The Ultimate Steak Cuts, Viral Fishy-Marshmallow Treats, and Buying Silence to Save your Job!!

With Joe’s latest restaurant opening in Chicago, Adrienne gets all the secrets on how he sources ingredients for his kitchens. How do you balance getting local ingredients with sourcing from major suppliers? Plus, we discuss: Fork It or Forget It: Goldfish Cracker Rice Krispie Treats Ice Cream Debates: Ranking the best flavors (including mint chip and Gold Medal Ribbon) Whole eggs or just egg yolks: which makes for the better pasta? How chefs work alongside suppliers to make sure they’re successful too Walk In Confession: Adrienne’s driving mishap that nearly cost her job at Le Bernardin 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.

• 0:02Adrienne Cheatham?

  This week on the chef's cut, we are talking about the best cut of steak.

• 0:06Joe Flamm?

  You take me to Peter Luger's for lunch. I'm going porterhouse all day, every day.

• 0:11Adrienne Cheatham?

  Fork it or forget it, goldfish cracker rice crispy treats. I actually made them. What chefs look for when sourcing ingredients.

• 0:20Joe Flamm?

  Tom Colicchio always says that thing of like, everything's farm to table. All food's grown on a farm.

• 0:23Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right. What type of farm? And a walk-in confession that nearly cost me my job at La Bernardin. I paid everybody straight cash. Full-length video of the chef's cut is now available on YouTube and Spotify, so be sure to hit subscribe right now so you don't miss an episode. So Joe, I was at Carbone recently for an influencer event and it really got me thinking about our conversation about steak houses. And I don't think we ever revisited the results of the poll. And to my surprise, as much as I thought porterhouse would be a favorite because you get a little bit of each cut. You get the filet, you get the strip. No. You know what the winner was?

• 1:06Joe Flamm?

  I have a good idea.

• 1:08Adrienne Cheatham?

  It was your ribeye. A hundred percent.

• 1:12Joe Flamm?

  I will say though, when I do come to New York, you take me to Peter Luger's for lunch. I'm going porterhouse all day, every day. Porterhouse, the burger at Luger for lunch.

• 1:23Adrienne Cheatham?

  And a baked potato, just saying.

• 1:25Joe Flamm?

  I'm not getting a baked potato. All right. I'm going to tell you what an old man you are with this baked potato. I got a lot of comments on how you were. I was at, I went to watch a Bears game at a bar in Florida one time. And I was by myself and this old guy walked in who had to be 70 years old that they knew. Like walked in, it was like, oh, hey, sweethearts, like, how we doing? And when he sat down, he had like two beers and then the one lady goes, she's like, Bob, are you ready? Are you ready for your potato yet? And he was like, no, not yet. Not yet, honey. Had like two more beers and he's like, I'm ready now. And then they brought about a baked potato. This dude just ate a baked potato while he had like seven beers watching the game. And it was like the ultimate old man move. And that's you.

• 2:04Adrienne Cheatham?

  I want to be like him when I grow up.

• 2:06Joe Flamm?

  That's going to be you in Florida, just having a baked potato and nine Miller Lights watching the Bears.

• 2:11Adrienne Cheatham?

  That actually sounds like a perfect Sunday. Can I just say that that man is like my idol?

• 2:16Joe Flamm?

  He was living life.

• 2:17Adrienne Cheatham?

  He was living his best life, I might say.

• 2:21Adrienne Cheatham?

  Well, Joe, we've been talking about our favorites, our go-tos when it comes to certain things that city to city, you know, you can get at this certain type of restaurant. And I grew up across the street from an ice cream shop. It was the Baskin Robbins in Hyde Park that actually Barack Obama and Michelle went on their first date to. Everybody knew me, I would go in like twice a day. So I have just built into my life, ice cream. I'm an ice cream fiend and have been since I was a kid. But what is your go-to ice cream?

• 2:58Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, so I'm a, I'm an ice cream nut too. I love gelato. We serve it at all the restaurants, obviously. It's like, I probably eat it almost every day. Like I go in, I'm like, tell, I'll taste it today. My favorite flavor though, by far, and it's a polarizing flavor. I'm gonna say this right now, cuz it is one of those ones that is love it or hate it. And I love it. Mint chocolate chip, bright green. The chips in there, the real like stracciatella chips, like, oh, that to me is as good as it gets. A good mint chocolate chip, I think, is pretty close to heaven right there, age. And I know it's an unpopular one.

• 3:38Adrienne Cheatham?

  It's, it is very polarizing.

• 3:40Joe Flamm?

  The people who love it, love it.

• 3:42Adrienne Cheatham?

  Love it.

• 3:42Joe Flamm?

  But like Shamrock Shake season is seasonal for a reason. You know what I mean? You can't have it all the time.

• 3:48Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right.

• 3:49Joe Flamm?

  But, but I'm, but I'm about it. The mint chocolate chip, I think, is, is the best.

• 3:53Adrienne Cheatham?

  That is actually my mom's favorite. She would eat that, she wouldn't deviate. She would maybe have a bite to try another flavor here and there, but she's like, nope, one or maybe two scoops of mint chocolate chip, that was her jam. But I didn't like it growing up. I've grown to like it now, but I don't like to chew things in my ice cream. I don't like-

• 4:13Joe Flamm?

  I love texture.

• 4:14Adrienne Cheatham?

  I hate that. Like, I like texture, but not like, my teeth were always sensitive, so I don't like to have to bite down on something to chew it in ice cream. That's where I draw the line. And so my favorite flavor, growing up, to this day, hands down, and it's specific to Baskin Robbins, I have to say, gold metal ribbon. It is a basket.

• 4:39Joe Flamm?

  Is that the chocolate caramel one?

• 4:41Adrienne Cheatham?

  It's vanilla and chocolate and it has a soft caramel ribbon. So no matter how cold the ice cream is, the caramel is like, uh, it's like luscious and you just feel it like coat your palate and then, oh, it's just like, oh, it's like liquid gold in the center of this ice cream. So it's like, yeah, the best of all worlds.

• 5:02Joe Flamm?

  But listen, I'm with that. I love chocolate and caramel in my ice cream. You know what I mean? But I do love the texture. I love when they do it with it's like the chunks of chocolate in there or like instead of like moose tracks where they put the tiny little like peanut butter cups in there.

• 5:17Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 5:19Joe Flamm?

  Forget.

• 5:19Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah. Yeah. I also like lemon sorbet is like another go to of mine. Like there's something about like crisp cooling sorbets that, oh, man.

• 5:29Joe Flamm?

  Oh, yeah.

• 5:30Adrienne Cheatham?

  Summer.

• 5:30Joe Flamm?

  Yeah. Oh, no, we do like a melon sorbet over the summer and it is like, I mean, it's like, it's like jumping into cold water. It feels so good.

• 5:40Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right? Oh, that's so nice. It's great to like, get to know these things about you, Joe. So if we ever go out to ice cream and you're running late, I can place your order for you.

• 5:48Joe Flamm?

  Yeah. Get the mint chocolate chip. I'll be there.

• 5:53Adrienne Cheatham?

  Joe, why don't we take it into fork it or forget it?

• 5:57Joe Flamm?

  What do you got for me today, Edge?

• 5:59Adrienne Cheatham?

  So now that I am back from the road, I'm at home. I have my kitchen, have my cooking utensils and everything. I thought it would be fun to do a fork it or forget it in the style of show and tell.

• 6:15Joe Flamm?

  I love this.

• 6:16Adrienne Cheatham?

  Okay, so have you seen, there is this thing that I'm really not excited to try this, but this woman is making Rice Krispie treats with goldfish crackers.

• 6:30Joe Flamm?

  I have seen this. I have.

• 6:33Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yes.

• 6:34Joe Flamm?

  And I'm interested is what I will say, because here's the thing, I grew up in a Rice Krispie treats household. My mom is well known for her Rice Krispie treats. You know, when I go visit a cousin in college or something, she would make Rice Krispie treats and, you know, shove them in a giant gallon Ziploc bag and like send them down, you know? And so I have not tried them, but I've seen them. But this is my weird thing about it.

• 6:58Adrienne Cheatham?

  What?

• 6:59Joe Flamm?

  When I saw it, at least, I don't know where you saw it. The woman was using them for a charcuterie board, I believe.

• 7:04Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yes, right?

• 7:07Adrienne Cheatham?

  I don't know how I feel about that on a charcuterie board and her logic was that it's like eating cheddar with like a dried figure with honey. I don't eat cheddar with honey. Like I put honey or something sweet on like a creamy, I don't know, or like a blue cheese, but I was just like, I don't know, but I'm curious since I'm at home.

• 7:29Joe Flamm?

  Did you, did you make some?

• 7:31Adrienne Cheatham?

  Are you ready, Joe?

• 7:32Joe Flamm?

  Oh, hell yeah.

• 7:33Adrienne Cheatham?

  Okay. Goldfish cracker Rice Krispie treats. I actually made them.

• 7:41Adrienne Cheatham?

  It's essentially the recipe is two bags of goldfish crackers.

• 7:46Joe Flamm?

  Yeah.

• 7:46Adrienne Cheatham?

  A whole bag of marshmallows and a stick of butter.

• 7:50Joe Flamm?

  Butter or margarine?

• 7:51Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, butter. I mean, because I have to have something that's not processed.

• 7:55Joe Flamm?

  Right, but I, I think like traditionally, I'm not trying to be in a Scoffier buff or here or anything, but I believe in Robuchon's book, he makes it with margarine.

• 8:08Joe Flamm?

  I could be wrong.

• 8:09Adrienne Cheatham?

  I don't know. I feel like in the Escoffier book, it called for pure butter, but I could be wrong.

• 8:13Joe Flamm?

  It might have, but that might have been before the invention of margarine. All right. Are you taking this? Have you tried them yet? Or is this your first?

• 8:21Joe Flamm?

  What do you think? Texturally, it's got to be good. It's got to be similar to a Rice Krispie treat. But I mean, the Rice Krispies really now, even when you have like the Golden Graham ones, you know what I mean? People make sometimes or I've seen them with Cocoa Puffs. The texture is not quite right. It's just a little bit different. It's a little bit off. It's not as good as the Rice Krispies because I feel like the Rice Krispies where the other stuff, when you put the heat to it of the marshmallows and the butter, they get a little bit soft and they almost get like kind of a stale quality to it. Where the Rice Krispie treats almost get like crunchier. They get like supple and crunchy and they have that chew to them that's really great. And I don't think anything else mimics that. So I'm curious, like my

• 9:02Joe Flamm?

  number one question be, would be, how do the goldfish hold up? I mean, you went back in for more.

• 9:08Adrienne Cheatham?

  Can you hear? I have, it's research. I have to go.

• 9:12Joe Flamm?

  You went back in for another bite, so.

• 9:14Adrienne Cheatham?

  It's not disgusting.

• 9:18Adrienne Cheatham?

  I don't know if I hadn't made such a big batch of them. I'm all in now. I mean, I've committed. I made a whole batch in an eight by eight pan.

• 9:30Joe Flamm?

  Yeah.

• 9:30Adrienne Cheatham?

  I can't throw them away. I can't throw food away. It's like against my, my DNA, but I can't, I have to say like, it's weird because it starts off with marshmallow and you're like, oh, this is familiar. And you get the texture, the crunch, because the goldfish are staying very crispy. There's no liquid in it to make them soggy. It's all fat and sugar. So once that coats the Rice Krispie Treats or the Goldfish Crackers, it like seals in that crispness. It's kind of like if you put egg wash on a tart shell after you bake it, before you put the filling in, and it just seals it so it stays crispy.

• 10:08Adrienne Cheatham?

  Same principle here. You're locking out the moisture. So they're staying super crispy, but once that cheddar flavor starts to break through the marshmallow, it's just kind of like weird.

• 10:20Joe Flamm?

  Cheddar is a generous descriptor for that flavor as well. Not the dog, not the dog, the great people at Pepperidge Farm. I love the Goldfish Cracker. But like cheddar and that flavor are like.

• 10:33Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, it's like cheddar and marshmallow. I don't know. I mean, it's, it's an interesting concept. I would try it with something else, not with Goldfish Crackers, but it's an interesting concept, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna have to forget this one.

• 10:47Joe Flamm?

  Yeah. Yeah. Maybe Steven will like them.

• 10:49Adrienne Cheatham?

  Ah, no, he won't. I can, I can tell you that he will absolutely not.

• 10:57Joe Flamm?

  You know, we were talking a little bit about getting the line checked today and we were kind of going back to, we had that awesome conversation with Dan Barber, right?

• 11:04Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yes.

• 11:05Joe Flamm?

  And it was incredible. Just the depth of, you know, getting into farm to table and a lot of those things. And I feel like I've seen so many things lately, talking about farm to table and, and just different validity of it. Like Tom Colicchio always says that thing of like everything, you know, everything's farm to table. All food's grown on a farm.

• 11:22Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right.

• 11:23Joe Flamm?

  What that farm is.

• 11:24Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right.

• 11:25Joe Flamm?

  You know what I mean? Is another question, but it has to come, you know, from a farm to, to, to grow.

• 11:33Joe Flamm?

  And I thought Dan, you know, just, just raised a lot of interesting things with it. For you, you, you, you talk about going to farmers markets all, all the time, right? And for your client and for the dinners you do and for the travel you do. And I think like. You know, for the most part, like, I feel like in private chefing, you're cooking for a smaller

• 11:51Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right.

• 11:52Joe Flamm?

  amount of people, right? So you can really be like, as, you know, if there's six great tomatoes, you can get six great tomatoes.

• 12:01Adrienne Cheatham?

  Exactly.

• 12:03Joe Flamm?

  Whereas, you know, like in my world, it's like, you know, like a Rosemary where you're doing 300 people a night at least, if not four. Like,

• 12:11Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, there's no way you can like, most farmers markets don't even, you know, have enough quantity at their tents for you to be able to source for your restaurant.

• 12:21Joe Flamm?

  Well, and that's what, you know, I think the interesting conundrum you come across is like, you know, when I talk to my chefs about me, like when we, when we have our menu meetings, right? You know, one of the things we talk about is we, we go through kind of the list of seasonal produce coming in. We'll be like, okay, this time of year, like, oh, all the squash are coming, going through all the squash. And so when we're looking at those squash, like the questions I always tell them to ask the farmers is, and I think it's like, as a chef, it's like, knowing what questions to ask sometimes, right? Early on, I would just like put stuff on a menu. And then a week later, they'd be like, yeah, I don't have any more of that. And I'm like, well, no, I thought it was the season. They're like, yeah, but this week I don't have any.

• 12:59Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 13:00Joe Flamm?

  And so like getting better at asking the questions of like, well, how long will you have this?

• 13:04Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 13:05Joe Flamm?

  When do we get this till? How much of this will you be able to get me? And I feel like with vegetables, it's much easier, right? Because like they're growing those way more abundantly. I think the really tricky part when it comes to restaurants is more like meat. Because if you want to do, you know, I work with a great pig farmer in downstate Illinois, but like for certain things, like we do, you know, baby back pork ribs at Rosemary. There's no way, even if he gave me every single rack of ribs that came off his farm, which is a big farm. That he could support my restaurant.

• 13:39Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right. And that's the question of sourcing. And that was, like you said, we talked about with Dan Barber on episode 19. And people are really interested in this because you can source, like you said, if you're doing small quantity, you can source from farmers markets. And I, when I go to the farmers markets, Wednesday, Friday morning, I see chefs from certain restaurants. But interestingly enough, it's restaurants that have limited seating. They're very fine dining. They're very, you know, limited seating, reservations only, high price point, and they need a couple slices of this on a

• 14:18Adrienne Cheatham?

  plate, a couple slices of that. So they can source a lot of those special ingredients from a farmer's market. But when you get into larger restaurants, like even at, you know, Red Rooster, La Bernardine, when I was working there, there are some things like that you have to get from a distributor. In New York, the big distributor is Baldo. You know, you're getting certain things like lettuce mix here and there, if the farmers don't have it, or you're getting, because you need to get a kilo of chives every single day.

• 14:49Joe Flamm?

  Right. And there's not a farmer

• 14:51Adrienne Cheatham?

  No.

• 14:52Joe Flamm?

  that I've ever met, who's like, I can get you 20 pounds of chives a week. And I don't know why that is. I can't explain that. And I always, you know, it's always one of those things. I feel like when I talk to distributors and like, what can I do to get your business? I'm like, get me really nicer herbs.

• 15:08Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 15:08Joe Flamm?

  Not like micros. I'm like bigger. Like, I want really nice basil, really nice mint, really nice chives, really nice parsley, cilantro, whatever.

• 15:16Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yep. And chives cannot be limp. Like, you're not going to get a nice, beautiful slice of chive if they're already coming in bruised and bent. And that's something that you can't guarantee at farmer's market. So herbs, that's actually one of the like, one of the biggest things that comes through distributors. But for sourcing, how do you, because you're, you know, you're opening your fourth restaurant now. How do you walk that line between what to order from a large distributor? And what to source from smaller farmers?

• 15:48Joe Flamm?

  Yeah. So I think it's knowing like, I think whenever we see something and we know like the, the same guy who does my pork also does my eggs and eggs he can keep up. So I probably buy 50 cases of eggs from this guy a week.

• 16:02Adrienne Cheatham?

  Whoa.

• 16:03Joe Flamm?

  Like, and you know, we're talking-

• 16:05Adrienne Cheatham?

  Does that mostly go to pasta production or?

• 16:07Joe Flamm?

  Yeah.

• 16:08Adrienne Cheatham?

  Wow.

• 16:09Joe Flamm?

  Most of it does. It's in, you know, gelato, but most of it is pasta production. So we go through a ton of eggs.

• 16:15Adrienne Cheatham?

  Quick question.

• 16:16Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, you don't have to raise your hand. We're just doing a podcast.

• 16:20Adrienne Cheatham?

  Are you whole egg in your pasta or is it mostly yolk? What is the, what's the pasta breakdown there?

• 16:27Joe Flamm?

  So for most of the pastas, it's mostly yolk.

• 16:32Adrienne Cheatham?

  Okay.

• 16:32Joe Flamm?

  There's some where I change it up. It depends on what I'm trying to do with the pasta. You know what I mean? Like we do a little bit of whole egg in some of them to give it a little bit more chew.

• 16:40Adrienne Cheatham?

  Okay.

• 16:41Joe Flamm?

  Um, and then like, like this time of year, we're doing brown butter and like white truffle pastas. For those ones, those are always only egg yolk for me because I want it to be super delicate. I want it to be super soft, like super luxe. You know, like when I'm making like my grandma's pasta, we do whole egg.

• 16:58Adrienne Cheatham?

  Okay.

• 16:58Joe Flamm?

  And it's got like a lot more chew to it. You know what I mean? It's more of like a rustic style. So if I'm looking for a more rustic style pasta, I do a whole egg dough. If I'm looking for something that's a little bit more elegant, then I'm going all egg yolks.

• 17:10Adrienne Cheatham?

  Okay.

• 17:11Joe Flamm?

  The whole egg for me is kind of the more rustic style. And there's people who have way more opinions on this than myself, but that's always how, how kind of I, I look at it. But so like, we know we can keep up on the eggs. So like, we can support them in that. When we're doing pork shoulders, we know he can keep up on pork shoulders. So we use him for that, you know? And then like for vegetables, like it's a lot easier. You know what I mean? As long as they're seasonal, like, you know, we have a couple of great farms that they can keep up with whatever we do. So it's always trying to maximize. Those things we can get from them. If they have it, we're always going to go with them first. The trickier one is when it comes to meat, because those farms, it's just there's certain things they can't keep up with. So then it's working with your bigger purveyors who deal specifically, you know, most of them deal specifically in meat, right?

• 17:56Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right.

• 17:56Joe Flamm?

  And I think it's sourcing the right big purveyors who work with the right farms, you know? Cause a lot of them now, the better ones are, they work with kind of like a, I don't know the right word for it, like a consortium?

• 18:10Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, or like a cooperative.

• 18:12Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, like a co-op of farms.

• 18:14Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 18:15Joe Flamm?

  But they all say, they all have to do it this way, right? They all have to be, you know, whatever.

• 18:19Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right.

• 18:20Joe Flamm?

  Non-GMO.

• 18:20Adrienne Cheatham?

  They set the standard.

• 18:22Joe Flamm?

  Like, you know, whatever it is. And some of them, you know, some people like, I'm not a big grass fed guy. I don't, I don't like it. I don't know if it's just the Midwest in me or what, but like it just, it's like the grass fed to me is too livery. When it's just straight grass.

• 18:34Adrienne Cheatham?

  Okay.

• 18:35Joe Flamm?

  And I know some people really like that, but for me, that's not it. So it's like, I like a mix of like, you know, corn and grass.

• 18:43Adrienne Cheatham?

  Okay.

• 18:44Joe Flamm?

  So then like talking to purveyors and being like, okay, you know, like asking the right questions. And I think if you ask the right questions and talk to them about how they're sourcing their stuff and making sure they're working with the right people, you're still getting the same quality. You're still supporting great farmers. It's just, you have to figure out how to do it at scale. And I think, you know, it's finding which of those bigger purveyors align with you.

• 19:07Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 19:08Joe Flamm?

  And what you're trying to do.

• 19:09Adrienne Cheatham?

  And I think they've gotten so much better at that. When I was younger, my mom worked for Kraft. And she sold food to restaurants for Kraft. And so everything there, obviously it's coming from industrial animal farms. It's not coming from people where there's a cooperative and they're setting the standard. It's like the cheapest feed you can get, pack them in as many as you can. And she would do these tours of, you know, a pig farm, a chicken farm. And she would come back horrified and she's like, oh, no, no, no, we're going to a farmer's market and we're buying our meat there. And she kind of, you know, opened my eyes to that

• 19:51Adrienne Cheatham?

  at a very young age. It was actually a turkey farm that was the only place that she literally ever had to step away and throw up. But it was surprising to learn about that when I was 12, 13 years old. And so I tried to be intentional about sourcing meat and I'm so glad that as I started working professionally in restaurants and was sourcing, there were purveyors and distributors that even if they're a bigger distributor, they have that network of farms that are doing things with a certain standard that is very well defined. And they're checking on them. They're making sure that they're not using, you know, bone meal and all this other stuff to just bulk up the feed with.

• 20:37Joe Flamm?

  Right. And I think, you know, what's interesting, it's like the guy, uh, so who I work with for my pigs, Lego, like, you know, they came about because like his dad was a commercial pig farmer and they were just selling it to giant, you know, they were selling it to Swift, they were selling it to, you know, whoever. And he went, when he went to college, he realized like the way they were raising pigs is not the way everybody else was raising pigs. You know what I mean? That they were raising them, you know, like in more open air, they weren't, you know, they're non-GMO, they're doing all these things that they had just been doing because like that's how his family had been doing it for a hundred years. You know, that's how they did it in, you know, the old country. And so like, that's, you know, how his great grandpa did it. So that's how his grandpa did it. That's how his dad did it. And then realized like their pork was much

• 21:21Joe Flamm?

  nicer than the rest of the commodity pork that was being sold. Cause they were like, oh, we have a specific heritage of pigs we use. You know what I mean? We're using a mix of, uh, uh, Duroc and Berkshire, right? And we're always using this mix and we always have been for the whole time. And that other places aren't doing this. And so this guy literally just started knocking on like chef's doors in Chicago.

• 21:43Adrienne Cheatham?

  Wow.

• 21:44Joe Flamm?

  I have this great product and I don't want to sell it to commodity pork anymore to get lumped in with all this other like stuff that's not it. And so. I think more and more those little farms have gotten recognized. I remember reading an article one time talking about how the guy who's like the corporate chef of McDonald's. And they were like, this is actually the most influential chef in the world.

• 22:07Adrienne Cheatham?

  Wow, that's so true. Oh, my gosh.

• 22:10Joe Flamm?

  And they were like, you know, you might not know his name. You might not know who he is, but he was talking about they were gonna put a shrimp salad on the menu at one point. And then like looking at how much shrimp they had to buy. He's like, we would deplete this shrimp within two months.

• 22:27Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 22:28Joe Flamm?

  Like the world's supply of it. And it's like,

• 22:33Adrienne Cheatham?

  Good for him.

• 22:34Joe Flamm?

  What? And like, you know, I'm not like,

• 22:36Adrienne Cheatham?

  Gosh.

• 22:37Joe Flamm?

  Listen, trust me, I'm not like the like, oh, yeah, McDonald's is doing it right. Like, you're really big guys or anything.

• 22:42Adrienne Cheatham?

  But at least he had the wherewithal and like the, the, you know, the moral compass to say, no, we're not doing this.

• 22:49Joe Flamm?

  Well, at least it's a conversation now. At least it's a conversation. And so I think, you know, now it's like with the purveyors, like, you know, as chefs were demanding a lot more transparency from them.

• 23:00Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah. And customers are not going to spend their, you know, people have a threshold. And you don't push them to that limit. So you do have to like, find stuff that's reasonably priced.

• 23:12Joe Flamm?

  Right. Like when I was at Spiazza, it's like, whatever. You know what I mean? Like you could charge for it. You're in a fine dining restaurant. You're in a Michelin star restaurant. You know what I mean? You just get the best, order the best, you know? And then it's like, what if you just charge whatever it is? But I think working in more approachable restaurants, like you have to make choices of like, sometimes you just can't use stuff. And I think that's where, you know, it's like we go with it now, where it's like, okay, well, if that's what this is right now, we just can't do it. Like when we opened, lamb was crazy. Like you just, I don't know why, but like lamb specifically was just like through the roof. So the only thing that we could put on a menu that was like reasonable was like, we have to get whole lamb shoulders. We need to butcher them, braise them, cut them,

• 23:54Joe Flamm?

  and do it like that. They're like, is anything else? I was like, we're gonna have to charge a hundred dollars for.

• 23:59Adrienne Cheatham?

  Damn.

• 24:00Joe Flamm?

  And it was just like, it just doesn't make sense.

• 24:03Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah. And that's a very hard decision, though, to say, we just have to leave it off. Because another chef would say, I'm gonna compromise my standards so that I can keep this thing on the menu as opposed to saying, you know what? It's just not for us right now.

• 24:19Joe Flamm?

  I'll get a text from one of my farmers and they'll say, hey, I have this. And you know, a lot of times it'll be a whole pig. I'll be like, hey, I have a whole pig. Somebody was supposed to take it. They can't take it. Can you take 120 pound whole pig? I'm like, sure. And it drives my chefs nuts because like, I always forget to tell them. And then like, all of a sudden, like, there's a whole pig in the walk-in and they're like, you know, they're like chef, like, you know what I mean? Like, they're like, did you order a pig? Like, did you order a pig? I'm like, oh shit, yeah.

• 24:47Adrienne Cheatham?

  Porkette's special.

• 24:49Joe Flamm?

  Did I not, did I not tell you guys that I ordered a pig? Yeah, there's a pig in the walk-in. Thanks so much. Love you. Goodbye.

• 24:56Joe Flamm?

  So I think it's really important to understand that that relationship is not just getting what you need from them, but also trying to help them sell what they need to sell. And us as chefs then taking that and saying, I can make something awesome with this. And I think, you know, one of the biggest hardest lessons I've had to learn is like, you know, being a chef and a leader is like, also like, if I'm willing to show the honesty and the vulnerability to say, you know what? I'm not sure. It was Sam Cass who said, you know, the, the most brilliant people have been around have been the most curious.

• 25:29Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 25:30Joe Flamm?

  And like, I haven't stopped thinking about that since he said it and been like, you know, told myself kind of like, be more curious. Like, you need to ask more questions.

• 25:38Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 25:39Joe Flamm?

  And so I think like as chefs, sometimes they're like, we're afraid to ask those questions because we're afraid to show that vulnerability of like, we don't know the answer.

• 25:46Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right. When I was younger.

• 25:47Joe Flamm?

  We should know all the answers, especially when we're young in that position.

• 25:51Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, I was so insecure and I'm like, oh, I, I, I know everything. You know, it's like you bluster, you put on that front. And then you're hiding the insecurity about the fact that you don't know stuff. And then one day I grew up and I was like, the only thing I know now is that I don't know shit. Like literally, like. I'm like, and I love that. It's so exciting to learn and experience new things, but you have to be open to it by first admitting that you don't know everything.

• 26:19Joe Flamm?

  Right. And I remember like sitting at dinners and you know, somebody talking about something, you know, with chefs and being like, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, yeah, yeah. And then going home from that dinner and being like, I, you know, like after pretending I knew what everyone was talking about for three hours, like Googling the word they were all talking about that I like could barely fucking spell and I'm like, oh, fuck, that's what that is. Yeah.

• 26:40Adrienne Cheatham?

  Now I'm like, oh, wait, can somebody back, back up some info on that?

• 26:44Joe Flamm?

  Now, yeah, now I'm just like, it doesn't matter who says it. I'm like, okay. They're like, oh, yeah, we made a this. And I'm like,

• 26:49Adrienne Cheatham?

  What's that?

• 26:50Joe Flamm?

  I'm like, I'm like, I don't know what that is. I've never made it. You know what I mean? I can say that out loud and that's harder to do than I think we, we realize of just saying like, oh, I don't know what that is, or I've never made that.

• 27:04Joe Flamm?

  And I feel like that's what they write. It's like, it's okay.

• 27:06Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 27:07Joe Flamm?

  You can't have made everything.

• 27:10Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right.

• 27:10Joe Flamm?

  You can't know everything and you're not going to know more if you don't ask questions. You're just going to be the big dumb idiot you've always been.

• 27:16Adrienne Cheatham?

  Exactly. And that applies to, I feel like every industry, every person in every field, you have to stay curious. You have to stay interested. You have to continually be a student of your craft and acknowledge that at no point in your career will you know everything?

• 27:35Adrienne Cheatham?

  I think it's time we go to the walk in.

• 27:38Joe Flamm?

  Oh, hell yeah. Oh, hell yeah. I'll get the door for you. I'll get the door for you. Age, crack a couple of cold ones and tell me what you got.

• 27:48Adrienne Cheatham?

  This was a time that young Adrian, I don't know if I was even a junior sous chef yet, or saucier, but I was at La Bernardine. So in honor of my dear Padron Chef Eric Repair, I will tell the story that nobody knows. So it was holiday season, mid 2000s.

• 28:11Adrienne Cheatham?

  Chef Repair was having a dinner party for the holidays at his home with six or eight people. And it was gonna be, you know, five or six courses plus dessert and some miniardis. So he wanted one chef from La Berna Dene to come to work with him at his house so he could also enjoy his time with his guests. So I got scheduled that day to go to Chef Repair's house, pack up all of the mise en place, all of the ingredients from La Berna Dene, pack the coolers, bring everything to Chef Repair's house. So I'm essentially cooking Chef Repair dinner in his own home for his family.

• 28:50Joe Flamm?

  This is the offsite of offsite too.

• 28:51Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right, right. And it was so exciting that I got selected for that. So I was like nervous and then it's like, okay, well, all this mise en place in Manhattan, you know, it's like, take the van, the La Berna Dene minivan that we had, that I didn't even know we had up until that point, to be honest. So I pack up the van, drive to his place, park, you know, unload all of the stuff, set up in his apartment. Dinner goes great. There's cheese courses after, because you know, we're very French. So there's cheese, there's, you know, bread baskets. It was a great event and he was like, Adrian, thank you. This went so well. I'll have my son or somebody help you pack up and load up the car and then you can head back to the restaurant.

• 29:36Adrienne Cheatham?

  Great, thanks chef. So glad it went well. I'm flying high, right? I'm thinking this is like the best way to get in my boss's good graces.

• 29:43Joe Flamm?

  Oh, yeah.

• 29:45Adrienne Cheatham?

  So shortly thereafter, I'm driving back to La Berna Dene. But the part of the story I left out, as they asked me if I could do this dinner at Chef Repair's house and take the van, chef said, oh, you have a license, right? Yeah, you know how to drive. Yeah, I have a license, which I did. I had just transferred my license from Florida to New York.

• 30:09Joe Flamm?

  Right. But I had. Florida licenses aren't real, actually, right? It's just like a picture of an alligator.

• 30:18Adrienne Cheatham?

  I had a license technically, but I had been in New York at that point for a while. I had not driven a car in probably 10 years.

• 30:28Joe Flamm?

  Oh, yeah.

• 30:29Adrienne Cheatham?

  So, yes, I had a license.

• 30:31Joe Flamm?

  And you probably, so you have never driven in New York before?

• 30:34Adrienne Cheatham?

  No, I hadn't.

• 30:36Joe Flamm?

  Oh, my God.

• 30:37Adrienne Cheatham?

  I had not, except for when I first moved there. My best friend drove me over. Ebony from Chicago and we like drove into New York and that was it. And then she went back to Chicago. Um, so no, I had never driven in New York. I hadn't driven a car, period, in 10 years. So I leave. Everything was fine on the way there during the day, but I'm going back at night. It's misty outside. It's dark as hell.

• 31:00Joe Flamm?

  Listen to these excuses. Just light it up. You through the, it's misty outside? No, you're from Chicago. It's misty outside. Don't give me that. You're not from LA.

• 31:10Adrienne Cheatham?

  I'm making this turn to go around Central Park and the lights were really confusing. They don't, this intersection doesn't even operate anymore. I think that's how many accidents happen at this intersection. So I see the light.

• 31:22Joe Flamm?

  Mist rolling in.

• 31:23Adrienne Cheatham?

  I think it's misty, you know? So I see the light turn green. So I go to make my left turn onto the street. That's one way going in that direction. And apparently there was a turn arrow that I did not see. That was not green. So traffic is coming from my right. And I'm making this left hand turn. There was a taxi and another car that like swerved to miss me. One of them had to hop up on the grass on the street, on the side of Central Park. And I like immediately pull over. I'm shaking. I'm like, this is my boss's car.

• 32:04Adrienne Cheatham?

  This isn't even my car. And I'm just like, I paid everybody straight cash. Like, can I tell you? I did not report it. I stayed for the police and all that. And then I talked to the two drivers of the cars. One had no damage. The other guy had like side swiped a tree when he went up into the grass. I was like, look. Let's keep this between us.

• 32:27Joe Flamm?

  Mm hmm.

• 32:27Adrienne Cheatham?

  You know, here's my personal information. Please do not call, you know, the insurance that I have provided to the police.

• 32:36Joe Flamm?

  You give them your sister's name and number?

• 32:39Adrienne Cheatham?

  No, I was, I did not want that smoke. I gave my info. I got in touch with, you know, an auto body shop. He went there and I paid for it out of pocket.

• 32:50Joe Flamm?

  Damn.

• 32:52Adrienne Cheatham?

  A broke ass.

• 32:53Joe Flamm?

  All cash. You're like, I am not going to pay my rent this month before I get fired from L.

• 32:58Adrienne Cheatham?

  No, I think I was late on my rent that month, but it was totally worth it to not, uh, not get fired.

• 33:04Joe Flamm?

  Well, I mean, you're basically driving through a Stephen King novel, the, the way you've described it, the mist falling upon you. I mean, what could you have done?

• 33:12Adrienne Cheatham?

  I mean, exactly, you know, but it didn't go great.

• 33:16Joe Flamm?

  And you've never told repair that story?

• 33:18Adrienne Cheatham?

  Hell no. Hell no.

• 33:21Joe Flamm?

  That's.

• 33:21Adrienne Cheatham?

  I never told anybody that story.

• 33:23Joe Flamm?

  You should, you should send them a Venmo request.

• 33:27Adrienne Cheatham?

  I think I came out of pocket for like six or eight hundred, actually.

• 33:32Joe Flamm?

  As a line cook?

• 33:33Adrienne Cheatham?

  As a line cook, right? Yeah. When I tell you I was late on rent.

• 33:38Joe Flamm?

  In that era, dude, that's like a month's wait.

• 33:40Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 33:43Adrienne Cheatham?

  I had finally graduated from seven twenty five an hour. I think I was at like nine or 10 something an hour. I could not afford that. I worked so much that I wasn't spending money. So at least I had the cash on hand. I was a little short on rent.

• 33:57Joe Flamm?

  Those days where it was just like, well, at least like, I don't have any time to spend any money. So that's like the nice thing about this job. But it's like, that's not how this is supposed to.

• 34:05Adrienne Cheatham?

  They're like, you don't make any money. But I'm like, I have money in the bank because I don't spend any because I'm always at work.

• 34:11Joe Flamm?

  Mm hmm.

• 34:12Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 34:12Joe Flamm?

  You're like, staff meal's free.

• 34:14Adrienne Cheatham?

  I eat every day, have coffee. What else do I need?

• 34:17Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, what else do I need?

• 34:19Adrienne Cheatham?

  My uniforms.

• 34:20Joe Flamm?

  I'm not lonely. You're lonely.

• 34:25Adrienne Cheatham?

  I get a shift beer a couple of times a week. I don't even need to pay for alcohol.

• 34:29Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, you're like, I'm living, living high on the hog over here.

• 34:31Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right. And laundry, what's that? I wear the same pair of jeans and T-shirt to and from work every day, change into uniform and go home.

• 34:37Joe Flamm?

  That's incredible. I love that. I hope Chef Eric hears this.

• 34:41Adrienne Cheatham?

  I need to text him before this one comes out.

• 34:44Joe Flamm?

  Yeah.

• 34:45Adrienne Cheatham?

  Because he does listen. I need to give him a heads up.

• 34:47Joe Flamm?

  I, I, I hope he calls you into the office and yells at you for this.

• 34:53Joe Flamm?

  So disappointed in you.

• 34:55Adrienne Cheatham?

  Still scared of that man.

• 34:56Joe Flamm?

  Like, how am I getting written up? I don't work here.

• 34:58Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right, right.

• 35:01Adrienne Cheatham?

  Like, remember that time you burned the foie gras fat? Now this?

• 35:03Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, now this? Yeah, this is two strikes.

• 35:10Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, man. Well, Joe, thank you so much. This has been a blast today.

• 35:14Joe Flamm?

  Age, always a blast. Great to talk to you. Be careful in that mist out there. All right? The, the New York streets are unforgiving.

• 35:21Adrienne Cheatham?

  That is it for this episode of The Chef's Cut. Be sure to subscribe wherever you're listening, especially if you're watching us on YouTube where you can find full-length video episodes of the show every week. And follow us at The Chef's Cut Pod on IG. For Joe Flamm, I'm Adrian Cheatham, and this has been The Chef's Cut, life beyond the past.