The Secret to Shopping the Farmers Market Like a Chef, and Technology Transforming Hospitality!!

Farmers market season is here, so Adrienne and Joe are sharing the tips, tricks, and insider knowledge that chefs use to find the best ingredients. From the questions you should be asking farmers to the relationships that can completely change the way you shop, they break down how to get the most out of every trip to the market. In this episode: The questions every shopper should ask at the farmers market How to build relationships with farmers and better understand seasonal produce The creative process behind developing new dishes and menus Why seasonal ingredients drive menu planning in great restaurants How technology is changing the hospitality experience for guests The growing role of AI in reservations, phone service, and restaurant operations Adrienne's Walk-In Confession involving a cooking demo, a head of cabbage, and a chef's knife This episode of The Chef's Cut is sponsored by Slang AI. Visit https://www.slang.ai/ to learn more! 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?

  This week on The Chef's Cut, farmers market season is at its early peak. And we are going to tell you what questions to ask your farmer to make the most out of it. What are you excited about today? Farmers love that question. We'll talk about the new technology people are using to enhance the guest experience.

• 0:31Joe Flamm?

  You see some places that have just, you know, just don't answer the phone at all anymore.

• 0:36Adrienne Cheatham?

  And a helpful lesson about how not to cut those fresh vegetables you get at the market. That knife dislodged from the cabbage and lodged into the back of my hand. But first, Chef's Cut Nation, you know what time it is. We need 10 seconds of your day. Please rate and review wherever you get your pods because Joe and I are hitting the summer and this really helps.

• 1:05Adrienne Cheatham?

  So we've talked about farmers market on the pod and a lot of people were really excited because a lot of people who aren't chefs don't realize that the best produce and the best things that you're going to learn, you're going to find out by talking to the people at that stand. Yes, you want to look around and something at that stand is going to draw you in. But let's kind of decode farmers markets for people who don't work in the industry and who want to get to know, like, don't be intimidated to talk to your farmer. What is some advice that you would give somebody going to a farmer's market who isn't a chef and doesn't have a relationship with a farmer? What would you tell them to look for? And what's a good way to get a conversation started with a farmer?

• 1:49Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, I think it's one, it's building that relationship with that farm stand that you go to. You know what I mean? I go to the same ones all the time, so I talk to them all the time and say hi. Like, there's new people there. I introduce myself and just ask them, be like, oh, what's good? You know what I mean? Ask them what's good. What's, you know, what are you liking today? And it's, you know, whether it's, you know, they have a bunch of varietals of apples or melons or grapes. Greens or whatever, or you know, if it's something you don't know, not being afraid to be like, hey, what is this? And then asking like, what do you do with this? What are chefs doing with this? I have people who talk to me at the farmer's market all the time where they're like, they'll see me, you know, grabbing something. They're like, oh, what are you going to do with that? And I like, you know, and I love talking to them about it. I'm like an old man in like a hardware store. You know what I mean?

• 2:29Joe Flamm?

  I'm like, oh, you want to talk about cauliflower? Like, you know, uh, and like, we'll talk to him for 30 minutes about it. And they're like, I regret asking any of these questions to this guy. But I think like, that's the biggest thing. It's like having those conversations. And I think like the other thing, as like chefs said, you know, at restaurants or in, you know, doing private work or whatever you're doing, when we're planning a dinner, we kind of go into it with half a plan of like, all right, this is what I'm looking for. Right? Of like, I'm cooking for 10 people, or I'm trying to put a dish on that is like XYZ. So we have an idea going of like, I need some things like this. And so I think for like the average person, if you have an idea, a little bit of what you're looking for,

• 3:11Joe Flamm?

  then it gives you a baseline. And then if you can go from there and say, okay, well, if they're out of English peas, and I really wanted to make a mint and English pea pasta, right? Then having that conversation with the farmer and say, hey, I was going to make this. You don't have this. You know, what, what do you have? And you know, like, what do they have that's a great vegetable, right? Oh, hey, listen, this Italian black cow is super beautiful right now. You can put that into a pasta. It'd be really, really good. So I think going in with an idea so that when you're buying stuff, because there's nothing more frustrating too, than buying stuff and that it's like, it sits in the fridge and dies, right?

• 3:47Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right.

• 3:47Joe Flamm?

  So like having a plan for that stuff before you take it off that table.

• 3:52Adrienne Cheatham?

  Hmm. Yeah, that's really good advice because I've definitely brought stuff and I'm like, oh my God, I don't, I don't have a, an outlet to use this. I'm, I'm just going to snack on said vegetable. Yes, that's a possibility. But it'll sit in the fridge for a few days and then I'm like, okay, I just have to figure it out before it's past its prime and I have to throw it away. And just like you said before, there is a worst chef question to ask, which we all know now from our previous episode. But there is a best farmer question to ask, and you nailed it. What are you excited about right now? What are you excited about today? Farmers love that question. They love it because there's always something they're excited about.

• 4:34Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, there's always something they've been snacking on all morning. Look at their table and what they're snacking on and you're like, oh, that's what I want. You know what I mean? If these guys are just sitting here eating a certain type of apple, I'm like, that's probably the apple I want, right?

• 4:49Adrienne Cheatham?

  You, you got honey saps over there? Okay, cool. I want one. I want what you're eating.

• 4:53Joe Flamm?

  But I think that's also what makes it tricky. Like sometimes what you do, I don't know if you've ever done the CSA boxes.

• 4:59Adrienne Cheatham?

  I have not, but I have friends who do.

• 5:01Joe Flamm?

  So I'd never done one until like during COVID. Cause there's, you know, they did all those boxes, like a lot of purveyors and a lot of farmers where it's like you can get meat boxes and you could get, you know, vegetable boxes. So I did a CSA for like a full year, which I'd never done. I was always curious about it, but I was never, you know, when we're working in restaurants, you're not home enough to do it, right? And you know, it's like, and you're not cooking for enough people to do it. But even for, for me to get through the full box of vegetables sometimes, like felt like, like a task. Like it was like, okay, you know, and then it's like you run into those like three beats. You know, like show you roast beats right now. I'm like roast and peel beats. Like on a Tuesday night. And if like I'm feeling that way, I can't imagine people who it's like, haven't roasted a trillion beats in their life.

• 5:46Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right. It's a big chore.

• 5:49Joe Flamm?

  Right. Looking at that like a big chore. So I think like the biggest thing of like, the CSAs are great, but that it's like, you almost like, I got in the system of like, once I got it, I would kind of like go through it and I would make a plan for every single thing.

• 6:00Adrienne Cheatham?

  Okay.

• 6:01Joe Flamm?

  So I was like, okay, this is how I'm going to use all this stuff this week. I would plan my meals and plan, you know, how I was going to cook everything and try to use every single part of it. Which is like, that was a lot of work, but I mean, I was unemployed. So like I have, I, I had the time.

• 6:14Adrienne Cheatham?

  I have, yeah. I have a friend named Sarah who gets CSA boxes and once in a while she'll like, text me, so I got this big box of mushrooms, like what should I do? Or I got 12 rutabagas, like what should I do? And so I'm always like, I'm here for developing a plan for them so that they don't go to waste.

• 6:34Joe Flamm?

  Right. And so I think it's one of those things when you have a CSA, that's the best way to handle it. But the same vision of like, when you're going to a farmer's market, if you can have an idea in your head, like if I'm like cooking a dinner at home, like usually it's like, I go, I figure out what protein I want to cook first, and then I go buy vegetables.

• 6:53Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right.

• 6:53Joe Flamm?

  If I go to the grocery store with no plan, I'm going to the meat and fish counter first. I'm figuring out what my protein is, and then I'm going back to the veg section and getting whatever I want to go around it that makes sense.

• 7:04Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right.

• 7:05Joe Flamm?

  So I think like, if you approach the farmer's market with the same way of like, oh, I'm gonna cook salmon tonight. So what do I want to go with that? And like saying that to these guys, like, you know what I mean? These women and like, they know, they all cook.

• 7:17Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 7:18Joe Flamm?

  And they all talk to chefs. They all know every chef in the city they work in. You know what I mean? They are plugged in. They know, you want to know restaurant drama too? You want to know the tea? You want to know the tea of what's going on in your city restaurant wise?

• 7:33Adrienne Cheatham?

  Talk to your farmers.

• 7:34Joe Flamm?

  Farmer's market is better than a 2 a.m. bar. Let me tell you. They know what is going on.

• 7:40Adrienne Cheatham?

  That is awesome. So they can give you the gossip and they can also say, well, this chef likes to pair this with salmon, or this chef likes to pair this with salmon.

• 7:49Joe Flamm?

  Right.

• 7:50Adrienne Cheatham?

  So I think that's a good point that you brought up because everybody approaches the farmer's market with a different plan. Some people do go there with a plan of what they're looking for. Like this time of year, lettuce is coming in. So I know I'm gonna find beautiful, I like red oak lettuce, early season, first couple of cuttings of it. This time of year, when I go to the farmer's market, I know I'm looking for red oak lettuce. But besides that, I'm one of those people, and I know people think private chefs, like you write a menu, you get it approved. That's not how my job works. My job works where I can do whatever the fuck I want any given day. So I don't have to get a menu approved by somebody.

• 8:34Adrienne Cheatham?

  I just go to the farmer's market or I go to the produce section during the winter and I look for inspiration in what the farmers are excited about. And I'm like, ooh, they have young spring peas that are like the little teardrop teeny tiny shape that are like very high in sugar, very low in starch, only available for like a very fleeting time at the beginning of spring. Great. Let me get a pint of those or two pints if I can get it. And then that's how I build my menus. So I usually go and I'll do a market walk first and see what really strikes me and what I get inspiration from.

• 9:16Joe Flamm?

  I feel like one of the questions I get a ton from whether it's like cooks coming up or people randomly is they're like, well, how do you come up with dishes? At least when I was coming up, I kind of thought that, you know, chefs were just sitting around and they were like, oh, I'll just do this. You know, they're just inventing things in their head constantly and just, and you know, like, didn't understand how it's something like anything else. Like the creativity is, you know, it's a skill and it's one that you have to work on. It's one that you have to maintain. It's one that you have to do a lot to keep going. So, you know, for you as now you're a personal chef and so you're doing bespoke menus constantly. So, my question to you then is like, one, now in private work, but even, you know, just going

• 10:00Joe Flamm?

  back even into your restaurant days, when you're sitting, you're gonna like write a menu. Like, what does your creative process look like now? And like, where, where did it kind of stem from? What did it look like, you know, when you were, we're doing the bird of dens, we're doing the roosters and all that stuff?

• 10:17Adrienne Cheatham?

  So in restaurants, it usually started with the chef, like Chef Eric Repair, Chef Marcus Samuelson, telling me what dish needed to change. And yes, we would have a set seasonal change that we did three or four times a year. And that's always like, you know, okay, there's always going to be a lettuce salad on the menu. So the garnish is going to change. During the winter, it might be green apples, shaved celery roots. Shaved celery stalks, things like that. And then during the summer, we might get into peaches and we might get into throwing a little bit of basil in there with the peaches and that lettuce mixture. During the spring, you know, we would like probably put some melons and feta in there or something like that.

• 10:59Adrienne Cheatham?

  So there were always the seasonal changes, but then, you know, Chef Repair would say, Adrienne, you know, the striped bass tartare has been on the menu for too long and it hasn't changed. Let's look at changing that. Or an entree, we need a new set to go with the halibut. And that, that would kind of be the, the push to change a dish there because again, those were not my restaurants.

• 11:20Joe Flamm?

  Right. So when he would say to you though, hey Adrienne, the striped bass has been on the menu too long.

• 11:26Adrienne Cheatham?

  And he sounds just like that.

• 11:28Joe Flamm?

  Just like that. It was perfect. What's your first step from there? I guess is my question. Like when he says that to you, you're like, all right, am I, you know what I mean? Like pulling out cookbooks, am I looking at all the menus? What's the first thing I'm looking for? Like, okay, I want to figure out my protein first and then I'm building the set around it? Or I'm figuring out the set and then figuring out what would be the best fish to go with that set based on seasonality? How are you building that out?

• 11:54Adrienne Cheatham?

  I like to go set first because there's always a protein that's beautiful and gives you some inspiration. But for me, I was thinking about striped bass, crudo and tartare. And I think of it as kind of a blank canvas. So I'm not going to get as much inspiration from the protein on that aspect. So for me, I like to start with the garnish, the vegetables, the fruit, the whatever's going to go with this protein. And I remember there's a dish that's still on the liberdad menu today that we've talked about is the mango jicama. Striped tartare that I did with a mango emulsion. And that started because we had some jicama in the walk-in.

• 12:37Adrienne Cheatham?

  And I saw the jicama and I was like, oh my God, I haven't had this in, in years. Since I had it with tahin seasoning and mango from a fruit cart like, you know, in Chicago or in Miami, like places where you have the Mexican communities that have those fruit carts and they sprinkle it with that acidic spicy tahin seasoning. I'm like, or you know, drizzle some topatillo hot sauce over it. I'm here for it. So that was where the inspiration for that started was from an ingredient that then dictated the rest. And that's how I kind of approached the farmer's market. I walk into the farmer's market and like, say it's the summertime and I see beautiful eggplant,

• 13:18Adrienne Cheatham?

  beautiful tomatoes. I'm like, oh, I want to do a caponata, like a really fresh, chunky, delicious seasonal caponata. You got eggplant, tomato. I'll throw some olives in there, some capers for brininess. Like, you know, that's the kind of thing. So I usually see an ingredient and then my rolodex of like dishes and cookbooks I've read over the years, like something will like boom. And I'm like, okay, I gotta do that.

• 13:45Joe Flamm?

  So when you're doing that, if you're going to the farmer's market, like, let's say you're going to the farmer's market tomorrow and you have, you know, two dinners this weekend. Are you like, I mean, because you kind of know what's it already, right? Are you writing a baseline menu before you go? Or are you totally blank pages? I'm gonna go and when I get home, I'll write the menus.

• 14:07Adrienne Cheatham?

  A hundred percent. I formulate the menu as I'm shopping and walking through the farmer's market. Because once I get that idea of what the dish is that I'm gonna do, I need to start filling in the other blanks. I need to find the things that are going to complement those eggplant or like summer squash is coming in right now. Beautiful patty pans, zucchini flowers, blossoms are coming in now. So I'm like, okay, I'll do stuffed squash blossoms tonight. And what am I going to stuff it with? Am I going to do it with like a mousseline of chicken? Or am I going to do it with vegetable or fish? And so I'll start walking around the market and filling in those blanks. And what are those blossoms going to go with? Are they going to go on a carpaccio of sliced

• 14:51Adrienne Cheatham?

  summer squash? Or are they just going to be on the plate? So I start to fill in those blanks as I'm walking through. And then I'll kind of like write a plan when I get there and sift through the ingredients. And if I did over purchase and something doesn't fit the menu, then I'm like, I have to use this tomorrow for XYZ.

• 15:13Joe Flamm?

  Right now. And I think that's like the dream creation, right? Where you're just like walking around, you're picking things. And I think in what you do for most size dinners, you're doing that probably works, right?

• 15:23Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 15:23Joe Flamm?

  If you're doing the dinner for a hundred people, you're not doing that.

• 15:27Adrienne Cheatham?

  No, a hundred percent.

• 15:28Joe Flamm?

  You're planning that dinner menu out three months ahead of time.

• 15:30Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right.

• 15:31Joe Flamm?

  You know what I mean? Like to all the things.

• 15:33Adrienne Cheatham?

  A hundred percent.

• 15:35Joe Flamm?

  But I think for me, it's like, you know, in the restaurant, it's like, so it it it comes in like waves. Like, we usually have a menu meeting, like, six weeks out before, like, we think we're gonna start rolling changes for a season. Okay. And before I sit down in that menu meeting, I will make a list of just every ingredient that's coming in season. So I'll just write a list, you know, I mean, in my notebook, it'll be, you know, and I'm like a pen and paper person, like, I have to, like, I have to have like a hard copy of it, you know, like, it just, it just works.

• 16:09Adrienne Cheatham?

  We're tactile people. Chefs are very tactile people. I get that.

• 16:13Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, I just am. I really like it. You know, some of my chefs, they do it on their phone. But for me, it's like, you know, I have to like, write it physically down. And I'll just make a list. So for like spring, I'm like, okay, asparagus, peas, you know, I write down every variety of pea, pea tendrils, I'll be like, you know, ramps, spring onions, all the stuff. And I'll just make my list. And then I'll start kind of going through old cookbooks, you know, and I'll be like, all right. And I like, when I go through cookbooks, sometimes I'll make notes in them, or I'll just dog ear them. And like, I'll see a recipe that it's like, oh, I I marked, you know, a year ago, being like, oh, this will be good for spring. And there might be some just component of that dish I really liked. Or maybe it's like, a lot of times, too, it's just like, I like the way they plated it. And I'm

• 16:56Joe Flamm?

  like, aesthetically, I really like this. I'll make all those notes. Sometimes I'll have some rough ideas of dishes where I'm like, okay, I'd really like to try something like this at Rosemary right now. And then I'll have my menu meeting with my chefs. And so I'll sit with my chefs, and they'll all do the same thing. And then we'll sit down and we'll go through, we'll all take a printed hard copy of the menu again. And we go through dish by dish and by what needs to change. Because you know, the seasonality of whatever like, you know, coming into spring, it's like, all right, sweet potatoes are about to go.

• 17:29Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right.

• 17:30Joe Flamm?

  That's, you know, number one, we gotta get sweet potatoes off the menu. We gotta get the, you know, all the squashes off the menu, the delicatos and the corn, because they're all getting starchy and all that.

• 17:38Adrienne Cheatham?

  All the hard squashes, yeah.

• 17:41Joe Flamm?

  Right. So we start there of like, what's the necessity of like, that has to change based on the seasonality, because those are going to be our first changes. And then from there going into, well, what do we want to change with the season, right? Like, what pastas are we going to reset the sets? Because now we have, you know, ramps coming in and we have morels and we have spring onions and we have all these things. So

• 18:07Joe Flamm?

  we kind of go from those places and, and we start there. And then from there, it's going, and for us, it's a, it's a, you know, the conversation with the farmers starts way before the farmers market. Because then it's my sous chefs emailing all the farmers saying, hey, we're going to be looking for, you know, green asparagus, purple asparagus, ramps and spring onions. When do you think those are going to start hitting? Because it changes every year. You know around when it hits.

• 18:33Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, that's true. But the exact, is it going to be early May or late May?

• 18:37Joe Flamm?

  Right. But it's a moving target. You know what I mean? It could be April 1st to May 15th on some stuff. So it's like, that's where the conversation starts. We're like, okay, when is that coming in? And then so we can do our work on the backend of like, I don't want to miss a week of ramps because I'm not ready for them.

• 18:53Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right, right.

• 18:54Joe Flamm?

  I want to know when those, when he says, you know, or she says like, next week, we're going to have ramps. It's like, well, we're dialed. We're ready for them. You know, that dish is costed, that dish is ready, that dish is, you know, all set up to go. And you know, would usually like with ramps, it's hard because like you can't get ramps to test with early.

• 19:14Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 19:14Joe Flamm?

  It's like other ingredients, you know, like fava's and peas and stuff like that. We'll just get like, you know, ones from, that are getting shipped in that just aren't going to be as good.

• 19:23Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right.

• 19:23Joe Flamm?

  And we can at least get the right weight. We can get the right visual and we just know like, this will taste a little bit better.

• 19:29Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 19:30Joe Flamm?

  This is going to taste better.

• 19:31Adrienne Cheatham?

  But at least you have something to play with.

• 19:34Joe Flamm?

  Right. Where it's like, we can write recipes. We can do cost stuff. We can, you know, we know what we need. So we kind of set up all those dishes ahead of time. So that when we start hitting. We're ready to go. It's like, hey, you know, Nichols said that they will have peas Wednesday next week, but then also having the conversation with them of, okay, you're gonna have them Wednesday. How long will you have them for?

• 19:58Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right, right. How long will they be here for?

• 20:01Joe Flamm?

  Other end of it.

• 20:02Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 20:03Joe Flamm?

  Is like, you need to know, like, when we're talking six weeks out on stuff, it's like, we need to know what our window is. The way we like to do things, you know, you're saying like libertad, you did, you know, those three big changes a year, four big changes a year. And at Siaja, it was more of that. At, you know, a rosemary, a carthoffo, a tuto, it's a much more fluid change. So it's like, I don't want to not run a dish only because we can run it for three weeks. So if we got three weeks of ramps, we're going hard three weeks.

• 20:29Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 20:30Joe Flamm?

  You know, so we want to make sure we get that full three weeks though. But also, as that dish goes on, you need to know what you're gonna replace it with.

• 20:39Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right, exactly. You have to have a plan in place. So it's not like, oh, we're not getting them tomorrow. What are we doing? Who knows?

• 20:46Joe Flamm?

  Right. It doesn't, yeah, you can't just like work it, I mean, can work it like that, but that's not how we work it at least.

• 20:51Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, you can work it like that if you have a 20-seat restaurant, maybe. If you've got a larger restaurant, you can be nimble, but you have to have a plan set so that, like you said, that change comes instantly when you're ready for it, as opposed to like, trying to figure out what you're gonna do in the moment.

• 21:09Joe Flamm?

  Right. So it's nice, like, once we finally, like, now that we're into farmer's market season, where we can physically go there. It's like you go on a Wednesday and that ability to get a little bit of something that's not quite in yet. Bring it back and, you know, bring it to my chefs and be like, hey, look, these are coming up. Like, why don't we work on this with this? Or one of them will be like, oh, I wanted to do this, you know, we just pulled some copa down and I wanted to do a copa crostino with English peas and with ricotta. It's like, okay, cool. Let's try that today and tomorrow. Let's try to get that dish sorted. And then we'll go live with that next Thursday when we know Wednesday we can get a big delivery.

• 21:46Joe Flamm?

  So it's like, we have to like, there's so much foresight that has to go into it to be able to change fluidly at like, you know, a big restaurant that's really busy. So it's like, it's a ton of like setup and organization to go into it. But I think, you know, it's like for that's, you know, there's so much of behind the scenes that people don't see, right?

• 22:07Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah. And that's the cool thing about it. It's, you know, there's, there's so much to it, especially like for restaurants. The quantity that you have to get, the amount of planning that goes into it to be able to make these seasonal changes. Like, you know, you're planning for the summer in the spring, you're planning for the spring in the winter. So this time of year, some of my favorite things that are coming in now are like jumbo French white asparagus. These things are massive. It's like they bury them so they never develop the green color from chlorophyll. So they're, they're white, super white asparagus and they can be an inch thick in diameter. Or three quarters of an inch, but they're pretty big.

• 22:48Adrienne Cheatham?

  But what I'm most excited about doing whenever the spring comes in is getting like green pencil asparagus. It's less expensive one and it's a little more forgiving. You don't have to peel it as much either. It's like less labor intensive. But I love taking puff pastry, smear it with creme fraiche. And then I'll par cook my asparagus or peas or whatever the seasonal produce is. And I'll just arrange it on top of the creme fraiche puff pastry, sprinkle everything with salt and pepper. Maybe if I'm feeling real froggy, I'll grate a little Parmesan or like Gruyere over the top. And just let that kind of like bake in the oven.

• 23:31Joe Flamm?

  Yeah. I mean, it's just the beauty of like getting really great vegetables, you know? And then it's like, you know, rosemary, where you have the charcoal hearth, where it's like, we're able to like, you know, like right now, it's like having an asparagus dish where it's like green and purple asparagus. And you just, you know, you grill it really hard over the coals and then you toss it in the beef fat. And then, you know, just like over Parmesan.

• 23:52Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, that sounds so good.

• 23:53Joe Flamm?

  You know, pickled spring onions and it's just. It's simple, but it's beautiful, but it's it's funny like how much like people are like, oh, like, how did you like come up with this crazy thing? And it's like, well, we've been working on it really hard, you know, we read a ton. And I think like, I think people don't realize like, like we do a ton of like, you know, a biggest big thing with my chefs is like teaching them how to research, you know, especially like at Carcuffa, where we're doing something that's so specific, where we're like, we're doing a Roman restaurant, right? So it's like, you know, I buy tons of cookbooks, obvi- obviously. But like, so it's like, reading Italian cookbooks, reading food about Rome, but it's also like just reading about Rome, like looking for ancient Roman recipes we can riff off of. Like, we do

• 24:37Joe Flamm?

  a ton of like, you know, and talking to my chefs about building time into their weeks into their days of like, hey, when are you just gonna sit down and read? When are you gonna sit down and like, put the cookbooks out? And like, go through the cookbooks and like, pull up your laptop and read through some things and like, take some notes, like, get a coffee, find the first 20 minutes in your day and just go read, go research. You know what I mean? It's such an important part of the creative process that I think just doesn't get enough airtime. It doesn't get enough daylight of like, people think that it's just like, oh, you just, you know, you saw this at another restaurant you worked at, so you did it. But it's like, there's, I mean, speaking of La

• 25:17Joe Flamm?

  Berna Den, you go to La Berna Den, and the library at La Berna Den is spectacular.

• 25:23Adrienne Cheatham?

  It's hu- and there's books in so many other places because they can't even fit them all there.

• 25:28Joe Flamm?

  Right. And this is one of the greatest restaurants in the world we're talking about in La Berna Den, right? And it shows you, to me at least, as an outsider walking in, I was like, this is the attention to continued learning, to a restaurant that's been around so long because it's continued to evolve and continued to stay good, stay at the top of its game. Because like, They're obviously prioritizing continued learn.

• 25:54Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yes.

• 25:55Joe Flamm?

  Continue to read and research and do all these things. And I just think chefs don't talk about it enough.

• 26:01Adrienne Cheatham?

  That is so true. And people ask like, oh, how did you come up with this? How did you come up with this? Because if you read enough, if you're observing things going on around you in, in like books and in not just cookbooks, but like you said, read about that place and that time. Read about that ingredient. You know, it's, it's so cool because then you just have all this information filed away. And then when you're walking through the farmer's markets, you're like, I'm going to take this and it's going to, and then that's how you come up with these concepts for these dishes. Because you have a wealth of information in the back of your head.

• 26:39Joe Flamm?

  Right.

• 26:39Adrienne Cheatham?

  That it connects with when you see these ingredients. But if you don't do the reading and put in the work, you're not going to have that, you know, that.

• 26:47Joe Flamm?

  Right. We constantly talk about, it's like, build the Rolodex, build the Rolodex, build the Rolodex. You know, write dishes and put food up. Like, I think that's the biggest thing for like young sous chefs coming up. It's like, just put food up. And if it's not there, that's okay. We can work through it. But if you don't put anything up, we have nothing to work on.

• 27:06Adrienne Cheatham?

  Exactly.

• 27:06Joe Flamm?

  So it's like, even if your dish, if your dish is 30% of the way there, put it up.

• 27:11Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 27:12Joe Flamm?

  Let's talk about the 70% that's missing. And sometimes there's a lot of dishes where my chefs, they'll put them up and it's like, hey, like this doesn't work right now. Or maybe this just doesn't work here. Like this is a good dish. It makes sense, whatever.

• 27:27Adrienne Cheatham?

  But it doesn't make sense for this restaurant.

• 27:29Joe Flamm?

  Right. But like, you know, like you can't do poached white asparagus with hollandaise and a poached egg at, you know what I mean, Rosemary or a carchew.

• 27:37Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 27:38Joe Flamm?

  Like you couldn't do it. It wouldn't make sense on the restaurant menu, no matter how good it is, right?

• 27:42Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right.

• 27:43Joe Flamm?

  It could be the best version of that. Like, hey, this is a good dish. However, this and this and this. So I think like, that's such an important part of them of like, you know, going from like learning the backbones of the creative process to how to edit.

• 27:58Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 27:59Joe Flamm?

  To, you know what I mean? Like what works when? And I think like it's such a process and it's one of those things that I'm always working to try to demystify.

• 28:09Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, it's, it's a muscle that you have to work. It's not, you have to develop it and you have to develop it by feeding the muscles with information. That's what comes to it and then doing it, just going for it, just doing it, just trying something. Because you can come up with a concept in your head, but once you put it on a plate, does it work? And you don't know necessarily until you try everything together.

• 28:42Adrienne Cheatham?

  So Joe, there is a conversation that we started a couple of weeks ago when we were talking about tech in restaurants. Right? Because there is so much technology in restaurants now with the reservation wars with everything. So we got some comments and we got some DMs from listeners. And something that people talked about that we didn't really touch on, but I know is something you are super passionate about is phone calls.

• 29:10Joe Flamm?

  You know, that's one of my things. And it's one of those things now that I think it's become, you know, more difficult. And I think it's a weird balance where it's like, you see some places that have just, you know, just don't answer the phone at all anymore. That makes it tremendously difficult. And for me, I feel like every time the phone rings, you know what I mean? I'm like, we gotta pick it up because I feel like if I pick up the phone, I make money.

• 29:30Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right, right.

• 29:31Joe Flamm?

  Normally, you know, I feel like the majority of the time, it's somebody who wants to get a reservation. They can't figure it out online. They sometimes see the time, the date they want.

• 29:39Adrienne Cheatham?

  And most people want to call and like call the restaurant. Like, most people do not want to actually interface with their phone or computer all the time.

• 29:48Joe Flamm?

  It's all the little ones where it's like, they're like, they just have a question. Oh, I want this reservation for this time. And it's like with the online platforms for reservations, sometimes it's hard because it's, you can't just make it unlimited reservations, right? There's all these rules and regulations to it. And so maybe they can't get exactly what they want, but if they could talk to someone, we can get them pretty darn close, right? And we're going to still keep that resume.

• 30:11Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right, exactly. You get that person to your restaurant, no matter what. And I know you talked about, you know, AI last time. And I think the phone service, like, that's one way that I'm really seeing some good AI coming to use.

• 30:27Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, I think that's one where it's like, I can really wrap my head around because it picks up efficiencies for you. I think it's like a good enhance, right? And I mean, and that's, that's our whole battle at restaurants, right? That's the whole battle of hospitality of like, how do we make this a little bit better every day? The phone system one, I think, like, makes sense to me because for me, it's like the biggest thing. It's like, if I can have the guarantee that no matter what, if you call, you're gonna get response.

• 30:51Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right.

• 30:52Joe Flamm?

  Half the battle is, you know, getting someone to walk through that door, getting someone to pick up that phone, getting someone to click on your website, right? So if I've already won the fight of I'm in your head, you know me, you know my brand, you know the restaurant, you know you want to come there. So I've already run that won the toughest battle, right? I, I, I got you to notice me.

• 31:10Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right, the awareness.

• 31:12Joe Flamm?

  Right, so if, once I get that, I want to make sure that you do not now slip through my hands. Because, you know what I mean, I got 20 other things going on. And I think it's like, especially like the during service hours, right? You know, you've worked a lot of different busy services. And you have a busy host stand, there's people waiting to be seated, there's a lot of things going on, and the phone's ringing off the hook.

• 31:33Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right, yes.

• 31:34Joe Flamm?

  So it's always that awkward pause of that, for that person at the host stand of like, okay, so I have a guest right in front of my face, but I also have a phone ringing right in front of my face.

• 31:45Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right.

• 31:45Joe Flamm?

  So do I have to hold this guest in front of me?

• 31:49Adrienne Cheatham?

  To answer the phone?

• 31:50Joe Flamm?

  To answer the phone, and I'm like, we have to answer the phone. So I think having the ability of where that phone call still is captured to go somewhere is super, super helpful and keeps and retains that guest.

• 32:05Adrienne Cheatham?

  Hell yeah. And that's so important because like at La Bernardette, we had three to five people on any given shift dedicated to only answering phones. But most restaurants can't afford that or they're not big enough. They don't have the infrastructure to pay somebody just to be dedicated to phones. Like you got time to lean, you got time to clean.

• 32:23Joe Flamm?

  Most restaurants don't even have an office to put them in.

• 32:25Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right. Exactly.

• 32:27Joe Flamm?

  You know what I mean?

• 32:27Adrienne Cheatham?

  So your host is doing other stuff.

• 32:30Joe Flamm?

  Were built for reservation offices. You know what I mean? The La Bernardette's, the Spiaja's, like there was a reservationist office.

• 32:36Adrienne Cheatham?

  There's some really interesting information that I found. Cause there's a, there's a company, I think you told me about them called Slang AI. And that's the phone answering service. So somebody sent us like a link and we got some information. Do you know why most guests call restaurants?

• 32:55Joe Flamm?

  I would have to assume it's reservations, right?

• 32:58Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yes. With all like, we talk about the reservation wars, but the majority of people still call restaurants to make a reservation. Isn't that wild?

• 33:08Joe Flamm?

  Yeah. And it's still, and you know, I've, people reach out all the time. It's like, oh, I could just call the restaurant too. I could just call the restaurant too. And it always gives you that like, oh God, I hope someone answers. You know what I mean? Cause I don't know. You know, I think it's like, they say something, there's some rate out there where it's like, you know, it's like restaurants miss like 25% of the calls that come in, which I think is wildly low. Cause I got to imagine there's some out there where it's a hundred percent. And you know, in my mind, I'm like, if we're only missing a quarter, I feel like we're in really, really good shape. So I think giving you the ability to know that like, if somebody is making the effort, that you have the ability to capture them. When it's just like, you know, it's like, we talk about reservation wars and all these things, but really it's every day is just a battle of butts and seats.

• 33:50Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right.

• 33:51Joe Flamm?

  That is the great fight of the restaurant tour. We are fighting the butts in seat battle.

• 33:56Adrienne Cheatham?

  You have a butt, I want it in this seat in this restaurant.

• 33:59Joe Flamm?

  That's it. I got seats for a reason to put butts in them. You know what I mean? I didn't get these seats to not put butts in them. So it's like anything you could do, you know, we've talked about this on the level of like, you know, like this is why, you know, all these chefs, they do TV, they do all these things. It's all just. Another brick in the house of the butts of seats.

• 34:18Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right.

• 34:19Joe Flamm?

  And so like, that's where I'm always focused on. So I think, you know, when we look at AI and we look at like, what it could add, I think there is, you know what I mean? These are the things where I think like there are the good arguments for. If they could answer the phone and make sure that that guest that wants to come to my restaurant can come to my restaurant.

• 34:36Adrienne Cheatham?

  Exactly. Yeah. I mean, there's, there's so many factors of it. Like if I want to book a PDR, a private dining room at a restaurant, I'm calling. And if nobody's picking up and facilitating it, and it's not like the old, you know, bank where it's like, press one for a deposit, press two for hours, press three for dress code. It's interactive. Like I actually, okay, so I was like going down a rabbit hole because you know, I like to spin out on stuff. So I didn't realize this, but for Sling AI, they actually have a feature where they link directly to OpenTable. So your reservations can get booked

• 35:15Adrienne Cheatham?

  and you say, okay, I want a reservation at 7:30. I'm sorry, Adrian, 7:30 is not available, but we can do 6:45 or 7:45 or 8:15. Let me know what you'd like. It's like, whoa. So this is like next level where I was a little reluctant too, but this stuff is really helping. And I think the restaurants that have taken advantage of it are probably benefiting because most people call restaurants to book events, get info for a buyout, get a reservation for whatever time, for whatever size of party. And so that's all, all translating to money.

• 35:49Joe Flamm?

  We can use this, you know, systems like Sling AI to accentuate what we do on the daily, to add to the hospitality. You know, like it's not going to give you a one for one swap, right? We'll never get that. We're still in the business of people. But I think, you know, much like when we look at technology in our physical cooking, it's not always the better option. But if it helps you, you know, build those layers of flavor, add to the dish, then it works sometimes, right? And I think it's the same idea where it's like, if this adds to the hospitality, if it adds to the guest add user experience, where it makes it easier, more seamless, you know, less barriers of entry to just get them through your door. Like then it's something that's going to make a lot of sense.

• 36:29Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, I love that. And Joe, I know I, the last time we talked about tech in restaurants, I think I called you a dinosaur. But it sounds like, sounds like you might, you might have a foot in the, in the new world, in the 21st century. Finally, we've made you a believer.

• 36:44Joe Flamm?

  Hey, when it's guest facing, if it's something that, you know, helps me arm myself deeper for the war and getting more butts in seats, getting more people through my doors and, you know, especially when you have someone who wants to be there, who has discovered you already, then I am all for whatever I can do to try to keep that person locked in with me.

• 37:01Adrienne Cheatham?

  That's why you were nominated for restaurateur, for outstanding restaurateur this year, because you are hospitality minded and you keep your guest experience first, and I love that. And I think we found a new way to help get some more butts in seats at all of your four restaurants.

• 37:25Adrienne Cheatham?

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

• 37:27Joe Flamm?

  Feels like about that time in the day.

• 37:29Adrienne Cheatham?

  It does.

• 37:29Joe Flamm?

  And I believe it is your turn to take a trip in. Grab a milk crate.

• 37:36Joe Flamm?

  Pour a beer into a cork container and spill the beans.

• 37:41Adrienne Cheatham?

  We started this conversation today with the farmer's market. So I think I'll take it back to the farmer's market for my walk-in confession. And this is something that had to do with the farmer's market because I was doing a cooking demo at the farmer's market in the Bronx a few years ago. I was a junior sous chef at La Berna Dene. And so I was doing it on my day off, right? On, I had a Saturday off and I'm gonna go cook and do a demo for 200 people at a farmer's market. But it was with City Harvest, a charity in New York that rescues food and provides it for shelters.

• 38:15Joe Flamm?

  Was this your first demo?

• 38:16Adrienne Cheatham?

  It was my first demo. It was baby's first demo ever.

• 38:21Adrienne Cheatham?

  It was so exciting and I was so nervous, right? And everybody at the restaurant's busy, so nobody's helping me. I have to prep. And the, the food item that City Harvest had for this demo was cabbage. So cabbage had to be the star of it. So I didn't want to do a heavy coleslaw, but I wanted to do a light, you know, cabbage salad, coleslaw, but more salady. So I have to shred and cut copious amounts of cabbage. So I'm on my fifth out of 25 heads of cabbage, right? I'm, I'm rolling, you know, what do you, what do you normally do when you have something round like cabbage? You cut the bottom off and you give yourself a flat surface so it doesn't roll on you?

• 39:06Joe Flamm?

  Yeah.

• 39:06Adrienne Cheatham?

  I start thinking about how many more cabbage I have to go through.

• 39:12Adrienne Cheatham?

  And my dumb ass doesn't level out this one cabbage. I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna shave, I'm gonna shave 10 seconds off of each of these by not leveling. I'm just gonna hold it and cut it in half and that'll be my flat surface. Bad idea. Bad idea. So I go to cut the cabbage in half. I'm holding it with my left hand like this. I'm cutting it. I got the knife in on top. What does a cabbage do? What does anything round do?

• 39:42Joe Flamm?

  It rolls.

• 39:44Adrienne Cheatham?

  It rolls. I rocked and it rolled and that knife dislodged from the cabbage and lodged into the back of my hand. It was so stuck in my hand. I still have a scar from it today. That goes across like two finger bones here. It was so lodged in my hand. I had to like, just pause for a second and then just like, pull it out of my hand and I'm like, oh God. And I just left the cabbage with the knife in it on my cutting board, ran down to where the first aid kit was and I still have cabbage to prep after this. So I put a bandage on, I saran wrap my hand.

• 40:26Adrienne Cheatham?

  I put a glove on. My, my hand is throbbing, Joe.

• 40:31Joe Flamm?

  Oh, yeah. Just like.

• 40:35Adrienne Cheatham?

  That blood, that blood pulsing was just like, oh.

• 40:39Joe Flamm?

  You feel the glove filling up with blood too? And you're just like.

• 40:42Adrienne Cheatham?

  Kind of. It was just soaking through everything. I think like I had to change it 20 minutes later and I just like stacked paper towels on top of it and rewrapped it with, with kitchen tape.

• 40:53Joe Flamm?

  Just the way they teach it in math school.

• 40:55Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh yeah, a hundred percent. Um, and then I still had to finish my prep and I still had to go to the farmer's market the next day to do this demo. And I was at the farmer's market like serving everything one-handed.

• 41:08Joe Flamm?

  Yeah.

• 41:08Adrienne Cheatham?

  And they were like.

• 41:09Joe Flamm?

  With your right hand, like.

• 41:10Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right, right. They're like, chef, can you demo how to cut the cabbage? I was like, no.

• 41:13Joe Flamm?

  No, no, I cannot.

• 41:15Adrienne Cheatham?

  I was like, but I will tell you the first, most important thing. Give yourself a flat surface. Cut off the bottom.

• 41:20Joe Flamm?

  Cut, cut the bottom off. Cut the bottom off. Also, you know, you're working at La Berta Den because anybody else who heard this story, who worked at like a regular restaurant was like, why didn't you just send it all through the RoboCo?

• 41:32Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh God. Oh, no.

• 41:36Joe Flamm?

  To make coleslaw, but you're hand cutting.

• 41:38Adrienne Cheatham?

  Do you put mushroom for duck cell in the Robo Koo? Yeah, now I do, actually.

• 41:42Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, I was like, yeah. Send it.

• 41:46Adrienne Cheatham?

  But yeah.

• 41:46Joe Flamm?

  Also, I'm making duck cell. Uh, but like, you know, like, I'm not serving Wellington. Uh, but like, that's the insane, the most insane part of that story to me is you're like, I'm gonna hand cut cabbage. Like, not even mandolin.

• 42:02Adrienne Cheatham?

  No, hand cut.

• 42:04Joe Flamm?

  Like, that's.

• 42:05Adrienne Cheatham?

  It wasn't.

• 42:06Joe Flamm?

  That's a junior, junior shit move and a half. Is that you're like, I need to hand cut this because like, everyone's gonna know if I don't.

• 42:13Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, yeah, they're gonna totally respect me more for having hand cut all this.

• 42:17Joe Flamm?

  Right. Nobody, nobody gives a shit. I'm a serious chef if I hand cut all this cabbage as opposed to just like, I could have cut the end off it, put it on a slicer and be like,

• 42:27Joe Flamm?

  like, and enjoyed my Saturday.

• 42:30Adrienne Cheatham?

  I was working hard, not smart. You know?

• 42:32Joe Flamm?

  That is.

• 42:32Adrienne Cheatham?

  What can I say?

• 42:34Joe Flamm?

  That's, that's.

• 42:35Adrienne Cheatham?

  I didn't know what I didn't know.

• 42:36Joe Flamm?

  Dude, that's some top tier, like, where it's like, and you know how many people like walked by you and were just like,

• 42:43Joe Flamm?

  you know what I mean? Like, people have been in that kitchen probably 20 years, just like, what is she doing?

• 42:49Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah. Fast forward like years later, I got one of those, uh, peelers, a serrated peeler, the Julian peeler. So now cabbage, I'm just like, ch ch ch ch ch, done.

• 43:02Joe Flamm?

  You use a Julian peeler on a cabbage?

• 43:05Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, my God, yeah, I got one in France, because they, you, they do all those salads, those like.

• 43:09Joe Flamm?

  I'm gonna need, I'm gonna need a video of this. I've never seen it.

• 43:11Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, oh.

• 43:13Joe Flamm?

  You're gonna have to.

• 43:13Adrienne Cheatham?

  They, they, they're very popular in France and Southeast Asia, because there's a lot of shredded vegetable dishes. I learned this at Red Rooster, because there was a cook who had one. And I was so judgy, I looked at her and I was like, you're not cutting that by hand? And she was like, no chef, this is how we do it.

• 43:30Joe Flamm?

  Cut your hand off, cut your hand off if you're serious.

• 43:33Adrienne Cheatham?

  And she was like, no chef, this is how we do it. And she was, there was one who was Jamaican, and then there was another woman who was Vietnamese, I believe. And they both, they were both like, no, no, no, this is how we do it. I was like, boy, I wish I had worked here before.

• 43:49Joe Flamm?

  Yeah.

• 43:49Adrienne Cheatham?

  And learned this before.

• 43:50Joe Flamm?

  That's a tough word.

• 43:51Adrienne Cheatham?

  Sacrifice, I still have like this crazy scar on the back of my hand from it. It goes all the way from my middle finger to my thumb.

• 43:59Joe Flamm?

  This is, this is how we learn. This is how we learn, by putting knives in the back of our hands.

• 44:05Joe Flamm?

  Perhaps there was a better way.

• 44:06Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, I think, I think so.

• 44:09Joe Flamm?

  Well, that was. Glad you've learned, Adrienne. I'm glad we've grown. I feel, I feel like we've all grown from this.

• 44:15Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yes. We all know the moral of the story. Give yourself a flat surface and find a better way.

• 44:21Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, use a rubber coat.

• 44:27Adrienne Cheatham?

  That's 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 videos of every episode. And follow us at The Chef's Cut Pod on IG. For Joe Flamm, I'm Adrienne Cheatham, and this has been The Chef's Cut. Life beyond the past.