful because we're helping them. We're paying a premium price for the grains and they're doing an
amazing job. You know, giving us this amazing coffee. And also, you know, we're helping them. We're just not having this delicious coffee, but we're also helping to make them Colombia. Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, I love that story. And then you can like, you can get the coffee like an Amazon and well. Yes, on Amazon, I think cost Kornal and Walmart. This is your first South Beach wine and food festival that you're coming to. Yes. I've been coming here for almost 25 years.
Are you going to be there? I'm here. I mean, yes, we're, oh, that's why you're here. I do
advance a lot. We always have to do like three or four advances like that. But you're going
to be showing off your empenades. My empenades. And you're going to be there. Sounds weird that I'm
“going to be showing off my empenades. No. I think that's why people are coming, right? They want”
that, you know, there's people that are shaking. Like, yes, come to South Beach. I'm going to be showing
Off my empenades.
and and talking to people and many people. Yeah, see that. I mean, that's amazing. I mean,
“obviously it shows that you're like totally behind, behind the product. No, no, I love the product.”
It's like, you know, it's been such a, it's been fast. We've only, you know, come out with the
empenades. A year and a half ago or something. And it's been growing like crazy. It's like once
“people try them, they get hooked. So it's very exciting. You know, when you come out with a broader,”
I just see their reaction immediately of people. It's super cool. Yeah. Well, all right. I'm going
to let you go because I know you're busy weekend. Okay. Thanks so much, Sophia. I have to say, I love
“a guest who brings their own empenades and amazing club music coffee. That was amazing. So thanks.”
Thanks so much. That was great. Everybody, if you, if you like what you're watching, make sure you hit like and subscribe. Of course, this was such another fantastic week of Bobby on the beat podcast. And we got a little sunshine this week. So let's go to Bobby on the beat.
