East Hampton Firefighter Serves Up Sloppy Joes with Barefoot Contessa

Ina Garten often brings members of the East Hampton community, where she films her Food Network TV show, into her kitchen and to her dining room table, but on Saturday's episode she will pay a visit to a local firehouse.

The Barefoot Contessa showcases the 's drill in October, and, of course, the volunteer firefighters need to eat afterward.

joins firefighter Scott "Elmo" Elley, who often cooks for department functions, in the kitchen at the Emergency Communications Building to serve up beef barley soup, "Scott Elley's Sloppy Joes," and pecan caramel sundaes for the hungry firefighters (click for the recipes).

Fire Chief Ray Harden said he was first approached by Garten's production team back in the spring about being a part of a show. "I said 'Let me throw it out there,' and everybody said that would be pretty cool," he said.

He said he didn't hear anything else until September when he was asked when the entire department would be together; a tanker drill at . Other local departments were there, as well, as the crew filmed.

"We'll see how we look on TV," Harden said with a laugh.

The show, in its 17th season, has featured countless faces from East Hampton, and this season will be no different. airing in March that was filmed in the classroom.

Elley heads the fire department house committee and loves to cook, so he was the perfect person to pair Garten with to whip up a taste of fire department chow down for the viewing audience, Harden said.

"It was fun," Elley said of the experience, but that he was surprised by how long it too to film the dishes in their various stages.

A public safety dispatcher in the village, Elley is actually an award-winning chef himself -- just ask him about his lobster mac and Vermont-cheese dish. He offered up a few recipes that would work when feeding 80 or so firefighters and Garten said she hadn't made sloppy joes before, and so the menu was decided.

Now wasn't that easy.

The fire department's episode airs for the first on the Food Network on Saturday at 11 a.m. It will re-air on Monday at 4 p.m.