Sunny Anderson’s Bobby Flay Holiday Sweater Wins Friendsgiving

Sunny Anderson’s made a name for herself at Food Network for all sorts of reasons. She’s a fantastic cook, an accomplished host, a best-selling author and the keeper of an eternal and legitimately majestic Bobby Flay Will Not Make Crispy Rice Without Getting Heckled flame. She’s also the reigning queen of a very specific and delightfully petty brand of sartorial snark.

To misquote Liam Neeson in Taken, she has a very particular set of custom shirts. Shirts she has acquired over a very long career of heckling. Shirts that make her a nightmare for people like Bobby Flay. She’s used custom tees to remind him that crispy rice isn’t BBQ; she’s used them to note that crispy rice is his binky. She’s even used reverse psychology to wish him luck with a photo of his cat. For the fourth annual season of Beat Bobby Flay: Holiday Throwdown — a competition he had the nerve to sweep the last time around — she knew it was time to get serious.

The Perfect (Fashion) Crime

“I got a bone to pick with you, and it’s not a turkey bone,” she told Bobby. “Last year, you won every single Beat Bobby Flay holiday episode, 6 and 0, you beat everybody. Your friends? They are very upset, so this is about revenge tonight. It’s a Revenge-giving!”

The shirt she created to get serious began with her favorite custom printer, then she stacked techniques like a criminal mastermind assembling their team for a big heist. Awkward photos of Bobby dancing across the fabric like Irish reindeer? Check. Sponge-printed anthropomorphic Christmas trees and snowflakes? Check. Anthropomorphic and fully three-dimensional food stuffies seeming to emerge from a cornucopia on her right sleeve? Check.

There was even a trompe l’oeil situation on Sunny’s left sleeve, with two plastic champagne flutes full of gold and silver tinsel. She detached and offered one to Bobby, for she is also a thoughtful hostess.

Jet Tila: Into the Bobby-Verse

Now here’s where things got well and truly weird. Chef Jet Tila arrived for Revenge-giving dressed as … Bobby. Not “having made fashion choices inspired by Bobby,” more like “wearing the same chest-hugging, gravy-colored button-down and Bobby’s exact style of Air Max 1s.”

“I make this look good, bro!” Jet announced.

“Nice ankles,” Bobby noted. (The man loves a cuff.)

“I am going full Bobby tonight,” Jet continued. “In order to beat the best, I have to be the best. Not a lot of room to breathe today, but … ” Maybe Bobby keeps it tight with the Oxford shirts and breathes through his ankles? Anything is possible at Friendsgiving.

"The last three holiday seasons Bobby and I have destroyed everyone in our way," Jet noted, "but Bobby, let’s be real, brother. I’m the reason you have a perfect record! This Revenge-giving, this friend is turning into your foe."

The Plot Thickens

In the first round of battle, Jet faced off against frequent guest, friend of Bobby and his Bobby and Damaris Show co-star, chef Damaris Phillips. Damaris kept things simple by dressing as herself, but she complicated the competition by triumphing over Jet with a superior transformation of Bobby’s mashed potatoes and green chile queso. “My name is Jet,” he shrugged, “and I’m moving to the other side of the set!” He joined Bobby and Sunny behind the hosts’ table in the most Flay-like manner possible. “I’m doing my Bobby,” he explained as he danced. “Wait, how many snaps?”

“Off-beat, please,” Sunny requested.

“How does Bobby walk?” Jet mused. “He does one of these weird things like this, and then he snaps and does that kind of thing, and then he does these weird dance moves.”

Can a Bobby Roast Save the Day?

Sunny sensed impending doom when chef Antonia Lofaso beat Damaris in the second round of cooking, then chose her as a teammate for the third and final round — which made Bobby and Jet a holiday team again (in identical outfits, no less). “I want to separate them because it’s the logical thing to do; however, I’m like, ‘Do I want to just beat The Legend of Jet and Bobby together in their cute little outfits?’ It just depends on where I want to go with this,” Antonia explained.

Sunny attempted to right the ship and get in Bobby’s head by emceeing a second annual Beat Bobby Flay Roast, and the effort was a spirited one. “You know, it’s so nice to have us all together,” she said. “It’s got to be a change of pace for you, though, Bobby, celebrating with actual people other than your assistants, your lawyers and, of course, cats.”

Her delivery gave the audience a good long look at the rest of the crafty action on her holiday sweatshirt, including a row of pinecones and a peplum tutu of faux autumn leaves. No matter how the match concluded, Sunny had a respectable array of projectiles at her disposal.

The Dream Team Wins Again

Antonia’s urge to beat Bobby in duplicate backfired, and she lost in stereo when her opponents’ sausage lasagna came out on top. “I didn’t get any revenge,” she cried. “In fact, I’m more angry than when I got here!”

“Bobby, STOP SNAPPING TO YOUR IMAGINARY BEAT!” Sunny added. “It’s not there!”

Though Revenge-giving’s conclusion soured Sunny on a seat at Bobby’s Thanksgiving table once and for all, she admitted that she was available for and open to a Christmas invitation. We can’t wait to see what she wears.