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Weekend Plans With NBC Olympics Exec Producer Jim Bell: Wrestling, Sous Vide

Although the ’16 Summer Games in Rio are more than a year away, NBC Olympics Exec Producer JIM BELL remains hard at work overseeing preparation for the net’s cornucopia of programming. For Bell, the push right now is an upfront event next week with the sales team, for which he will be producing a one-hour video for a few hundred key advertisers and execs in the industry. However, a large portion of this weekend will be focused around the sport of wrestling, which has become a mainstay in his Greenwich, Conn., household.

THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE: On Friday and Saturday, I will be at Lehigh Univ. for the National Prep School Wrestling Championships, which my son qualified for. Wrestling is always a lot of fun and has become a passion in our family. My older son is a wrestler at Brown Univ. He was actually the one -- I’ve got four sons -- that got us into the sport. I am proud of all of them, and it is not like any other sport. It is a very difficult sport because inevitably, no matter how good you are, you are going to end up out there alone on that mat in your underwear in a tough position. I think it was the great DAN GABLE who said, “Once you wrestle, everything else in life is easy.” Since my son is a high school junior, I think we are going to visit Lehigh while we are up there and do the admissions tour to check it all out. I have no plans for Sunday, and I couldn’t be happier. I’ll make an attempt to get to church and make an attempt to break a sweat at SoulCycle, which is a spin class/cult. I do SoulCycle and yoga on weekends. 

CIAO, AMERICA!
There is a place in Barcelona called Bar Pinocho that is probably my favorite breakfast place in the world. Otherwise, I like Corbo’s Corner Deli in Greenwich. They make fantastic breakfast sandwiches. There are two restaurants nearby that we are regulars at. One is Douro -- a Portuguese restaurant -- which you don’t find many of. There is another place called Tarry Lodge. It is a wonderful restaurant that was MARIO BATALI and his business partner JOE BASTIANICH’s first foray into suburbia. It has been a home run for them. Cooking is a real passion of mine. When I am indoors, I make many things sous vide -- which is French for under vacuum. It is essentially cooking in a water bath. You take your food and you put it in a vacuum sealed pouch and drop it into a bath of water. The cooker stays at a precise temperature so that you cannot overcook it. There is no better way to cook. Sous vide is life changing and I am happy to help spread the gospel. But when I am outdoors, I’m Big Green Egg guy. That’s it. On Sunday nights, I cook dinner for extended family which is usually 20+ people. It’s a lot of fun; it’s my golf. Whether there is a new piece of equipment, new pan or kitchen utensil, or a new recipe to try, which is really where a lot of my attention ends up being on the weekends when I am not at a wrestling gym.

LOST TO THE WEST: I consider myself a big reader. There is no shortage of stuff out there and screens to read it on. I am listening to books on tape about ancient history subjects such as ALEXANDER THE GREAT and the Byzantine Empire. There is a professor from Tulane named KENNETH HARL that I have become fond of listening to his lectures online. I love his presentations; they are like 24-36 hours’ worth of lectures. He is a formidable history professor. I became so obsessed with his work that I e-mailed him and we are going to try to set up a lunch in N.Y. I do watch some TV on weekends. A lot of time, I will try to catch up on shows from the week. Right now I am a big fan of “JUSTIFIED.” Sunday is always an interesting TV night. I am looking forward to “GAME OF THRONES” coming back. When I’m traveling on a plane, I usually binge-watch whatever shows I haven’t been able to catch up on. It can also be a good time to do some work. I sort of have mixed feelings about Wi-Fi increasingly becoming part of the flying experience. It used to be nice to get away from it. It’s obviously optional, but when it’s available I find myself tapping into it and wanting to check e-mails. But if you don’t have it, it can actually be a pretty nice, relaxing experience.

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