But he seemed a little confused when the audience laughed as he held up a jar of Jif peanut butter, which he used to doctor the barbecue sauce for the ribs.

After a woman explained that the laughter was because Jif is made in Lexington, Flay grinned.

“It’s a good thing I picked Jif,” he said. “I didn’t know it.”

Flay is a frequent visitor to the Bluegrass and has horses at Denali Stud.

“Do you know how many horses I would have to buy at the sales if I had a restaurant here,”

he said in response to an audience member’s question about whether he’d consider opening a restaurant here.

Flay asked what kind of restaurant he should open.

“A Mesa Grill with a Bobby’s Burger Palace around the corner? It could definitely happen,”

he said.

Gabriel Tarr, a University of Kentucky graduate student impressed the chef by munching a habanero pepper on stage without even a grimace.

“I would never try that,” Flay said. “A sliver of a habanero could really change your weekend.”

Flay rewarded Tarr with a plate of lobster tail cooked with mango, served over a bed of greens and a sauce made from coconut milk and corn.