Pumpkin Spice Is Here to Stay, But Chefs Say These Food Trends Need to Go!!

Adrienne and Joe kick off Pumpkin Spice Season by unpacking the life cycle of food trends, looking at why some viral crazes become enduring classics while others fade. In this episode, we also discuss: The core rule of food trends: why comfort, convenience, and identity outlast novelty Debating hot honey, avocado toast, and how espresso martinis earned their permanent spot Why culinary foam, cake pops, and tower-style plating don't hold up Over-the-top Bloody Mary garnishes: fun spectacle or annoying gimmick? The comeback of cottage cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, and fondue How to evaluate a trend: does it genuinely improve the food or just look good on camera? Follow the show: @chefscutpod Follow Adrienne: @chefadriennecheatham Follow Joe: @insta.flamm

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:14Adrienne Cheatham?

  It is pumpkin spice season. So today on the chef's cut, we are going to talk about food fads, the ones that stuck around way longer than anyone expected.

• 0:24Joe Flamm?

  Remember when cupcakes went insane?

• 0:27Adrienne Cheatham?

  The fads that we're glad are kind of dying out. I don't need my Bloody Mary with a slider and a chicken wing and the trends that everyone should try at least once.

• 0:37Joe Flamm?

  Steak frites is like on a comeback trail like nobody's business.

• 0:42Adrienne Cheatham?

  Chef's Cut Nation, you know what time it is. We need 10 seconds of your day. Please don't forget to rate and review the show wherever you get your podcasts because it really does help.

• 0:58Adrienne Cheatham?

  It is one of my favorite times of year and I know people hate on the fall. And one of the reasons people hate on fall is because one of the food trends that has stuck around with no signs of slowing down always comes back and it is pumpkin spice latte season.

• 1:16Joe Flamm?

  It is pumpkin spice mania is what it truly is.

• 1:19Adrienne Cheatham?

  Every year, every year. It's wild and people love it or they just absolutely hate it.

• 1:24Joe Flamm?

  Yeah. I mean, and it's one of those things. I have to admit, like, you know, this year, you know, we opened Bartuto last December, right? So this is our first fall with the restaurant being open and about a week or two ago, we were like, oh, well, it's fall. We have to start working on a pumpkin spice latte for the cafe counter.

• 1:42Adrienne Cheatham?

  Tutto has right, the cafe counter. Yeah.

• 1:45Joe Flamm?

  Right. So it's like, you know, we have a during the day coffee program, which is different than a night. You know what I mean? Like at El Karchow for a rosemary where people are mostly doing, you know, an espresso, maybe a cappuccino after dinner, if they have no regard for the laws of decent society. But you know, it's, we have a true coffee counter. So, you know, the first day it was kind of funny. I put one, I didn't put it up, but you know, one of my baristas, uh, you know, our head one, Joyce, she put up a pumpkin spice latte and I was trying it with my beverage director, Kyle, you know, it's been in the industry as long as both of us have and worked at some of the best bars. And we both took a sip of it. We both looked at each other and I said to him, I go, have you ever had a pumpkin spice latte before?

• 2:25Adrienne Cheatham?

  No way.

• 2:26Joe Flamm?

  And he was like, no. I was like, me neither.

• 2:29Adrienne Cheatham?

  Are you kidding me?

• 2:30Joe Flamm?

  I was like, so I don't even know what we're comparing this to. He goes, he goes, do I? I was like, is this what it's supposed to taste like? He's like, I don't know. So I went from never having had a pumpkin spice latte to then, over the next two days, we went on a mission of getting every pumpkin spice latte we could get our hands on.

• 2:48Adrienne Cheatham?

  How many did you try?

• 2:49Joe Flamm?

  I think we tried over a two day period. I wanted to say we were somewhere in the like 12 to 14 count in a mix of hot ice draft. Cause you, I mean, in the West Loop Fulton Market, you know what I mean? Like I'm sure like most neighborhoods in New York, there is one every other block.

• 3:05Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right. Yep.

• 3:06Joe Flamm?

  It was insane. We drank all these. We tried all these ones and we're like, okay. And then we went back to ours and we're like, okay, this is ours is really, really good. You know what I mean? Compared to, to, to the field. But so I went from, you know, zero to like 20 in a matter of a 48 hours wild pumpkin experience for myself.

• 3:25Adrienne Cheatham?

  I mean, Ed, it's a true sign of fall.

• 3:27Joe Flamm?

  It was fall AF, as you might say.

• 3:31Adrienne Cheatham?

  That is such an embodiment of a food trend that has really stuck around for a really long time. And this-

• 3:40Joe Flamm?

  And crazy. And nobody could have guessed that. Nobody would have bet like the futures market on the pumpkin spice. You know what I mean? Like there wasn't people at Wall Street. It was just like, this one's here for the long haul, boys. Hammer pumpkin spice futures.

• 3:52Adrienne Cheatham?

  The people at McCormick, like they really knew they hit on something back in like, I don't know, the 17, 1800s when they invented pumpkin spice blend. Like it's wild. And so, you know, we get to talking about these things. We love food trends and people love food trends. They're everywhere. And there are so many out there that have stuck around longer than we expected. There are ones that personally as a chef, I'm kind of glad the hype on them has died down. But there are a lot of food trends that we both agree everybody should try at least once and judge for themselves.

• 4:28Joe Flamm?

  All right. Well, I think though, I think we got to talk about the ones, the ones of yesteryear that we were happy to see go, that we were happy to, you know what I mean? Be, be a pallbearer at the funeral and throw, throw that last shovel of dirt at it. What falls in your big three of trends that you were like, don't let the door hit you?

• 4:44Adrienne Cheatham?

  Okay. So my first trend that I'm glad is dying off is hot honey.

• 4:50Joe Flamm?

  Oh, I like the hot honey.

• 4:52Adrienne Cheatham?

  I know you do. And I, I don't dislike it, but like, I like to put, okay. So I grew up eating Popeyes. So I would always peel off the skin of the chicken thigh, make a taco with some biscuit in it. And I would put some honey on the biscuit and a few dashes of hot sauce. So I can control the acidity from the hot sauce, how much hot sauce I'm in the mood for that day.

• 5:17Joe Flamm?

  So when they sent you to talk to a therapist about doing this, what did, what did the therapist say about you peeling the skin off of chickens to make biscuit boats?

• 5:25Adrienne Cheatham?

  I've really got to try that. That sounds amazing.

• 5:29Joe Flamm?

  Just, just, just checking in here.

• 5:30Adrienne Cheatham?

  And, and eight year old Adrian said, you don't know what you've been missing. But so I, I like the concept of hot honey, but I like those two things separate. So I'm glad that the trend of hot honey on everything, on pizza, on this, on that, drizzled over a burger, drizzled over a hot dog. Like I'm glad the hot honey trend is kind of dying down. Call me a hater. I'm sorry. I'm glad.

• 5:56Joe Flamm?

  See, I, I'm still a fan of that. I don't think like you need to buy like a pre-mixed hot honey, but I love the mix of like Calabrian chilies and honey. Like honey's like, you know what I mean? Such a huge sweetener in Italy, the single origin honeys basically, right? Where they were doing nomadic beekeeping and doing all these things. So like honey is huge, huge in Italy. So like that with like a spice from there. Like I still love, but I, I get where you're coming from there. I think that's, you know what I mean? That's an understandable one. I will say my, my counter volley to that, which I thought was a much more one, I never got on board. But remember when cupcakes went insane?

• 6:32Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh my God, yes.

• 6:33Joe Flamm?

  For this, like Magnolia Bakery. I remember my, my best friend from high school, he lived in New York after college and like him being like calling me and talking to me about like waiting in line at Magnolia Bakery to get like, you know, $22 cupcakes or whatever. It was like complete and total insanity. Everybody was going crazy for cupcakes, which is just like less good cake in a smaller version.

• 6:57Adrienne Cheatham?

  But that's why people liked it. So, I mean, don't get me wrong. Like I've always thought of cupcakes as the province of like, you're bringing something to school that you can hand one out to all your classmates instead of a cake, which has to be cut. So I love a cupcake. Don't get me wrong. I guess if I owned a bakery, I could see the ease of it because you're baking these individual things and selling them. You don't have to, the labor. I don't know.

• 7:23Joe Flamm?

  I understand why they sell them. I understand why they exist. I'm not saying I don't conceptually get cupcakes. I'm just saying I want a full cake. You know what I mean? Like, you know, I'm like, if we're, we're having cake, like let's have cake. Let's not, you know what I mean? Let's not fuck around. Like, yeah. Give me, give me full Midwestern ass cake.

• 7:41Adrienne Cheatham?

  I'm with you. I mean, I'm not fully on board with hating on the cupcake trend, but it's weird how restaurants or bakeries just popped up fully built around cupcakes. Okay. So in the vein of cupcakes, I have another one that I'm glad to see kind of dying out. That's similar, but different to the cupcake, the cake pop.

• 8:02Joe Flamm?

  I'm, this we align, my friend. To me, it's like weird. Like, you know, like sometimes like kids will like make you like food. They'll be like, oh, I want to like make you something. They just kind of mash stuff together and they're like, look, I made you like a salad and it's just like some cucumbers that they like punched with their hand and like mixed with like sink water, you know? And you're like, oh, this is so nice. And I feel like cake pops are like that, that somehow caught on. You know what I mean? It's like old cake that you mushed. And listen, I appreciate it from a waste perspective, but all the trimmings of the cake. You take it. Yeah. Conceptually, it makes sense to me. You squish those little fellas together. You know, you dip them in the chocolate, you throw them on a stick and you charge, you know, $11 at Starbucks for one.

• 8:42Adrienne Cheatham?

  And who doesn't love food on a stick? Like I'm here for corn dogs, kebabs. If you put it on a stick, I, you got me. You got me. But the cake pop, I don't know why. It's like, it's just too much frosting, I think for me.

• 8:55Joe Flamm?

  See, it's not the frosting thing for me. It's like a textural thing. Like the frosting on the outside is really hard. And then the center is like mushy, but it's also dry somehow. You know what I mean? It's just like, it's like a less good Hostess Swiss cake roll. Like the Swiss cake roll nailed it. You know what I mean? The little, like those, it's like they're dry. They're kind of dry, but they got the filling.

• 9:17Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah. The little Debbie.

• 9:19Joe Flamm?

  Right. They're crazy good for some reason. It doesn't make sense. Or like a zebra cake. And it's like, a cake pop is not as good as a zebra cake. And that's a hill I will die on forever. Give me a zebra cake.

• 9:30Adrienne Cheatham?

  What rabbit hole did we find ourselves in?

• 9:32Joe Flamm?

  Give me, give me a two pack of a zebra cake any day. Sell those at Starbucks and you can have my money.

• 9:45Adrienne Cheatham?

  So what's, what's your next trend that you're happy to see go?

• 9:49Joe Flamm?

  So getting back into, we're gonna do a little bit of fine dining.

• 9:53Adrienne Cheatham?

  Okay.

• 9:54Joe Flamm?

  And one that, I mean, in the early aughts of Top Chef especially, and I think when you and I were both coming up, the foam everything.

• 10:02Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, yeah.

• 10:03Joe Flamm?

  And not just from perspective of like, foams like, foams were cool, but it's like the worst vessel for flavor. You know what I mean? It's like, you know, it would make this flavor more concentrated, like aerating it. It's like, no, like it just makes it bubbles. We're just making bubbles.

• 10:19Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 10:20Joe Flamm?

  And also from like a line cook perspective of like, I'm sure you have, cause I know I have had to stand on that line with that hand mixer going

• 10:30Joe Flamm?

  and like waiting to get the foam and then scooping it up and just getting it on the plate and being like, all right, I need hands right now. I need this foam to go right now.

• 10:37Adrienne Cheatham?

  Cause that foam is gonna.

• 10:39Joe Flamm?

  It's gonna die and then you're trying to put six plates together and you got this foam melting over a fucking piece of Chilean sea bass. And you know, like that was one where it was like, it was so hot. You know what I mean? It was foam. I think it's, I think if you go back to the Top Chef, I want to say it's Marcel versus Alon. And it was like, their finale is like, every dish is foam. And I remember like watching it in real time. I was like, dude, that's so sick. Like, you know what I mean? These guys are magicians. And then it was like having to do it in a restaurant, having to try to plate foams on five dishes was the fucking worst. And then it was like, like flavor wise, it's like, it didn't taste like anything till it melted out of being a foam and was a sauce again.

• 11:20Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah. And it's weird because remember there was even the air pump that people would use. So it's that thin hose that would pump air and like keep flopping.

• 11:30Joe Flamm?

  It's for a fish.

• 11:31Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, it's a fish tank.

• 11:32Joe Flamm?

  It's an aquarium pump.

• 11:33Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 11:33Joe Flamm?

  They would have an aquarium pump so they could have, which is like.

• 11:36Adrienne Cheatham?

  And it would, it's like blowing bubbles through a straw into a glass of milk is essentially what you're trying to produce. And what we had to like, you're, you're always like, did I get the ratio wrong? Do I need to add another gram of soy lecithin? Like, what do I need to do to make this foam live? Because it would always die in service.

• 11:53Joe Flamm?

  Yes, that one, I was so happy to bury.

• 11:56Adrienne Cheatham?

  That was, that was, yeah.

• 11:58Joe Flamm?

  Every once in a while you see it, you know what I mean? It's like a white rhino out there. You go somewhere and you see a foam and you're like, oh shit, you guys are making foam?

• 12:05Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right, right. Sometimes it makes sense. Like if you're doing like a lobster bisque and it's got a little foamy top to it. Okay. You know, I could see that.

• 12:14Joe Flamm?

  That's okay.

• 12:15Adrienne Cheatham?

  But it's almost like a naturally occurring.

• 12:17Joe Flamm?

  Frothy, that's not a foam. You're not making lobster bisque for your like private client. And me like, hold on, let me make a cognac foam to like plate over the top of it right now. There's no way you're doing that. That would be bonkers.

• 12:30Adrienne Cheatham?

  No, no, I haven't, I haven't done foam in, in quite a while. Not a bit, not a bit. That's a good one. I remember when that like ruled the world. Okay, are you ready for, uh, for my last one?

• 12:42Joe Flamm?

  Give me the trifecta here.

• 12:43Adrienne Cheatham?

  I know you are going to lose it. And I'm sorry to everybody out there for the thing that I'm about to say. I apologize for what I'm about to say.

• 12:54Joe Flamm?

  You're gonna say it, you, you puff that chest out and you say it. Don't, don't backtrack before you say it.

• 12:59Adrienne Cheatham?

  I am glad that the trend of a meal on top of a Bloody Mary is starting to phase out in some places. Because it was getting too much. Like I don't need my Bloody Mary with a slider and a chicken wing and a piece of pork belly and five pickles and a celery stalk. It's like, if I wanted all that, I would order that as my dish. Like just give me the Bloody Mary.

• 13:27Joe Flamm?

  You couldn't be more wrong. Like the only reason I'm not like that, it's like you hate joy. Do you not like when the sun comes through the windows in the morning? Do you not like a cool breeze on a hot day? Like, do you not like the crisp smell of leaves in the air in the fall? Like what are you talking about? That is insane. It's the ultimate bonus. It's the ultimate upgrade. Like the Midwest. This is the backbone of our society is Bloody Marys with giant garnishes as big as we want. You know what I mean? That's what this is founded on.

• 14:01Adrienne Cheatham?

  I mean, look, okay, they had me when it was an okra pickle, uh, you know, a celery stick, a this and that. And then remember it was like, oh, you get a jumbo shrimp with your, on your skewer over the Bloody Mary. That was awesome. And then it just kept escalating. Like people were putting a whole fried chicken on top of a Bloody Mary.

• 14:21Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, that's what Scout said.

• 14:22Adrienne Cheatham?

  That's wild work. That's wild work.

• 14:24Joe Flamm?

  Listen, I have never had a beverage and had someone say, would you like a free little cheeseburger with this? And me thought, no, that would make me enjoy my existence less. Is someone just giving me a tiny little cheeseburger right now? I've not had that moment in my life and frankly, I don't want to. You know what I mean? I don't know if you just spent too much time in Europe now, where you're in the south of France and nobody's giving you a mini cheeseburger with your spritz.

• 14:50Adrienne Cheatham?

  That's, that's it. That's exactly what it is.

• 14:52Joe Flamm?

  And you know what I mean? You can't appreciate the simple beauty of life of having a whole fried chicken on top of a Bloody Mary and realizing that is a gift from the land, a bounty of the Midwest to have a Bloody Mary with a whole fried chicken on top.

• 15:07Adrienne Cheatham?

  I mean, they had me a shrimp cocktail. They lost me at whole fried chicken on top of it. And that's, that's just me. That is just me. But if I see it on a menu, I will likely try it because again, you know, I'm, I'm here to try all the trends. And then I think just sometimes they just go too overboard. But that's just me. Clearly I'm in the minority here, totally fine. What do you have next, Joe? What is your hateration on the trend?

• 15:33Joe Flamm?

  So I, I have one, uh, just because I saw several things about this lately and I kind of forgot about it. And I think it, again, this is going back to the early, early stages of our career. But when things were the crazy vertical plating, plating super high. And I think like.

• 15:52Adrienne Cheatham?

  Everything was a layered tower.

• 15:54Joe Flamm?

  Right, like cooks now, like I, I don't think that's even like, they realized that was a thing. You know, I, I, most of the cooks who work for me are probably in the range of, you know, 19 to 24. And so it's like, we were plating like this when, you know, they were being born and brought home from the hospital. But like, you know, when we started, it was the epitome of fine dining was like a weird game of fucking Jenga.

• 16:16Adrienne Cheatham?

  How high can you go?

• 16:17Joe Flamm?

  You know what I mean? The, you know, the, the, the higher the plate, the closer to God type shit, where it was insanity. And like these plateups would take forever and you'd stack it in it. And I mean, like.

• 16:28Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yep, you had to mix every component separately. It's like tuna tartare in this bowl, put it in avocado, then this component, then this component. You just keep stacking.

• 16:37Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, it was like a maniacal game of Lincoln Logs where none of the logs had grooves in them. And you're just stacking forever. And then you pull, you know, it always had like a chute or a ring mold or something. And then like one little thing fell out of place and you were getting torched.

• 16:51Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yep.

• 16:52Joe Flamm?

  By some chef, cause they were just like, oh, this is so sloppy. This, what are you doing? Blah, blah, blah, screaming at you.

• 16:57Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yep.

• 16:58Joe Flamm?

  And like, that was one where it was like, one of those old school fine dining things where it was like, it was such a weird like, like they made it hard on purpose.

• 17:08Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right, right.

• 17:08Joe Flamm?

  You know what I mean? Where you're just like, and I remember like doing an event with a chef who was very, very big in the nineties and early 2000s in Chicago. Had two Michelin star restaurant. And he had, they brought with them foil, like tubes that were rectangles. And they plated this hot fish dish in there for like a hundred and 50 people. And it was like eight of us chefs going around the table, having to like finger tap all these out and like, and then you hand them to a bunch of servers who are like walking out like.

• 17:37Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right, they immediately slide when they start moving.

• 17:40Joe Flamm?

  Leading tower of Pisa, like going to the dining room. And I like, I can kind of remember when it died too. It's like, cause I came from working for a very old school French chef. And everything had to be height, height, height. You know, they used to say use as small a handfuls as possible to plate the salad. So like each leaf, so it could just keep growing and growing and be so big. Cause it had to be so big. Cause that meant it was luxurious. And I remember I went to work at Girl and the Goat and like plating with Steph and I plated, she told me one time, just plate this how you think I want it. Would plate it. And I plated, you know, this tall ass, like the tallest thing I could fucking plate. Like I was a kid building a snowman in my front yard to show off to my friends by, you know, acumen.

• 18:23Joe Flamm?

  And I swear to God, she walked over, hit the table next to it as hard as she could, so that would all fall everywhere. And it was like, perfect.

• 18:31Adrienne Cheatham?

  And I was like, oh.

• 18:32Joe Flamm?

  I was like, this is so much better.

• 18:34Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, there was such a backlash to it, but it was such a big, vertical plating was such a big trend from the mid to late nineties into the early 2000s. I remember working at restaurants and on my station, having a six pan, a little metal, you know, metal container that's about eight inches tall with water and ring molds in it. And some dishes use one ring mold, some dishes you had to stack two ring molds on top of each other to get the desired height.

• 19:02Joe Flamm?

  Insanity. I'm so happy that's one's gone. I, you know what I mean? I'm not a big fan of the 20 touches on a dish anyways to begin with, but let alone when you have to build a diorama before the dish to go out to the dining room. Miss me with that one.

• 19:16Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 19:16Joe Flamm?

  I'm happy to see that. Goodbye, good riddance. You know, I hope to not see you again.

• 19:29Adrienne Cheatham?

  There are some trends that kind of died out, but they're starting to make a comeback, Joe. And I'm happy that some of them are making these comebacks because I feel like good things never really go out of style. So for me, one thing that I am so happy to see come back is the old school serving of martinis, where you put that little carafe in the ice and you pour a half a martini glass full and you give the rest of it on ice. And in that same vein, espresso martinis. I'm so glad they made a comeback.

• 20:07Joe Flamm?

  That's, I think espresso martinis, I think is one of the wildest comebacks. Like comeback player of the millennia.

• 20:16Adrienne Cheatham?

  That is, I mean, you can't go anywhere nowadays and not see an espresso martini on the menu, whether it's with mezcal, with vodka, with whatever liquor of choice. But there are espresso martinis are kind of like something you have to have. Like if you're a cafe, you have to have of seasonal latte. You have to have a pumpkin spice or pecan pie latte, right? And espresso martini is one of those things. But when I first moved to New York, gosh, 20 years ago, I was bartending when I went to culinary school and I would work all day, I would bartend at night. And I remember making copious amounts of espresso martinis. The espresso martinis nowadays are much more sophisticated and much more well done.

• 21:01Adrienne Cheatham?

  So I'm so glad they made a comeback and got this like really craftsmanship edge to them now. So I will definitely order an espresso martini after dinner.

• 21:11Joe Flamm?

  Yeah. And I think the cool thing is like the espresso going into it matters as much as like the booze going into it now, right? You know what I mean? It's such a balance of the two. And it's like, really, in my mind, like it's wild. Cause again, I worked in bars like that coming up too. And like, you know, when we opened Rosemary, my, my opening bartender was like, oh, we needed an espresso martini. And I was like, what? He's like, yeah, you can't open in the West Loop and not have an espresso martini. This was in 21 and I was like, really? I was like, people are gonna buy that? And he's like, yeah. And we have sold, you know, I mean, in five and a half years, a million frigging espresso martinis.

• 21:43Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, I've ordered them at Rosemary.

• 21:44Joe Flamm?

  Yeah. You know what I mean? And it's so, it's just crazy to me, but you know, I feel like it's like the sophisticated vodka Red Bull of this generation.

• 21:54Adrienne Cheatham?

  It is. It makes you feel a lot better about yourself.

• 21:56Joe Flamm?

  Red Bull generation turned 40 and was like, we can't keep doing this, but what we can do is espresso martinis.

• 22:02Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right. We'll do Celsius in the morning and espresso martinis at night.

• 22:05Joe Flamm?

  Right, right, right. Cause like drinking a double Grey Goose and Red Bull at, you know, and he'd be in a nice restaurant would be a wild call.

• 22:12Adrienne Cheatham?

  It would look very suspect. So what do you have, Joe? What are you happy to see coming back?

• 22:17Joe Flamm?

  Okay, this one's just starting to peek its head and I hope it comes back. And I don't know that it'll ever come back in its true glory, but there was a time around, I want to say 2007, so maybe 2010, where frozen yogurt was king.

• 22:32Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, yes.

• 22:33Joe Flamm?

  Frozen yogurt was king and it was the Pink Berries. It was, you know, the Yogen Freeze. There was, there was, they were everywhere. They were in every hip neighborhood in Chicago, in New York, in LA, everywhere you went and you'd walk in and there'd be 20 kinds of frozen yogurt.

• 22:50Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right, right. 16 handles.

• 22:51Joe Flamm?

  And you paid by like the weight, you know what I mean? Like you think, you just fill a thing and they did weigh it at the end.

• 22:57Adrienne Cheatham?

  Do you remember the predecessor to Pinkberry? TCBY, the country's best yogurt.

• 23:02Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, but that wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't.

• 23:05Adrienne Cheatham?

  I mean.

• 23:06Joe Flamm?

  It was, that was not.

• 23:09Adrienne Cheatham?

  TCBY, we used to go to TCBY at least three times a month.

• 23:13Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, but that was just a yogurt shop. They didn't have the 20 kinds. They didn't have the toppings bars. They didn't have.

• 23:19Adrienne Cheatham?

  They did have toppings bars, I promise.

• 23:21Joe Flamm?

  This, I promise you.

• 23:22Adrienne Cheatham?

  Okay.

• 23:23Joe Flamm?

  You know what I mean? It was like they had everything, every cereal, every candy, every sprinkle, anything you could want. You can mix 100 flavors, you know what I mean? It was borderline molecular gastronomy type shit. And it was electric and they were open late. You could go, like they were open till like midnight. I remember like, I remember going to a fets with my chef and like Art Smith taking us all up for frozen yogurt after a charity event at like 11 o'clock at night to go to a Pinkberry. Cause he was like, we've been to a Pinkberry, Jaws of, and I was like, no. And it was awesome. And you know, it was expensive for frozen yogurt, but it was also like, as a line cook, we didn't make very much money.

• 24:04Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right.

• 24:05Joe Flamm?

  It was like a super low key, awesome like date spot where you could be like, oh yeah, we should go out, we can go to get like frozen yogurt. And like, it was a very, very reasonable, but like cool, you know what I mean? It was interactive.

• 24:20Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 24:21Joe Flamm?

  And you're like, you know, like, oh yeah, like I'm a chef, I mix flavors. Uh, you know what I mean? Like textural is really good. Say some shit like that. So it sounded like, you know what I mean? You weren't a shitty little line cook.

• 24:30Adrienne Cheatham?

  The acidity of the strawberry frozen yogurt with the creaminess of the vanilla.

• 24:35Joe Flamm?

  Right. Ask questions like, well, I wonder where these raspberries are from? Um, you know, so it's like, I'm seeing Froyo make a comeback and I'm super here for it.

• 24:43Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, I've seen some shops popping up around New York and I can't lie, every time I pass one, I'm like, do I have lactate on me? I might stop in.

• 24:51Joe Flamm?

  All right. What's your, what's your, what's your number two?

• 24:54Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, so speaking of the dairy, uh, that's a trend that was huge in the late eighties. I mean, I guess it started in the seventies, so we're reaching back a little bit farther. But there was a trend that persisted from the seventies into the nineties and then kind of died out, but I've seen it starting to make a comeback. And that is the fondue restaurant or fondue in general. I loved fondue as a kid. My mom took my sister and I both for our 16th birthdays separately. It was like, you're growing up, it's time for you to eat at like a fancy, fun restaurant. And so like, there was a restaurant in Chicago called Gay House and it was right near where the Ben and Jerry's shop is. Oh, I love that.

• 25:40Adrienne Cheatham?

  And I remember waiting like, oh my God, I'm gonna be 16 in a month. Is mommy gonna take me to Gay House so I can have fondue? And it was like so cool and fancy. And I got to like, I felt so sophisticated because you're trying to like not make a mess and be a slob, but you're also in this beautiful environment and I loved it. It's interactive, it's fun. It's kind of like the cheesy version of like Korean barbecue, right? It's like you get to cook at your table.

• 26:06Joe Flamm?

  Cheesy hot pot.

• 26:08Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, exactly. And they, they had the cheese course, but then they also had like a vat of hot oil, which I don't know how safe this is, but you cook your proteins in the hot oil at the table too. So it wasn't just cheese.

• 26:21Joe Flamm?

  How are you claiming this is making a comeback? Where, where, where in the Brooklyn world are fondue restaurants popping up right now that we're not hearing about?

• 26:29Adrienne Cheatham?

  I've seen, maybe it's more of like videos of people doing fondue again.

• 26:35Joe Flamm?

  Okay.

• 26:36Adrienne Cheatham?

  And I've seen fondue sets on sale at like Williams Sonoma and some of these other home goods stores, which I didn't see for the past like 10 years, right? I didn't see fondue sets, but I'm starting to see fondue sets. I'm starting to see cooking videos. So I'm hoping that that will create the bubbling.

• 26:54Joe Flamm?

  I, I, I'm here for you longing for that, but I don't think that that melty cheese pot is bubbling over into that trend coming back.

• 27:03Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, and you know what? When you go to like, um, I was doing an event at Aspen Food and Wine and I was out in Colorado for work before and you see fondue at a lot of places where there's ski culture. So in Europe, yes, it's a staple. It's not a trend. That's something that happens all year, but in the US, it kind of comes and goes. But in places where there's really cold weather and skiing, I feel like I'm starting to see it there again. What do you have next? What's your next, uh, trend you're happy to see come back?

• 27:35Joe Flamm?

  So this one isn't coming, I mean, you're seeing a little bit of it, but it's not coming back and I wish it would come back. I think this is more of one for me where, you know, the early 2000s where, and I got out of hand, I'll be the first to admit it, when like the boutique hot dogs went bananas, the hot dog era in Chicago.

• 27:56Adrienne Cheatham?

  Every bar had to have a hot dog.

• 27:57Joe Flamm?

  Everybody knew, knew, knew hot dog. They had the foie gras dog. They had alligator dogs. They had rattlesnake dogs. And there would be a line forever to go get hot dogs at this place where they had all these crazy hot dogs. And it was like.

• 28:11Adrienne Cheatham?

  Was that Hot Doug's in Chicago?

• 28:12Joe Flamm?

  Hot Doug's, yeah, it was Hot Doug's, Doug's home.

• 28:14Adrienne Cheatham?

  I definitely went there on a couple of visits. Yeah.

• 28:16Joe Flamm?

  It was legendary, legendary place. And there were all these spinoffs of it that came up from it, you know, all around Chicago, where it's like demon dogs at different places where they were trying to do, you know, like, uh, you know, when Daniel Hummel, they had the Nomad, they had a foie dog, they had a foie dog at the Nomad and the library. I think it was $36 and it was like this big, but like.

• 28:37Adrienne Cheatham?

  And there, there have been versions with truffle on it and all kinds of stuff. And even in New York, the trend reached New York, every bar, like hipster bar at the time had, we've got these artisanal hot dogs on the menu and we make our house made toppings, our onion compote and our homemade relish. And yeah, that was huge.

• 28:56Joe Flamm?

  It was huge. It was such a thing. Uh, it was one I thought would stay. You know what I mean? I'm like, who doesn't love hot dogs forever? And I feel like hot dogs are starting to have their moment in the sun again. I feel like people are finally respecting, you know what I mean? Like the workhorse that is the hot dog.

• 29:12Adrienne Cheatham?

  The glizzy is getting the respect.

• 29:14Joe Flamm?

  You know, and I just, I'm so here for it. I want to see it return to, you know, the glory we saw it was. And I just, you know, it's kind of one of those things, like we saw, we saw the peak of the mountain top and I want to go back.

• 29:35Adrienne Cheatham?

  I have another trend that I again have seen popping up on tons of menus recently. I've seen it coming up on restaurant menus, but I've also seen it coming up on social media and in food magazines, ranch dressing, fancy ranch dressing.

• 29:52Joe Flamm?

  What do you mean coming up?

• 29:52Adrienne Cheatham?

  I mean, it got hated on.

• 29:54Joe Flamm?

  Ranch never left.

• 29:55Adrienne Cheatham?

  It never fully left, right? Like, people love-

• 29:58Joe Flamm?

  You just left the Midwest, ranch never left.

• 30:00Adrienne Cheatham?

  No, no, no, no, no, no, no. People love to hate on ranch and call it lowbrow. And so there have always been, people always have ranch at home. You know, I have my, my dry ranch packet that I keep with me at all times. But restaurants, seeing them on restaurant menus was not like in vogue. People were like, ew, ranch, but then quietly have some at home. And now I'm starting to see it like get the chef treatment or people just openly embracing their love of ranch and not feeling ashamed to admit that ranch is phenomenal. It's one of the greatest condiments ever.

• 30:36Joe Flamm?

  Listen, I'm not, I'm not a big ranch person, but I think the claim that ranch was ever gone is crazy.

• 30:42Adrienne Cheatham?

  Do you not like rainbows or puppies either?

• 30:44Joe Flamm?

  I, I am a rainbow and puppy fan. You know, both of these things to be true.

• 30:48Adrienne Cheatham?

  But I remember when I wrote my cookbook and this was, it published in 23. So I started working on it in 21. And I remember I had, because I have like a sauce chapter of workhorse sauces you can keep in the fridge for a week, use on a ton of things. And I have a buttermilk ranch recipe. And I remember when we submitted the manuscript and the publisher's like, ranch? Really? I'm like, oh, this is not coming out. I had to fight for ranch to stay in my cookbook and I love that recipe. I've been making it for years. That's the ranch that I made for Aretha Franklin when she used to come to the Burna Den every year for her birthday. And that was like, I fricking love ranch because Aretha Franklin would come to the Burna Den every year on her birthday.

• 31:32Adrienne Cheatham?

  She was doing a show at Radio City and her first course was always off menu. She wasn't eating like raw fish or the salad or whatever we had. She was like, I want a grated carrot salad with raisins and ranch. And guess who got to make it every year?

• 31:49Joe Flamm?

  That's wild.

• 31:50Adrienne Cheatham?

  Me. And the first year my chef was like, Adrian, I need you to step offline and make ranch. I was like, people make ranch? Like, do you have a Hidden Valley packet on you chef? Like, I don't know how to make ranch. So I literally had to run, one person in the, in the kitchen had a smartphone. And this was like when Ask Jeeves was still a thing. So this is how long ago it was. Google wasn't even around yet. I had to run to the person in pastry who had a smartphone and say, chef, can you look up what goes into ranch?

• 32:19Joe Flamm?

  Can I borrow your BlackBerry real quick?

• 32:22Adrienne Cheatham?

  And that is how I found out the ingredients to make ranch. And ever since then, I've loved it. But that's my, that's my rant on ranch.

• 32:29Joe Flamm?

  So one, I think that is like going like, I think this is over like the last three years. You know, obviously it's been a trend in France forever, but like steak frites, I feel like is like on a comeback trail, like nobody's business.

• 32:43Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 32:44Joe Flamm?

  And I was never the biggest steak frites person. Then I remember when he'll turn 30, I took it to Paris for her birthday. We went to Paris. It was my first time there and we went to a really famous steak frites place. And it was all they did was steak frites. And you sit down at the table and they come over, they ask you what you want and they just write it on the tablecloth and it would come over. And somebody had told us before we went, they give us a little heads up. They're like, they'll bring you steak frites, but when you eat your first plate of steak frites, if you wait, they'll come around and ask you if you want another one and you can have another plate of steak.

• 33:15Adrienne Cheatham?

  What?

• 33:16Joe Flamm?

  And so you get a double steak frites and it was awesome. And it was so good. And it was a high I chased for years. Every time I saw an au poivre on a menu, every time I saw steak frites.

• 33:25Adrienne Cheatham?

  Was it smothered in au poivre sauce?

• 33:27Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, just buried. You know what I mean? And I feel like now you're seeing it just everywhere. I've seen like, you know, hipster bars in Brooklands where they're doing the mini steak frites and like the little like, you know, like the real red and white like checkered boats.

• 33:42Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yep, yep.

• 33:43Joe Flamm?

  You know what I mean? For like 20 bucks and I love that.

• 33:46Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 33:47Joe Flamm?

  You know, the Le Bouchon in Chicago does a super classic one. It is one of my favorite things and like seeing it like in so many places now. We do one at Bartuto that we always run the menu that I love and is killer that I'm super, super here for.

• 34:03Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 34:04Joe Flamm?

  For steak frites. You know what I mean? Steak frites everywhere.

• 34:07Adrienne Cheatham?

  I'm here to try it everywhere I go. And I think it kind of came back with the rise of like the Neo Bistro or Brasserie. Like, you know, in New York, it was kind of led by like Lee Hansen and Riyad Nassar. They won the James Beard Award for Outstanding Restaurateur a few years ago. They brought back the Bistro Brasserie classics. And to me, the new wave of Bistro Brasserie, I've been to one in Chicago.

• 34:31Joe Flamm?

  Obalix.

• 34:32Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yes.

• 34:33Joe Flamm?

  That's from the Le Bouchon guys.

• 34:34Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yep. Like those, to me, these chefs now doing these classics like steak frites, they're doing them better than the ones that I usually have in France when I go from work.

• 34:53Joe Flamm?

  All right, Age, one last thing before we hit the road. We're bringing in my friend, your friend, producer Jordan.

• 34:59Adrienne Cheatham?

  Hey, Jordan.

• 35:00Joe Flamm?

  Hopping on the screen with us and we're going to do a little teasy and beasy, a little turn and burn where she's going to run us through a few trends that didn't make the list. These are quick responses, Adrian.

• 35:10Adrienne Cheatham?

  Okay, okay.

• 35:11Joe Flamm?

  Cause sometimes.

• 35:12Adrienne Cheatham?

  I'll keep it, I'll keep it short.

• 35:15Joe Flamm?

  Quick responses, all right?

• 35:18Speaker 02

  We gotta hear the why, though.

• 35:20Adrienne Cheatham?

  Gotta hear the why.

• 35:21Joe Flamm?

  Quick whys, quick whys.

• 35:22Speaker 02

  Listeners want to hear the why.

• 35:23Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 35:24Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 35:25Joe Flamm?

  All right. Jordan, take us away.

• 35:27Speaker 02

  Our first one is kombucha and we'll start with you, Joe.

• 35:31Joe Flamm?

  Oh, I'm a boucha boy. Uh, I was here for the kombucha tread hard. I feel like it got me through a lot of services. I didn't think I was going to survive in the early 2010s where it's like a rough night out and a gingerade kombucha and you felt like you could take on the damn world. So did it, you know, jump the shark a little bit, get a little crazy? Did I have to hear about a bunch of like weird hipster dudes at parties talk to me about how they're making their own in their apartment? Yes. Am I glad I don't have to hear that anymore? Absolutely. But you know what? I was a boucha boy.

• 36:02Speaker 02

  What about you, Adrian?

• 36:03Adrienne Cheatham?

  No, no, I was never a fan of kombucha. I did try it in fairness. I didn't just hate on it without trying it. I tried it. I didn't like the flavor. Maybe it was the one that I tried, but if I had to drink something that tastes like foot with fruit, I can get my probiotics another way. I love kimchi. I love all manner of fermented things, but between the flavor of dirty foot and hearing people talk about my Scooby and I'm doing, you know, I was like, I'm done. No kombucha for me. Please, please take it away.

• 36:36Speaker 02

  Tell us how you really feel.

• 36:39Speaker 02

  Uh, all right. The next one, this is one that has come up and has become quite popular, making quite a comeback is the cottage cheese. And Adrian, we'll start with you.

• 36:47Adrienne Cheatham?

  I love it. Again, I, there is not enough lactate in the world for me to be able to enjoy a bowl of cottage cheese, but back in my day I would crush. I love it. It's a good source of protein. I love it. I think that's a good one to come back.

• 37:03Joe Flamm?

  I gotta be honest, I've never tried cottage cheese.

• 37:10Adrienne Cheatham?

  Joseph.

• 37:10Joe Flamm?

  Never, I've never had. So when I was a kid, we used to go out to breakfast. My older sister would only order cottage cheese and peaches from like diners, nonstop my whole childhood. So it's like, I just, I hated it. I hated that she ordered it. She never ordered anything different. She ordered the same thing every time, but it'd always be a fight. My dad or my, you know, my mom or my uncle, whoever we were with, being like, order something else, try something else. She's like, no, I only want cottage cheese and peaches.

• 37:36Adrienne Cheatham?

  How old was she?

• 37:37Joe Flamm?

  I don't know. The whole, like from seven to 17, like just eat cottage cheese and peaches. And it's not like, they were like fresh, local peaches. It was a can of peaches.

• 37:47Adrienne Cheatham?

  Absolutely.

• 37:48Joe Flamm?

  Cottage cheese on a plate. And it just like always grossed me out. I just got to a point where I hadn't tried it and I've just never tried it. I've never had cottage cheese.

• 37:56Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, you're crazy. I think you'd really enjoy it.

• 37:59Joe Flamm?

  I don't know.

• 38:00Speaker 02

  Sounds like we have our next fork it or forget it.

• 38:03Joe Flamm?

  Not here for it. I don't know why, but it's just like, I look at it, I'm like, oof.

• 38:07Speaker 02

  All right. This is one that I know some of us have also not tried, looking at you, Sean, our fellow producer, is the Dubai chocolate.

• 38:18Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, yeah. Yep. It's a good one. It's the texture. I, I think it's delicious. Why not?

• 38:27Joe Flamm?

  I haven't tried it. I've not had Dubai chocolate. I, I just, and I'm a, I love chocolate. I, I just like, just like, I felt like everyone was like, this is such a-

• 38:36Adrienne Cheatham?

  People don't bring these things to the restaurant for everybody to try?

• 38:39Joe Flamm?

  No, nobody's rolling it with the chocolates. They bring like 20 packs of gushers and like, you know what I mean? Like Sour Patch Kids and pizza rolls and you know, normal stuff, not Dubai chocolate. You know, a case of Modelo, like, you know, it's like reasonable things. Fruit by the foot.

• 38:56Adrienne Cheatham?

  I have, okay, I'm done. I'm done with you. I'm done with you. It's delicious. The texture is great. You get that contrast with the creamy pistachio and the cattai fi inside.

• 39:06Joe Flamm?

  Interested in trying that than cottage cheese.

• 39:11Adrienne Cheatham?

  I think you would like it.

• 39:12Joe Flamm?

  I'm not avoiding Dubai chocolate. I just haven't tried it. It just hasn't come up.

• 39:15Speaker 02

  Adrian and I will bring it the next time we're at Rosemary.

• 39:18Joe Flamm?

  All right.

• 39:19Speaker 02

  All right. Uh, this one's a little bit of a throwback and I'm, I'm curious to hear what you guys think. Uh, sun dried tomatoes.

• 39:26Joe Flamm?

  I love them. I think it's like, it's, it's a misuse, misunderstood ingredient, but like, man, they're really good. When especially like you buy good ones, they're really, really good, really delicious, packed so much fire. I love, but yes, it was like, like sun dried tomato, everything for a while. It's like all you saw, sun dried tomato pesto, it's a dried tomato this. But yeah, I love a sun dried tomato.

• 39:48Adrienne Cheatham?

  I agree for once. I actually agree with Joe. Um, that's, they are, they're good and people hate on them now, like, like, kind of like I was hating on truffle oil. So I'm guilty of, um, hating on truffle oil. So I'm sorry, I'm not here to yuck anybody's yum, but I think sun dried tomatoes are unfairly maligned and I love good sun dried tomatoes.

• 40:10Joe Flamm?

  Good ones packed in olive oil?

• 40:11Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yes. Oh, you can drizzle that oil over things, chop them up, leave them whole.

• 40:17Joe Flamm?

  Great. Let's go.

• 40:18Adrienne Cheatham?

  Great.

• 40:19Speaker 02

  This might be something you put sun dried tomatoes on and certainly last but not least, avocado toast.

• 40:27Adrienne Cheatham?

  Again, I don't know how Joe feels about it, but anything that's blown up so big is kind of like, why, how did this get so popular? But it's good. You know, I love some avocado on some toast. It's essentially just a tartine. And I, I don't know. I don't know how it got so big, but maybe it got big because it's good and people enjoy it. I love an avocado toast with smoked salmon and a poached egg. Like, why not? Give me some radish for some texture and crunch. I, I think it's delicious. So people can hate on it because it got so popular, but it's, it got popular for a reason.

• 41:04Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, it just got overdone for me. I just can't do it anymore. You know what I mean? I liked it. I, I've eaten a ton of avocado toast and now just at this point, I'm like, oh my God, I can't eat one more mushy piece of avocado on a piece of bread. I just can't do it. I'm done with it. If you want it, it's great. I'll make it for you. I make it for my kids. They like avocado toast. So guess what? I make avocado toast. Probably, you know what I mean? Probably made it three times this month, but you know, when I make them avocado toast, I'm a hundred percent making myself something else.

• 41:33Adrienne Cheatham?

  You're a hater. You're just a hater, Joe, and that's fine. That's fine. We're friends anyway.

• 41:37Joe Flamm?

  I'm still producing avocado toast. I'm still making it. I'm giving the people what they want. I just don't want it. I'm not yucking their yum. I'm not like yelling at my children like you can't have avocado toast out this house where you live under my roof. It's my rules, no avocado toast.

• 41:53Adrienne Cheatham?

  Good. I'm glad you're not enforcing your, your views on the younger generation.

• 41:58Joe Flamm?

  Yeah.

• 41:59Adrienne Cheatham?

  Great list, Jordan.

• 42:00Joe Flamm?

  Kill the turn and burn. Thanks for hopping in with us, Age. Always a pleasure arguing with you about food over the internet from about 2,000 miles away. Jordan, I'm glad you could hop in and be a part of the fray today. Till next week, Agey.

• 42:13Adrienne Cheatham?

  See you, guys.

• 42:18Adrienne Cheatham?

  That's it for this episode of The Chef's Cut. Head to the comments to let us know your thoughts on the pumpkin spice boom and tell us what your favorite food trends are. And don't forget to subscribe on YouTube and follow us on IG. For Joe Flamm, I'm Adrian Cheatham and this has been The Chef's Cut, life beyond the past.