The Walk-In Hall of Fame: Greatest Chef Confessions!!

Adrienne and Joe look back at some of the most memorable walk-in confessions from the show, unpacking early-career kitchen mistakes and the intense pressure of proving yourself on the line. In this special compilation episode, we cover: Kristen Kish’s freezer-mopping disaster and a family meal fryer spill Dan Barber’s improvised fix for an order of overcooked lamb Gail Simmons’s on-set injury and bouncing back for the camera Maneet Chauhan rebuilding a collapsed wedding cake under extreme pressure Sam Kass’s disastrous sauce-cart spill in Vienna Joe’s brutal kitchen knife injury while butchering a pig Adrienne’s extremely salty bread-baking accident 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.

• 0:13Adrienne Cheatham?

  Today on The Chef's Cut, we have something really special for you. A collection of our favorite walking confessions of all time. Starting with the first ever walking confession from our friend and top chef host, Kristin Kish. But before we dive in, Chef's Cut Nation, you know what time it is. Please take 10 seconds of your day to rate and review the show wherever you get your pods. It really helps.

• 0:36Speaker 01

  I did come up with two. One is, I was, I was young. I was young and you know what, like, and no one was asking me to do it as like a hazing thing or to test me or whatever to make me look dumb. I just thought I was doing something smart and I did mop the, I mopped the freezer.

• 0:54Joe Flamm?

  Oh.

• 0:56Speaker 01

  So that was, that was cool.

• 1:00Speaker 01

  Well, I guess now we have an ice skating rink. That's awesome.

• 1:06Speaker 01

  Fucking stupid.

• 1:08Adrienne Cheatham?

  The initiative, like, I'm gonna clean this freezer. Look at your little crystals down there. Let me.

• 1:14Joe Flamm?

  I gotta make sure this water is hot.

• 1:16Speaker 01

  Yes. Yep. And I, yeah, I made an ice skating rink. The second one was when I was. Very, when I was at Montan, imagine already feeling disliked and not welcome. And you're the boss. So like, people that are already gaslighting you and making you feel so, like, so dumb and make you feel so, like, unworthy of being in their presence as the boss, set that feeling. And then I'm in charge of making family meal. And we have this downstairs prep kitchen and I was making fried chicken thighs. And so I was like doing my dredge and I was doing the thing and I was getting ready for

• 1:55Speaker 01

  family meal and I load the fryer and either it had already too much oil in it or my shit just had way too much moisture. Everyone's prepping and three restaurants use, shared the space. So it was Sportello, Drink and Montan. We're all sharing the space and I'm putting my chicken in the fryer and I start to see it. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And it just, it just fucking went. It went and it just oil everywhere. And I spent the rest, basically, all the way half into service, cleaning it up because I did not want to ask for help. And I was so embarrassed. Like, it wasn't even like, oopsie, I made a mistake.

• 2:38Speaker 01

  I was the boss, they already hated me, they already thought I sucked. And then I did that. And I was like.

• 2:43Joe Flamm?

  And like that feeling of like, you know, where you're like, everyone is rooting for you to fail.

• 2:48Speaker 01

  Yes, correct.

• 2:50Joe Flamm?

  They are like, you know, you have the biggest target on your back. I always tell sous chefs that. I'm like, you have the big, I'm like, these people, they might gas you up, they might say this, but I'm like, they will eat your lunch if you leave it unattended.

• 3:01Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:01Joe Flamm?

  Like, they don't care. They want that spot.

• 3:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:04Joe Flamm?

  Like, you know?

• 3:05Speaker 01

  They want you to fail.

• 3:05Joe Flamm?

  And it's like, the feeling, and it's like, like you describing, like, we've all unfortunately have that feeling, a fryer boiling over, like, I could feel that in my stomach when you described it. Of like, it's like, it makes your toes curl in the worst way of like, you're like, oh no, this is like.

• 3:23Adrienne Cheatham?

  How many boxes of salt did you have to pour on the oil?

• 3:27Speaker 01

  We used every single thing in the, in dry storage. It was horrendous.

• 3:37Speaker 03

  Oh, I remember, I was just thinking of Boulé. I remember when Tim Zagat was, Tim Zagat was favorite restaurant. And by the way, back then Zagat was Michelin 50 best and every other reviewer times 100. It was everything was Zagat guide and Boulé was the number one in the Zagat guy for many years.

• 3:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:54Speaker 03

  And Tim Zagat used to come in all the time. And I remember, you know, he liked his meat cooked rare and I was cooking meat and, and I overcooked goddamn, I'll never forget the lamb chop. I could still, I still feel it right now. And this was 30 years ago. It's incredible. And, and I just like, it's not that Boulé was abusive at all. He was, I never heard him raise his voice once, ever. But his sous chefs worked really tough. And, and I just like, I, I thought I was gonna just get it. And I had some reduced beet juice on my station. So I, I cut the lamb and I'm seeing, it's like, you know, it's fucking gray, right?

• 4:37Speaker 03

  And, and there was no time to re-cook the lamb chops. So I took some reduced beet juice and in the center, I rubbed it on and it looked as rare, as bullseye rare. I'm serious. It literally looked like the most rare lamb chop. And I just sent it down, they plated it, sent it out and I never heard from anyone.

• 4:57Joe Flamm?

  Holy.

• 4:59Speaker 03

  I'm still, I'm still exhaling.

• 5:02Speaker 03

  Try it. It's, I, I, literally, I've shown my cooks before. It is incredible. It looks exactly rare. Try it on a.

• 5:09Speaker 01

  Oh my god.

• 5:10Joe Flamm?

  So your, your, your experience with, around with beets started way, way longer than people thought.

• 5:16Speaker 03

  Beets, beets saved my life. How about that?

• 5:21Adrienne Cheatham?

  Last night a beet saved my life.

• 5:23Joe Flamm?

  That is awesome. That is like one of those moves that's just like all time. I'm just like, what do I do?

• 5:27Speaker 01

  That is epic.

• 5:27Joe Flamm?

  I'm gonna rub this out here, I'm gonna throw this up and I'm gonna hold my breath and clench and just be like, you're just sitting there, just like, don't make eye contact with anyone.

• 5:37Joe Flamm?

  So it's good to go? Yes.

• 5:38Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, I love that. See, you know, everybody needs to know that back in the day, we were all, like, we call it sometimes, we were all dirtbag line cooks at some point.

• 5:49Joe Flamm?

  Just living on the threat of existence of like, we're just like, I just gotta make it through another night. I gotta make it through another plate. I gotta not get sent home before that last ticket hits the spike.

• 6:01Speaker 03

  You and we, it's all the same experience. It's so great.

• 6:11Speaker 04

  Before, like, the third or fourth episode of this season, you'll notice that I do two or three episodes with big, thick glasses on. But the reason behind it isn't just because I was trying to be fashion. It was because we had a weekend off and my kids came in and Jeremy, my husband, and we took a little weekend road trip to Asheville. And we pulled up to our hotel the day we arrived. And Jeremy went into the hotel to check us in and I was with the kids in the car, taking stuff out of the car. But we had to move the car because it was parked in like the valet spot. So I walked up onto the sidewalk to look down the street, see if there's any parking spaces.

• 6:56Speaker 04

  And I, I can't even tell you exactly what happened. It was a very high sidewalk curb and I missed the curb, flew forward. And what was at the other side of the sidewalk was a giant boulder, like a decorative rock. And I fell face first into the rock and smashed my face in. When I say smashed my face in, I'm not exaggerating. There are before and after pictures. I, I'm, I don't know how I didn't break my nose, smash in my jaw, break my cheek, lose an eye. Like, it was so bad. I, I landed on my face. I couldn't block it.

• 7:39Joe Flamm?

  Like, never even get your hands out?

• 7:41Speaker 04

  Never. I'm, one hand got out, it was scraped down, but it was nothing compared to the face. And I, my kids were in the car, I started screaming. Jeremy thought I was hit by a car because he just heard me screaming. Ran outside, I took my hand off my face and my hand was covered in blood. I was like, what did I do? What did I just do? Like, are we calling an ambulance? Am I going to the hospital? I, I had to be on camera 48 hours later for the next episode. This was a 48 hour break from shooting. I called the show, I ended up being okay. Like, I didn't break anything amazingly, but I had one total black eye, one partial black eye, scrapes down my face from sliding across the rock. It was horrible.

• 8:27Speaker 04

  And so I like, you know, I had to call our, our production and operations manager, producer, Pat, to meet him and be like, um, Pat, I kind of hurt myself in my face. And I'm like, these are the moments you need insurance. I mean, they have insurance, obviously. And I was fine.

• 8:47Speaker 04

  And it miraculously healed. The doctor on set was incredible and gave me this awesome medication, topical medication. And it did heal, but I was like swollen, I mean, seriously swollen and my face was black and blue for like, the better half of two weeks.

• 9:04Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 9:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, so that happened. There was a thing. But you know what? Also, my makeup artist was incredible, Tara, who I've been working with for many, many years.

• 9:13Joe Flamm?

  Oh, yeah.

• 9:13Speaker 04

  You know, I called her and I went to see her and she ordered this like prosthetic makeup, like, the kind of makeup they use for, like, special effects makeup. Because she didn't know, like, how are we gonna cover this to put you on camera? And she, you know, snapped into action and we did okay. I'm, I'm so lucky that I didn't seriously break my face.

• 9:35Joe Flamm?

  Yeah.

• 9:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, that was bad.

• 9:37Joe Flamm?

  Your face looks great today.

• 9:39Speaker 04

  Yeah. It's, it's totally fine now. It's totally fine. Like, and, and it was totally fine after like two and a half weeks. Like, there was like a few little things that took a while to go away. But like.

• 9:51Joe Flamm?

  Holy shit.

• 9:51Speaker 04

  Well, we'll see how it looks, but I'm gonna have to come out with the truth because I'm sure, even though they did an incredible job and they were like, my hair, that will be forward and all, they, they tried their best, all the cameras understood.

• 10:03Joe Flamm?

  Super emo gal. It's just all over like the one side of your face. It's like early 2000s.

• 10:09Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yep. Like, literally, one of my eyes is basically shut for like five days. At least I got a good story for it.

• 10:22Speaker 05

  So I don't know if you know this about me. My entire culinary education has been baking and pastry arts. When I was in India, I wanted to be a pastry chef. I wanted to be a wedding cake maker because that time in India, that was something that you didn't see a lot of. So when I came to the CIA, I wanted to be a pastry chef. So right after graduation, I was working at a place and I had made this entire, you know, I had made this gorgeous wedding cake. There was a event going on and I had made this gorgeous wedding cake, right? Like it was eight tiers and all of that, but it had these dividers in between. So you know, when you're like assembling a cake, you have the cake table,

• 11:03Speaker 05

  you go and assemble the different tiers on the table. So I did that and I, you know, finished it. And I am walking past the dance floor and I turn and I'm very lovingly looking at, you know, my labor of love and hard work. I have not slept for a couple of days to do that and, and all of that great stuff. Where the uncle of the bride decides that they want to go ahead and move the entire table. So I can see this entire thing happening in slow motion. Okay.

• 11:40Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, no.

• 11:40Speaker 05

  He's picking up the, and I'm like,

• 11:46Speaker 05

  so I'm like, the wedding is about to start.

• 11:51Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, it hadn't even started yet.

• 11:53Speaker 05

  Oh, no, no, no, it hadn't started.

• 11:54Joe Flamm?

  Oh, nobody's even seen the fucking cake.

• 11:56Speaker 05

  The bride and the groom had not seen it. And what I used to do was, because a lot of these were Indian weddings, the work that I used to do was really intricate. It was like fondant with, you know, how you have, like, you know, this earring or how the Indian clothes are, that's what I used to do.

• 12:13Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 12:15Speaker 05

  So at that moment, I send, this was in New Jersey. So we used to have Jewel Osko over there, right?

• 12:21Joe Flamm?

  Oh, yeah.

• 12:22Speaker 05

  I sent somebody to go and, and buy some cake. While you're, and they're like, and I used to do exotic flavors like mango and lychee and all of that, right? You don't get mango and lychee at Jewel.

• 12:39Joe Flamm?

  I was like, what Jewel in fucking Jersey is like, oh, you want mango lychee cake?

• 12:44Speaker 05

  I know, exactly. Like, what are you looking? So anyway, I sent somebody to go and buy like, you know, 10 different cakes. In the meantime, and like, like when you talk about like, you know, why I'm good at competition cooking? I think it's because of this like fucked up experience, right? And like the bride and the groom are about to come. This uncle thinks that he is like God's gift to humankind. And I'm like in the kitchen and I was like swearing in the kitchen in each and every Hindi swear word possible. I'm like, he is, oh, bleeping, bleep, bleep, bleep. In Hindi, I'm going away. While my chef in the front is looking at me and he's going like this. And I turn and that guy is standing right behind me, right?

• 13:30Speaker 05

  And I'm like, I don't freaking care.

• 13:31Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, you're like, I'll fight this guy right fucking now.

• 13:33Speaker 05

  No, I can't even, right? I had, I had the florist get all the flowers within half an hour. Like the cake that I had spent three days making. I made that in like literally half an hour it took for them to get all the cakes. I'm like putting it together. I had buttercream over it, put flowers on top of it. I'm like, buh, send it out.

• 14:07Speaker 06

  All right, I'll tell this. I got, I got one good one from the early days. This was in Vienna. I don't think I've ever told this story publicly. It was December, which is of course the busiest time, especially over there. Like the holidays are like a huge thing. And we worked seven days a week and every day was massive parties. And it was a Saturday night. Everybody had done all their prep for the week. Sauces that had been prepped, you know, prepped all week long. And so much went into it. His, his most famous dish was this lobster dish that he had taken like a classic pork dish and like made it. So it was like this gigantic buttered lobster sauce, you know, like that kind of thing. Huge pot of it. And it was like probably 12:30 and everybody's frantically trying to get out of there.

• 14:50Speaker 06

  So we can go drink at this bar 15, 16. And so we loaded up the cart, like a three level cart, all the sauces. Big glass jars of lentils, big glass jars of pumpkin. Yeah, you know where this is going. And fully packed. And I was like, all right, guys, I'm going to go take everything down. I'll, I'll put it all in the walk in. We were on the fifth floor.

• 15:15Speaker 06

  And yeah. And up until this point, like I was like the superstar. Like I'd probably been there for four months and I was, I was doing really well. They were blown away. I hadn't messed up, like I was like on it and they just like, who is this kid? Like, you know, I was eager, I was learning and you know, I was really had become like the chef and sous chef's little brother. Like they'd take me on their breaks. We'd go drink wine. I'd go out with them afterwards. I made the chef for breakfast. Like I was like becoming this like thing in there.

• 15:41Adrienne Cheatham?

  You were the guy.

• 15:42Speaker 06

  I was the guy. I'd broken through like who's this new guy? And now I was like, kind of like the guy, I was feeling myself. And so I'm like, okay, guys, hurry up. Let's go, let's get out of here. Like, let's go have some fun. So I, I called the elevator and I start to back up and wheel the cart and the door started closing on me. So I turned around and I took to hit the button again and the wheel slipped off. The, the one wheel slipped off of the stairs that were right next to the elevator. And as it slipped, I grabbed the cart.

• 16:16Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, God.

• 16:17Speaker 06

  And as I grabbed the cart, everything, every pot, every glass jar, all of it, went careening down the stairs. There was butter sauce from the ceiling. And it had these glass panels, like the, the railing was like these glass panels. Five floors down on all the glass, all the way down to the bottom. And it made this huge noise with all these pots and pans and breaking glass, careening down the stairs. They say, as they, as the guys would tell the story, they came out, they said that like they couldn't see me, like I had turned so white that I like blended into the wall. The first, first, the, the, the gamache was like right there.

• 17:00Speaker 06

  So he came out, he was like, he was like, what's going on? What happened? Holy shit.

• 17:11Speaker 06

  And then he went back in and then the sous chef came out and he's like, Yinky? What's happening? And he just like, he just saw, he's like, and he just like,

• 17:20Speaker 06

  looked down and then he looked at me and then he looked down.

• 17:24Speaker 06

  And he just, this state of shock, he's like, I guess we have a lot of work to do. And so they all came out and it's like, but it's all butter. So like, we're like sloshing it into dust pans and putting it into buckets. And we were slipping and falling because it's so slick. And like all the waiters, of course, come out and they bring like champagne and they're all sitting at the top of the stairs, like laughing at me. And there's a couple of chefs who are helping me. And it's just like, and like it's silent because everybody's like mortified because everybody's thinking about like, okay, how am I going to make up for all this prep for this crazy week ahead? And but then it's also so ridiculous and then everybody just like breaks out of laughter because it's like, you can't comprehend what just happened.

• 18:09Speaker 06

  And, and so then we kind of get it, so it's sort of okay. Like it's not clean by any sense, but like the glass is picked up and the lentils are picked up. You know? And then I come back the next day and for 12 hours just scrubbed the floor all the way down. And I had to like hang to clean the glass because it was like in between. And it was a disaster. Like it was thousands and thousands of dollars worth of food. I don't know how much, but it was so much money with the food. And they didn't, they kept, they let me come back. So.

• 18:40Joe Flamm?

  Holy shit.

• 18:41Adrienne Cheatham?

  They needed you to re-prep everything for the sauces.

• 18:43Joe Flamm?

  They probably couldn't believe you were still standing there. You know what I mean? I would, I would have half contemplated like, I should just myself down the stairs. So at least it looks like I fell and then I'll get some empathy here. They'll be like, like somebody that's like, are you okay? Be like, oh, no, the whole car fell on me. You know what I mean? Like, these, these Austrian stairs are way different, you know? Like the American stairs work, it's weird. It's, you know, a pitch thing. I don't know.

• 19:09Speaker 06

  Yeah, I should have. I was, I was too much of this state of shock to come up with anything.

• 19:13Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, my God.

• 19:14Speaker 06

  Crazy.

• 19:15Joe Flamm?

  That is, that is all time. Like, I think like fear is a lock there. Like, I feel like I'd still be like waking up in cold sweats, like sometimes like, the car! Your wife's like, oh, you're not of yet anymore. Like, let it go, man.

• 19:30Speaker 06

  Exactly, exactly. Yeah, it was like 20 years ago and every once in a while I'll go back and see everybody. And, and to this, every time I've gone, that story must be told.

• 19:41Speaker 06

  Everybody says relive it and kind of keep process. It's like a lifelong processing of the trauma, what happened.

• 19:46Joe Flamm?

  I, I also like the idea of like those guys seeing you like on TV at the White House for the first time and they're like, is it butter guy? You know what I mean?

• 19:56Adrienne Cheatham?

  One question, did you guys still go out for drinks that night? Or did you, okay, I'm like, or did you start prepping?

• 20:02Joe Flamm?

  Did you have to buy that night?

• 20:04Speaker 06

  All of them.

• 20:07Speaker 06

  All of them.

• 20:08Joe Flamm?

  That's why they let you come back. You're just like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna run a tab. I'm gonna run a tab.

• 20:13Adrienne Cheatham?

  All on me tonight.

• 20:14Speaker 06

  Just go for it and probably tomorrow too.

• 20:23Joe Flamm?

  So I was working at Spiaja and I was a sous chef there. And one of the things I did as a sous chef is that I would butcher the pigs. So I would butcher the pigs for, we had two restaurants there. We had cafe and dining room, but I ran cafe. So I would butcher the pigs for both. That's what I do, you know, they come in on Wednesdays from the farm and every Wednesday night I butcher them. So, you know, per usual, it's Wednesday night. I'm in the back, I'm butchering a pig and we would get smaller ones, like 50, 60 pounds usually. Pretty quick breakdown. And, you know, I'd just do it with a knife, uh, cause when they're that small. So it's Wednesday night, I butchered my pig, I'm in the back by myself, whatever, I'm going through. And as I'm going through the ribs, this pig was a little bit bigger. It was like 70 pounds.

• 21:07Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh.

• 21:09Joe Flamm?

  So I'm going through and I get stuck. There's a little piece of cartilage that comes out. And on the smaller ones, you just go right through it with your knife.

• 21:17Adrienne Cheatham?

  Okay.

• 21:18Joe Flamm?

  So it was a little bigger, so I'm pulling out, it's kind of stuck. And so instead of doing the smart thing, like stopping, going back and retracing the line, I just took my other elbow and I pushed the pig with it so that it would go through it.

• 21:32Adrienne Cheatham?

  Okay.

• 21:33Joe Flamm?

  Which it did. Went right through the cartilage, then through my apron, through my chef coat and into my stomach.

• 21:39Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, for fuck's sake. Oh my God.

• 21:44Joe Flamm?

  So it wasn't too far, but it was far enough that I had to go like that. And I like dropped, you know, and it's like, you know, when you cut yourself and you just drop your knife real quick to be like, that didn't happen.

• 21:55Joe Flamm?

  So I like put the knife right on the cutting board and I just stand there for a second. I'm like, it's fine, you're fine.

• 22:02Adrienne Cheatham?

  No.

• 22:03Joe Flamm?

  Everything's fine. This is okay. You're okay.

• 22:06Adrienne Cheatham?

  No.

• 22:07Joe Flamm?

  So I'm not even looking down yet. So I looked down and I'm wearing a black apron. I'm like, I'm okay. So I pick up my apron, I have a chef coat on, my chef coat's okay. I'm like, all right. Then I opened my chef coat and I have a white undershirt on. It is completely puffy red with blood. I'm like, okay, that's not good. That's really not good.

• 22:26Adrienne Cheatham?

  How deep did the knife go in?

• 22:28Joe Flamm?

  So then I sit there another second, I'm just standing there in silence. I kind of give it a minute and then I pull my apron up again. I have completely now started bleeding through my chef coat.

• 22:37Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, fuck.

• 22:39Joe Flamm?

  So I'm like, fuck, like this is not good. So I had this Serbian in front of the house manager dude at the time, Nikola. So I tells one of my polishers in the back, I'm like, hey, can you go get Nikola? He's like, yeah. Nikola comes in the back. I said, go get a bottle of vodka.

• 22:57Joe Flamm?

  Get a roll of plastic wrap and meet me in the employee bathroom in the back. And, you know, Nikola's like crazy Serbian dude from Lisa, he's like, no problem, no problem.

• 23:07Adrienne Cheatham?

  I'll be there five minutes.

• 23:08Joe Flamm?

  I got you chef, I got you chef.

• 23:11Joe Flamm?

  So I go in the back, I stripped out, I'm wiping myself off with seafoils, patting it dry. You know, I don't know how far the knife went in, not that far, but it was, I was bleeding. I mean, I was bleeding. So he meets me back there, I'm standing in the employee restroom. I have no shirt on, I'm bleeding out of my stomach and I'm just holding seafoils on myself. He's like, chef, chef, chef, what's going on? I'm like, I stabbed myself getting the pig, like you gotta get me, you gotta get me wrapped up man.

• 23:39Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 23:40Joe Flamm?

  And he was like, all right, all right, let's do it. So he takes a vodka, he pours the vodka all over me. We wipe me down and then I just grab some gauze, I press it to my stomach and then I have him plastic wrap me.

• 23:50Adrienne Cheatham?

  Like a, like you're wrapping a speed rack, like all the way around?

• 23:54Joe Flamm?

  Hurricane wrapped me like.

• 23:56Adrienne Cheatham?

  Tear that box off.

• 23:57Joe Flamm?

  Like it's a catering, catered order. So he plastic wraps me, I grab a fresh chef coat, I go back out.

• 24:03Adrienne Cheatham?

  No.

• 24:05Joe Flamm?

  At one point, the, the CDC I was working for comes back and he's like, what's going on? I told him, he's like, all right. And so he gets me wrapped up, I go back in there and my CDC is like,

• 24:17Joe Flamm?

  all right, well, I'm gonna call it a night. And he just leaves. So then I have to, I have to butcher the rest of the pig.

• 24:26Adrienne Cheatham?

  I thought he meant call it a night for you to go to the fucking hospital.

• 24:30Joe Flamm?

  He went home. So then I had, I go back, I had to butcher the rest of the pig. So I butchered the rest of the pig. I then go out, run the rest of service in the dining room, close the restaurant, go home. And then I'm like, all right, well, like if Hill finds out about this, she's gonna be like mad. Or like make me go to the hospital. She doesn't mean mad, but she's gonna like definitely want me to go to the hospital.

• 24:53Adrienne Cheatham?

  She's gonna be mad that you didn't go to the hospital. I'm mad you didn't go to the fucking hospital.

• 24:57Joe Flamm?

  So I was just like, I can just kind of like, you know, we work different hours. I avoided for a couple of days and a couple of days later at my, at my buddy's house, who's a chef and he lived down the alley from me. And we were like, you know, shoveling snow or something, you know what I mean? And we went inside to have some drinks and I was like, bro, I gotta show you this. And I lifted up my shirt and he goes, holy shit.

• 25:17Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh my God.

• 25:18Joe Flamm?

  It looked like age, it looked like I got beaten with a baseball bat. I had a bruise on my stomach that was like the size of a dinner plate. He was like, what? I was like, and I told him the story, I was like, I stabbed myself, butchered a pig, man, it was bad, you know? And he's like, what are you gonna do? I'm like, I'm just rolling with it. Like I'm just kind of avoiding Hill, like it just hasn't come up. And so I was able to avoid her for long enough, like that the bruise went down enough, but like eventually it came out. She found out that she was not happy about it. But it was like far enough removed that I couldn't go to the hospital then, you know, cause it'd been four days. And it's like, you know, you're not gonna go to the hospital after four days.

• 25:52Adrienne Cheatham?

  Okay, so it's too late to get stitches?

• 25:55Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, no, I'd stopped bleeding. I hadn't been bleeding for four days straight. Like it bled out and off for a while, but like it was a massive bruise. Like it was a massive bruise, but then I, you know, the, the best part was a buddy of mine I went to high school with, I saw him at a, a party the next week and I was like, he was, he's a doctor. And so I asked him, I said, hey, you know, I was gonna text you the other day and I told him what had happened. And I was like, I didn't know if I should go to the emergency room or not. And he was, he had a lot of disgust in his face as I told him the story.

• 26:29Adrienne Cheatham?

  He was judging the fuck out of you.

• 26:30Joe Flamm?

  Yeah. And he goes, yeah, um, kind of as a rule in medicine and in life, like if a knife goes inside of you, like you should go to the hospital. I was like.

• 26:43Adrienne Cheatham?

  That's a good rule to live by.

• 26:45Joe Flamm?

  I was like, this is why I didn't text you.

• 26:55Adrienne Cheatham?

  Joe Flamm, this one time I was in the south of France and normally I will advance before the client and I will get the kitchen set up, I'll get everything going, I'll get some prep done. Vinaigrette sauces, stuff that I can keep in the fridge. So I have it for the, you know, the start of when we get rolling. And I got there the same time the client did.

• 27:20Adrienne Cheatham?

  Client landed in the chopper, I'm driving in from another country to the south of France, meet at the property and had to scramble. So I have to bake bread that night and very light dinner. The light dinner was fine. This bread, however,

• 27:40Adrienne Cheatham?

  I had a sous chef, a local sous chef who did the shopping and organized the kitchen for me. So when I got there, I wasn't coming in completely cold. The local sous chef, bless his heart, did not label some of the dry goods that were put into plastic containers on the spice shelf. So I'm making this bread and it's, it's a sweet bread.

• 28:05Adrienne Cheatham?

  And I needed sugar.

• 28:08Adrienne Cheatham?

  So I open this container, I'm rushing, mind you, I am, I am balls to the wall trying to, cause I gotta get the bread in the oven first, then make the dinner so it can all hit the table at the same time. So I'm scrambling to get this dough to rise and get it ready. So I, um, take this white crystal container, container of white crystals from the shelf. I, I look at it in the light, it's sparkling. Sugar sparkles. I'm like, great, this is sugar. I didn't taste it. Yeah, so I put about a half a cup of salt

• 28:43Adrienne Cheatham?

  into this bread dough.

• 28:45Joe Flamm?

  Just destroyed your yeast, destroyed your yeast. Like, I feel like, you know what I mean? That's like, just, that is a sucker punch from the rafters to your yeast for that bread, huh?

• 28:58Adrienne Cheatham?

  And I'm like, you know what? I'll proof them really quickly. I'll just like, I'll kind of proof them with a damp towel over as the oven is preheating. So as the oven's preheating, I'm like, okay, well, you know, let me turn the steam up in the combi. Like let me, let me get this to proof a little more, cause it doesn't seem to be rising. But again, I'm scrambling, cause I have about 30 minutes. So I'm like, didn't pay it the attention it deserved. Baked off the bread, sent it to the table with the dinner afterward, you know?

• 29:27Joe Flamm?

  Hold on, hold on, hold on.

• 29:29Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, yeah.

• 29:29Joe Flamm?

  Did, did you try the bread before it went out?

• 29:33Joe Flamm?

  You didn't, you fucking didn't, don't lie.

• 29:36Adrienne Cheatham?

  After it went out. I did not try it.

• 29:39Joe Flamm?

  Chef, taste your food, taste your food, that's so on you.

• 29:43Adrienne Cheatham?

  101, 101, taste your food. So I didn't taste it. I packed the bread basket, sent that, plated the food, sent that so the table could be ready. And then I take a piece of bread, smear some butter on it and I take a bite. I was like, fuck my life. It's like, oh no. I was like, no. So I'm like running out, the table is so far away on the property. You know, the waiter had already set the table. I was like, oh, this is, this is horrible. So by the time I go out there, the client's already eating and at the table. And God bless them, like they didn't say anything. I just noticed that like the bread had been torn and then kind of left there. And I was like, how is everything?

• 30:28Adrienne Cheatham?

  They're like, yeah, dinner's great. This, this plate right here, this is great, this is awesome. I was like.

• 30:34Joe Flamm?

  That almost makes it worse, where you like, you just see the remnants of, like, you're like, I know you hated it, just say it. Just say you hated it.

• 30:40Adrienne Cheatham?

  So I literally, I just picked up the bread basket. I was like, let me go ahead and get this out of your way. Like, I'll get this out of here. It was just, it was just kind of like a laugh later.

• 30:49Joe Flamm?

  Was it super salty, but was it also like, I mean, the texture of it had to be kind of fucked up too, right?

• 30:54Adrienne Cheatham?

  It was so salty and so dense, Joe.

• 30:57Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, I was gonna say, it had to be like really dense too. Not even like, oh, it's a beautiful texture, but it's salty. So like this bread is good, but it's like, not only is this bread bad, it's salty. You're like, listen, what this bread lacks in structure, it makes up for it at all.

• 31:15Joe Flamm?

  You're like French bread, salty like the sea, right? We're the south of France. It's very pro French style, you know?

• 31:22Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, that was, yeah, that was my, my walk in confession.

• 31:25Joe Flamm?

  And bread mistakes, it's like, cooking mistakes are like painting mistakes. You can repaint that, you can fix it pretty quick. Bread mistake is a cement mistake.

• 31:34Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yes. And it was like cement.

• 31:37Joe Flamm?

  It's like, this is gonna be a lot. Like we gotta start over, get the sledgehammer. Like you fucked up.

• 31:45Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, yes.

• 31:47Joe Flamm?

  That really, that really made my day, age. Thanks for that. Thanks for that. You know, I think of you as perfection all the time, but you know, even, even the great Adrian Cheatham makes mistakes.

• 31:57Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh Joe, there's been so many.

• 32:00Joe Flamm?

  I think that, I think that, I think that's a good place to, to, you know, call it a week for this week, age.

• 32:08Adrienne Cheatham?

  All right, that's it for this episode of the Chef's Cut. Head to the comments to share your favorite walk in confessions 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.