121 minutes with …Guy Fieri

A trip to the ranch with America’s most misunderstood chef.

- ADAM PLATT

DO YOU EVER WAKE up in the middle of the night with so many thoughts in your head you need to write them all down?” Guy Fieri says in his irrepressible staccato way, which, even over FaceTime, sounds only a little less irrepressible than the high-motor voice that emanates more or less 24 hours a day on Food Network.

On this sun-splashed California afternoon, the Mayor of Flavortown is dressed in a faded camo hunting vest and a T-shirt from one of his 70 or so temporarily shuttered dining concepts; it’s emblazoned with the image of an American eagle fashioned from different kinds of kitchenware. We’re in the middle of an impromptu 3,000-mile distance walkabout of his 450-acre ranch up in the hills near Napa, and as the Mayor wanders to and fro, pointing out his pet peacocks (“They help keep the rattlesnake population down”) and his impressively large goat shed (“Goats are Über-smart, Über-useful!”), he has already discoursed on a wide array of topics, pausing every now and then with the faintest smirk on his face as this slow-typing restaurant critic frantically taps out notes on his rickety keyboard.