Culinary Beginnings & Kitchen Confessions: Rhubarb, Raw Salmon, and Real Talk with Adrienne Cheatham & Joe Flamm

In the latest episode of The Chef's Cut, hosts Adrienne Cheatham and Joe Flamm share how they got their start as chefs — and the paths that brought them to New York and Chicago. They dive into: Big debate: Is rhubarb ever worth the trouble? Why they both love Le Creuset (how could you not?) The challenges of transitioning from culinary school to a real working kitchen A brutal one-star review from someone who didn’t even eat at the restaurant Adrienne’s honest confession: the time she accidentally sent out raw salmon This episode blends humor, honesty, and behind-the-line insight from two acclaimed chefs. 🔗 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.

• 0:01Adrienne Cheatham?

  Hello and welcome to The Chef's Cut. I'm Adrienne Cheatham.

• 0:05Joe Flamm?

  And I'm Joe Flamm.

• 0:06Adrienne Cheatham?

  So, many of you guys know that Joe and I met as competitors on Top Chef. But after that, we actually became real friends in real life. And while Top Chef was a big part of our careers and did a lot for us respectively in terms of visibility, and you know, Joe got some money out of it, it's also a small part of the collective time that we've spent in the food industry. Like, Joe, you've been cooking for how long?

• 0:35Joe Flamm?

  I've been cooking 20 years now. And I think it's funny, you know, when you do Top Chef, it's kind of people like, there's, there's, I feel like a sect of people who are like, "Oh, so you just, you know, started cooking and went on Top Chef, and now you're like ready to restaurant."

• 0:48Adrienne Cheatham?

  How long were we filming Top Chef for?

• 0:50Joe Flamm?

  Two months.

• 0:50Adrienne Cheatham?

  Two months, right. So, two months out of 20 years. So, Top Chef is, is a big deal, don't get me wrong. But it's, when you look at the time of somebody's career, it's almost like a blip. So, we're gonna kind of like dig into that a little bit more.

• 1:07Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, so this week, I really wanted to get into, you know, some of the questions over the years. It's like I weirdly haven't asked you about, you know, kind of how, you know, you ended up where you did. You know, like, we're both from Chicago. We're both Southsiders. We talked about that to no end.

• 1:22Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right.

• 1:22Joe Flamm?

  Because like, you know, who we know, how we grew up, you know, our families, the dynamics and all of that. But you know, one of the questions I never actually asked you is like, how, you being from the greatest city in the world, how'd you end up in New York? You know what I mean? How did that happen? Because I, I like, I know, you know what I mean? I know you grew up here. I know you went to, you know, you went to school down in, you know, Florida Bama Line

• 1:48Joe Flamm?

  to pursue a country music career or something. I'm not sure why you went to school down there.

• 1:54Joe Flamm?

  But you know what I mean? Like I never really, we never really got into like, you know, how did you go from Chicago to Florida to New York? It's always interesting to me like where we land as chefs, you know, Chicago, you get a lot of people from Chicago, but we also get all the feeders, right? We get Wisconsin, we get Illinois, you know, we get Indiana, we get Michigan, we get Iowa, Ohio. And it's kind of a powerhouse for all those places. And like a lot of people who just don't want to go to New York, but they want to be in a big city with great restaurants and be able to like hone their craft there.

• 2:22Adrienne Cheatham?

  And New York is just like Chicago, it's just condensed into a much smaller area. So you have all the cultural neighborhoods, you have all that stuff. It's just smooshed together in a lot smaller of a footprint. I do think Chicago is, I've said for probably 10 years, Chicago, Philly, and New Orleans are my top three food cities in the US. I love New York, don't get me wrong, I've been here for like 20 years. But I love Chicago, the food scene there is so vibrant, it's so diverse. And you have these pockets of neighborhoods where it's, the food is like still true and classic to the culture, but then you also have chefs who are doing new things with it. So you have this like really cool mix there.

• 3:04Adrienne Cheatham?

  And as much as I know you, and like we've talked about work and careers when we met, like I know you went to Catholic school, but I, you know, it's like, I don't know, I know you worked a walk station when you were 19 and like there's things about you I know, but there's a lot I don't know about your career, how you started working for Tony, what kept you in Chicago. So, you know, we're gonna kind of, we'll kind of, I guess, get into some of that today because it's kind of like we're friends, but we're still learning a lot about each other.

• 3:32Joe Flamm?

  Well, yeah, there's so much, you know what I mean? And we always talk about so many different things, but I think, you know, it is always just curious to me like how chefs end up in different cities. I remember, you know, I met Jose Garcis years ago and he's from the north side of Chicago. We were at some food and wine thing, having a beer, talking about Chicago. I just went up to him, you know, I was like a sous chef at the time and I was like, hey, I know you're from Chicago, I'm a big fan, whatever. And he was super cool and I was like, how did you end up in Philly? And he was like, met my wife in Spain. She was from Philly. I ended up ended up in Philly.

• 4:05Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 4:06Joe Flamm?

  I didn't know anything about it. I'd never really been there, but she was from Philly. So I moved to Philly. I followed this girl there. And then all of a sudden that dude's like, you know, one of the most famous Philadelphia chefs out there.

• 4:16Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, that's kind of similar. Not, I wasn't married, but I was, so I went to college in Florida because I wanted to go to culinary school after high school. And my parents were like, oh, hell no. My parents had two different responses. My mom had worked in the food industry in restaurants, front of house, food sales. She was a manager, a host, a waiter. She worked for Kraft selling food to chefs around the city. And my father and her met working at the Oscar Mayer plant. And then she went to restaurants after that. Good Chicago west side story. So she went to work in restaurants. And when I told her I wanted to, she was like, oh, hell no, you're gonna burn out and have nothing to fall back on.

• 4:58Adrienne Cheatham?

  So go to college first, get a degree. So at least you have something to fall back on as a number two career. My dad had a completely different response. He was like, I didn't fight for civil rights for you to become a burger flipper. You're taking our family backward.

• 5:17Adrienne Cheatham?

  I was like, damn, like.

• 5:20Joe Flamm?

  It probably sounded even way more harsh too, with your dad's like thick accent.

• 5:23Adrienne Cheatham?

  He's like, he was brutal. He was like, no, you're taking our family backwards. Like we, we fought to have opportunities. I became a teacher so that my kids could do something better. And I was like, holy shit. Well, I want to work in Michelin star kitchens. He was like, I don't know what that means. Get out of my face. Like, I'm embarrassed.

• 5:41Joe Flamm?

  You want to change tires and cook food? Like, what are you, what are you doing? What are you doing with your life?

• 5:46Adrienne Cheatham?

  Really, really, um, non-supportive. So both of them agreed for different reasons. I had to go to college first. So I went to college in Florida. FAMU Florida A and M is the largest historically black college in the country. And at the time, like they used to have a vineyard and a milk pasture where they had cows back in the day. And like, you know, it was an, it's an agricultural and mechanical university. So I went there thinking I was going to get a little bit of that. But all those programs had pretty much been shut down. But my sister was going into her junior year of college. So it's like, I had a lot of friends there. My sister was in college there. I started in finance, switched to journalism. I was working in pastry catering from my junior and senior year.

• 6:31Adrienne Cheatham?

  Cause I wanted to go into pastry. And then I just, I started working in Florida at a resort on the Gulf of Mexico in the pastry kitchen. And I would always volunteer on the savory side. And I was like, damn, this is, this kind of pirate behavior is kind of cool. I like it, but I was like so OCD. I needed like the measurements and the timing and I loved pastry because of that. But I was dating a guy in college who was moving up to New York to work in finance. And so he was like, well, you know, I was going to go back to Chicago for culinary school. Try to go to Kendall.

• 7:07Joe Flamm?

  The Adrian origin story be that being that you chased a finance bro to New York is just, it, it makes me so happy in such a weird way.

• 7:17Adrienne Cheatham?

  It's so off character for me. I feel like it's very off brand, but that is like Jose Garza's, you know, you did it for the, for a boy or for a girl. And so I moved up to New York with him. And he was like, well, there are better restaurants in New York. You can go to culinary school there instead of in Chicago. Like just come up there, you'll get, you know, it'll, it'll look really great for your resume. That's where he got me. I was like, okay, yeah, it'll look really good on my resume. So I came up to New York for that. And I thought I was gonna leave and move to Cali after five or six years. Also, because he was gonna be going to grad school, potentially at Stanford. So I was like, okay, perfect.

• 7:57Adrienne Cheatham?

  I'll get some New York restaurants on my resume. I'll move to Cali and get Man Rasa, Shay TJ, like something west coast.

• 8:05Joe Flamm?

  Yeah.

• 8:05Adrienne Cheatham?

  On my resume.

• 8:06Joe Flamm?

  Especially at that time, like those restaurants were so like, you know, the closest you could come to like cooking in like Spain or you know, like all those kind of, you know, new fine dining restaurants was like going to California and working at Man Rasa.

• 8:19Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right, right, right. That was like everybody. That was my goal is at least, you know, I wanted to like get that after getting the New York Michelin experience. And was like, okay, we broke up. I was like, this isn't, this isn't it. Like I, I were two different people. I'm this, this relationship isn't gonna work. And you know what? I actually like New York. So I broke up with him, moved out, stayed in New York 20 years later.

• 8:43Joe Flamm?

  Damn. All for the finance, bro. Shout out to finance bros of New York for getting Adrian Cheedham there. What a win for the dudes wearing vests on the train crowd. This is how we end up.

• 8:55Adrienne Cheatham?

  So how did you stay in Chicago? Because you worked for, I mean, Chicago has some great chefs to work for. Don't get me wrong. But what, what kept you there? Because you seemed like I could have seen you going to work for similar chefs in other cities.

• 9:08Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, like, so my plan, my, my original plan was, you know, I went to, my parents were like, you know, I went to college. I, my, my whole plan was I was gonna go to college, go to law school, be a lawyer, buy a restaurant. So like, cause I worked at a bar and grill. The guy who owned it was a lawyer. So I was like, oh, if I want to own a restaurant, I gotta go be a lawyer so I can make enough money to buy a bar and grill when I'm like 50. So that was my plan. So I was going to college for accounting and then I was gonna go to law school. And I got a couple of years into college and didn't want to do that anymore. So I literally just, you know, kind of Googled, how did Emerald Legasi become a chef?

• 9:46Adrienne Cheatham?

  Wow. There was Google back then?

• 9:48Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, it was Google back then. I'm younger than you.

• 9:49Adrienne Cheatham?

  Not ass Jeeves?

• 9:51Joe Flamm?

  No, I'm younger than you.

• 9:52Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, you are.

• 9:52Joe Flamm?

  Much, much younger.

• 9:54Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, damn.

• 9:55Joe Flamm?

  Then I found out about culinary schools and I never heard of culinary school. And so I started looking into them. And the original one I wanted to go to is there's like a community college in Vail, Colorado, like in the mountains. And I was like, I'm gonna go to this culinary school at this community college in Vail and I'll just like ski every day and hang out in the mountains. It'll be awesome.

• 10:16Adrienne Cheatham?

  I can't see any, I can't see you as a lawyer. I can't see you ski in, ski out culinary school.

• 10:21Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, so like, one, the whole decision to drop out of college was wildly, wildly unpopular in my family. It was also very much of like, what the, you know, what the fuck are you doing? And like, you know, all of a sudden you're gonna be a chef. Like, and you know, same thing, like, oh, you're gonna go, you know, fry chicken tenders for a living now after you spent, you know, like two years in college and. So that was a battle. So I'm trying to like convince, they're like, so now you're gonna disappear to the mountains, go to a community college to like learn how to fry food. And I'm like, no. And that like, I couldn't get it together. So I ended up very similar to being in the mountains of Colorado. I moved into the basement of my parents' house. And I went to La Corte.

• 11:04Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, I went to La Corte on Blue here because they had a 15 month program and I just wanted to get it done. And I had a bunch of credits that I could transfer in to get like the associates or whatever. And I was like, this'll be the thing. And I was like, fine. What I'll do is I'll do this 15 month program. The last three months of it is your externship. And I was like, I'll do that in Colorado.

• 11:23Adrienne Cheatham?

  You were dead set on Colorado.

• 11:24Joe Flamm?

  I really wanted to get to Colorado. I really wanted to get to Colorado. That was like my whole plan.

• 11:29Adrienne Cheatham?

  I had no idea you were such a fan of Colorado. Isn't that ironic that that was your season then? I never knew that.

• 11:34Joe Flamm?

  So I end up getting a job at Table 52, a week into culinary school. I worked there all through culinary school. And then I ended up, you know, like culinary school, it's like that weird where it's like you have a three week class, right? You can only miss three days. And I had one class where it's like, I think I got sick during it. So I missed four days. So I had to retake that class during my externship.

• 11:54Adrienne Cheatham?

  Okay.

• 11:55Joe Flamm?

  So I couldn't do my externship anywhere but Chicago. So I did it at Table 52, which I was still working. So, you know, at that point, I'd been there for a year or so. I stayed there another year, got another job in Chicago. And then I was working at this private club, at the university club. And it was, you know, it was just brutal. You know, 14 story, 110 year old, private members club, like doing banquets, like those prep lists where it's like you'd have four things on it, but you'd have 13 hours of prep that day.

• 12:24Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yep.

• 12:25Joe Flamm?

  Like shit where it'd be like, uh, sear off 900 fillets.

• 12:28Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, the quantity.

• 12:29Joe Flamm?

  And it would just take you an hour and a half to season those. You know, and you're just like, so I, I worked there for exactly 365 days. And it was like a real, it was like a real low of like, maybe I'm not going to make it. Maybe this industry isn't for me. And, you know, my parents are really harping on me. They're like, you need to go back to school. You need to get a degree, you know, like.

• 12:48Adrienne Cheatham?

  Move out of the basement?

• 12:50Joe Flamm?

  I moved out of the basement. I was living in Logan Square at this point because you could still live in Logan, super cheap then. And, you know, they're like, you really got to finish your degree. Like, you know, what are you going to fall back on? Like, you know, you're 24 years old. Like, you got to figure this out. So I fly out to Colorado again. I go visit Johnson and Wales in Denver to see about finishing like a four year hospitality degree there. So I go tour the campus. I go do the whole thing. Me and my dad fly out there. I get back to Chicago. I apply for a job on Craigslist to be a line cook at Girl on the Go.

• 13:27Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh my gosh. I thought you had like gotten referred there or something.

• 13:32Joe Flamm?

  Nope. I knew nobody there. I was a Craigslist ad. I responded to a Craigslist ad and they were going to open.

• 13:38Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh.

• 13:38Joe Flamm?

  And they were looking for opening line cooks. So I applied for a job at Girl on the Go. Went and did the interview and I was like, all right, either if I get this job at Girl on the Goat, then I'm gonna stay in Chicago. And if I don't, I'm gonna move to Denver.

• 13:51Adrienne Cheatham?

  And Colorado, here you come.

• 13:53Joe Flamm?

  I was like, I'm gonna move to Colorado. I'm gonna finish my degree. So I was the last Line Cook hired.

• 13:58Adrienne Cheatham?

  Damn.

• 14:00Joe Flamm?

  So last Line Cook hired in the door. So I was like, fuck it. I'm staying in Chicago.

• 14:04Adrienne Cheatham?

  Thank God some I didn't just show up before you that day.

• 14:06Joe Flamm?

  And like, it was, you know, I'd sat down, I talked to staff and like, we, you know, clicked. I thought she was awesome. I thought she was super different and really cool. And I was like, I have to work at this restaurant. If they give me a job, like, I have to work there. This is gonna be special. Like, you could just tell. You know what I mean? And then obviously, like, I stayed there for two years. That was my first sous chef job. And then at that point, it was like, well, I'm in it.

• 14:28Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 14:28Joe Flamm?

  Me and Hillary had been dating for a while at that point. You know, she's from here. Like, so it was like, okay, you know, like, this is our city. You know, my whole career at that point had been in this city. It's like, I'm not going anywhere now.

• 14:40Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, at that point, you're like locked in.

• 14:41Joe Flamm?

  After the, after the goat happened, it was like, I was locked in. And it's like, also, that was like a huge confidence builder for me and a huge pusher of like, all right, you gotta do all this other stuff. So that was, you know, really what kept me here was that I got the job at Girl on the Goat.

• 14:57Adrienne Cheatham?

  That's awesome.

• 14:58Joe Flamm?

  So it was like, kind of a wild, weird thing.

• 15:00Adrienne Cheatham?

  Restaurant too. It's like, it did. So, so part of the reason I didn't come back to Chicago is because I would have loved to, but Girl on the Goat wasn't open yet. It was like, the only game in Chicago at the time was Charlie Trotters. And then Alenia was starting to open. Like, there was some stuff happening, but it wasn't like this critical mass of amazing restaurants, amazing chefs. So it was like, I'm gonna go back to Chicago because it's home. I can stay with my dad for a few months in his basement. You know, it's like, pay rent, but like, I can stay there at least. So it was. It was like, I wanted to go home, but I figured I would only have the options of Charlie Trotters or Olinia to work at. Those were like my only two.

• 15:40Joe Flamm?

  Yeah.

• 15:41Adrienne Cheatham?

  And if it had been like five, seven years later, then, you know, it would have been a different story. There would have been a ton more restaurants, ton more chefs that like were getting great press to like make cooks. Like I was making seven fifty an hour when I started at La Bernardette. I did my internship there. I worked for so many chefs around the city for free for two years. I was bartending at night. I would start at work at like eight AM, working for chefs for free around the city. Like do a shift here, pick up a shift there, staging, learning, and then I would go to the bar in Brooklyn. I was working at at like five, six PM and be there till like four in the morning.

• 16:22Joe Flamm?

  Mm hmm.

• 16:23Adrienne Cheatham?

  And that was every day for like two, two and a half years.

• 16:26Joe Flamm?

  Yeah.

• 16:27Adrienne Cheatham?

  Slinging drinks and like working for free, getting yelled at and burning myself for free. For free, all day long, like.

• 16:35Joe Flamm?

  You're and you're lucky to be there.

• 16:36Adrienne Cheatham?

  And I loved it and I freaking loved.

• 16:39Joe Flamm?

  That's the problem of it. It's like, once you get a taste, it's like either now.

• 16:42Adrienne Cheatham?

  It's like you get it in your veins.

• 16:43Joe Flamm?

  You know, I always tell people still to this day, like who talk to me about like wanting to get into this. And especially if their career changes, they're like, oh, I think I want to, you know, cook for a living. And I'm like, if you can wake up tomorrow and imagine doing anything else, I'm like, go do that.

• 16:57Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 16:57Joe Flamm?

  I'm like, it's a better job. It's a better career.

• 17:00Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right.

• 17:00Joe Flamm?

  It's a better lifestyle.

• 17:02Adrienne Cheatham?

  You'll get benefits, have more stability.

• 17:04Joe Flamm?

  Whatever it is.

• 17:05Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 17:05Joe Flamm?

  I'm like, I'm gonna do this again tomorrow and for as long as I'm physically and mentally able. Because I cannot imagine waking up tomorrow and not doing this.

• 17:18Adrienne Cheatham?

  Next up, we're going to get into our personal, one of our favorite segments. This is going to be review, review. And this is where we're going to bring a real life review from a public app, from a public platform or a food publication and discuss it on the podcast and call us petty if you want to, but we're signaling out the one star reviews.

• 17:43Joe Flamm?

  It's not petty. We're Avengers.

• 17:46Adrienne Cheatham?

  I like that.

• 17:46Joe Flamm?

  We are one star vigilantes.

• 17:48Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yes.

• 17:49Joe Flamm?

  We are the voice for the voiceless.

• 17:50Adrienne Cheatham?

  We're the one star Rangers.

• 17:52Joe Flamm?

  This is, we, we, we are, we are out there for our people. This is as close to therapy as you could get for chefs.

• 17:59Adrienne Cheatham?

  So for this week, Joe, do you want to read one or do you want me to pull one?

• 18:03Joe Flamm?

  Oh, I got one. I got one.

• 18:04Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh.

• 18:06Joe Flamm?

  Dialed. I won't name the restaurant. This is one of my favorite restaurants. I've probably eaten at this restaurant a hundred times. I've probably eaten at this restaurant with you. This is one of their one star reviews from about 10 months ago.

• 18:19Joe Flamm?

  Crowded all the time, waited more than 30 minutes for a table for two. They don't do reservations here. I ended up leaving because I ran out of my lunchtime. One star. Okay. And it's like, and it's like knee jerk reaction. Knee jerk reaction, just being like, if I'm just thousand percent honest with you, Adrian, is fuck you.

• 18:39Adrienne Cheatham?

  That's the gut visceral first reaction.

• 18:41Joe Flamm?

  Just knee jerk, knee jerk, you know what I mean? Trying to be a good human out here.

• 18:46Adrienne Cheatham?

  That's a valid response to something like that.

• 18:48Joe Flamm?

  That is the nicest thing I can say to that review, I feel like.

• 18:51Adrienne Cheatham?

  You didn't eat there. It's like the same thing we talked about before. It's like you're going to a movie theater and you don't see the movie. You can't review it. You didn't eat there.

• 18:59Joe Flamm?

  Right. It's also like, I went to see this movie. It was long. I didn't have enough time to watch it. It's like, that's how you, that's how you plan a day. You're a grown up. You're a grown up. Know how much time you have. If I don't have time to have a sit down lunch, you know what I do? I don't have a sit down lunch.

• 19:13Adrienne Cheatham?

  I, I pick something up.

• 19:14Joe Flamm?

  I scarf something over a sink in the kitchen, somewhere. You know what I mean?

• 19:18Adrienne Cheatham?

  That's classy. I'm usually over the garbage can.

• 19:20Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it depends. You know what I mean? It's, you gotta get it where you can get it. But it's like, it's like that to me is wild. It's like, you don't know how to plan a day. Like, so you're like, I went to a really, really busy, popular restaurant because it's really good. And that's why you have to wait. And you were like, can't believe I had to wait.

• 19:40Adrienne Cheatham?

  There should be something for restaurants too. Like you make a reservation on OpenTable or Resi or whatever platform. You should be able to like, only leave a review if you scan a QR code that comes on your check. That's the only way.

• 19:54Joe Flamm?

  I think, no, I think we need the two-way review. I think it's gotta work like Uber. You know what I mean? Where it's like.

• 19:59Adrienne Cheatham?

  Restaurants can review people.

• 20:00Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like you have a guest rating? And it's like, you know what I mean? Like it affects like your, your like reservations. You know what I mean? Where it's like, oh, you have a bad guest rating. It's like, hmm, you could have a nine o'clock.

• 20:12Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yep.

• 20:12Joe Flamm?

  On Tuesday.

• 20:13Adrienne Cheatham?

  You don't get seven thirty on Friday. Sorry, bud.

• 20:16Joe Flamm?

  Like, that's, that's what I would, that, that's what I would prefer. It's like, so you could like, look at someone's rating and they'd be like, oh. Like, like, you know what I mean? Can you imagine? It's like, I like to think of it, it's like, if you were at a first date with someone. And you're like, what's your open table rating?

• 20:30Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yes. Oh, my God.

• 20:31Joe Flamm?

  If they're like three and a half, it's like, get up and leave.

• 20:33Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, my husband and I look at our Uber ratings all the time. He's like, yeah, I'm always, my rating's higher than, he's like, what do you do? And I'm like, nothing. I say hello, how you doing? I sit down and I, and I check email.

• 20:46Joe Flamm?

  You're chatting them up too much. They don't, they don't want all that. You know what I mean? You're like, so tell me where you're from.

• 20:50Adrienne Cheatham?

  And I do ask them to turn the music down sometimes.

• 20:53Joe Flamm?

  Oh, do you?

• 20:54Adrienne Cheatham?

  Sometimes. Not, once I found out that my rating was like four point seven, I've never asked anybody to turn the music down. You can be blasting like reggae tone and I will not ask you to turn it down.

• 21:04Joe Flamm?

  No, I just throw out, like, you know, I just throw out some big tips every once in a while to try to, try to keep it, uh, keep it, you know what I mean? High up there.

• 21:13Adrienne Cheatham?

  I love that. But yeah, some people, the internet should be taken away from them. I'm sorry. That's, that's such a ridiculous review. But let's move on to our next segment. All right. So it's game time, Joe. Game time. We're gonna get into fork it or forget it. So this is our first game segment of the day. But we are going to talk about food trends, things that keep popping up online. And sometimes they pop up online so much that they make their way into restaurants and into the mainstream. So it can be something viral, it can be something in a restaurant. But it's definitely something that's kind of like going on recently and will decide its fate.

• 21:53Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, basically, we're just bringing something to the table. We get to decide. We want to fork it or forget it. Whether this trend should make it in through the door or we should kick it out to the alley. So. Age, I'll let you kick it off this week. What do you got? You told me you got something, something controversial.

• 22:07Adrienne Cheatham?

  Controversial. And you may judge me, you may think differently of me. I mean, no care. Because I gotta get this off my chest.

• 22:17Joe Flamm?

  Did you just hit me with a Sean Paul, mean no care?

• 22:21Adrienne Cheatham?

  I did.

• 22:22Joe Flamm?

  Hell yeah.

• 22:23Adrienne Cheatham?

  I went straight Sean Paul on you.

• 22:24Joe Flamm?

  I love that.

• 22:25Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, um, because it, every year I get upset during the spring and summer, this fricking thing comes into season and I'm not a fan. Okay. I've never had it and been like, oh my God, that was so good. It's rhubarb.

• 22:41Joe Flamm?

  Oh.

• 22:43Adrienne Cheatham?

  It's rhubarb. I, I'm, I'm not a fan of rhubarb. I want to be able to forget rhubarb. Like the leaves are toxic. You can only eat the stalks. The leaves are fricking toxic. That should tell you that we should not be eating this thing and it's so tart and so sour. Like you have to make it taste good by dumping so much sugar and other stuff into it. It's like, I taste sugar with a hint of floral essence. Like, so then it's, why are we using this? Like, we're trying to make fetch happen. Why are we, why are we forcing rhubarb on ourselves? Like, it can even, it can cause like kidney stones if you eat too much of it.

• 23:24Joe Flamm?

  Oh, that feels like a stretch. This feels like the, you know, this feels like the, you know, drowning the rats in Diet Coke to give them cancer that you're, all right, all right, all right. Okay.

• 23:34Adrienne Cheatham?

  No.

• 23:34Joe Flamm?

  All right. I let you, I let you say your piece. I let you say your piece. Now, now that you're disparaging rhubarb as a kidney stone starter.

• 23:42Adrienne Cheatham?

  If you eat too much, but okay. So the only benefits, it has a lot of vitamin C. Like, okay. So if you're in the Northeast in the 1800s and you're trying to prevent scurvy, great. You don't have any other options, but nowadays take some vitamin C supplements. Stop forcing rhubarb on people.

• 24:00Joe Flamm?

  I'm gonna force rhubarb on people. Cause I'm gonna tell you, and maybe you've forgotten, maybe you've been in New York too long. Maybe you, you know, too much travel, too much time on, you know, the French Riviera or wherever you go. And you forget that we only go get so many ingredients and the winters are long and cold and dark. And you see this beautiful red celery looking thing come ripping out of the ground and you're like, I gotta make that work.

• 24:32Joe Flamm?

  It's a vegetable that's about perseverance.

• 24:35Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, God.

• 24:36Joe Flamm?

  I'll tell you, I have a rhubarb dish on the menu right now.

• 24:39Adrienne Cheatham?

  Well, okay.

• 24:40Joe Flamm?

  It's on my duck set.

• 24:41Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, okay. With a savory application.

• 24:44Joe Flamm?

  And it fucking rips.

• 24:45Adrienne Cheatham?

  Ooh, okay.

• 24:47Joe Flamm?

  I'm gonna make you this when you're in town.

• 24:48Adrienne Cheatham?

  Which restaurant?

• 24:49Joe Flamm?

  At Rosemary.

• 24:50Adrienne Cheatham?

  Okay.

• 24:50Joe Flamm?

  At Rosemary right now. So it's a rhubarb duck stew. We put a little bit of, uh, there's a, there's actually, there's a rhubarb amaro that they make in Italy. Called the rhubarbaro. And it's awesome.

• 25:04Adrienne Cheatham?

  That's hilarious.

• 25:05Joe Flamm?

  It's awesome. So we use like a little of that, the reduction.

• 25:08Adrienne Cheatham?

  Is it more tart? Or is it still like bitter?

• 25:11Joe Flamm?

  It's bitter, but like with a little acidity to it.

• 25:14Adrienne Cheatham?

  Okay.

• 25:15Joe Flamm?

  No, granted, yeah, I don't want to eat just straight rhubarb. I'm with you on that. But that's, you know what I mean? I also don't want to eat like a lot of things just straight up like that. That's why we cook for a living.

• 25:26Joe Flamm?

  And so treated right, I think it has its place.

• 25:29Adrienne Cheatham?

  Okay.

• 25:30Joe Flamm?

  I'm not, I'm not like, it's not one of those things where I'm like, oh, man, here comes rhubarb, baby. Let's go.

• 25:34Adrienne Cheatham?

  You gotta use it.

• 25:36Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, but it's like, I think it's one of those things. It's really, really pretty. And if you use it right, it's super delicious. I, I, I feel your take on that. I'm gonna fork it. You can forget it.

• 25:45Adrienne Cheatham?

  Every year I see it at the farmer's market this time of year, and then it keeps going, keeps going. I'm just like, oh, get out of my face. Like, if you were so good, we wouldn't have to do so much to you to make you delicious.

• 25:58Joe Flamm?

  Damn, it's all about, it's, you know, it's progress over perfection, Adrian. You know what I mean? Like, this is just, listen, it can't all be three Michelin stars.

• 26:05Adrienne Cheatham?

  I mean, but if I can't just slice you and put you on a plate, like, if, if you can't be eaten in your natural state, and I have to alter you that much, I don't know.

• 26:15Joe Flamm?

  You want me, you want me to tell you why you're wrong?

• 26:18Adrienne Cheatham?

  I mean, you already kind of made a case for it.

• 26:19Joe Flamm?

  But I'm gonna, I'm gonna do it in one word.

• 26:21Adrienne Cheatham?

  Let me hear.

• 26:22Joe Flamm?

  That just, just crushes that argument you just made.

• 26:24Adrienne Cheatham?

  What?

• 26:25Joe Flamm?

  Potato.

• 26:27Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh damn.

• 26:28Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, what's up? Just got bodied by a potato.

• 26:34Adrienne Cheatham?

  He'll die if you eat too many, too much raw.

• 26:36Joe Flamm?

  Yeah.

• 26:37Adrienne Cheatham?

  Okay, alright, I'll get that. Okay.

• 26:39Joe Flamm?

  Alright, so you're coming around to it. You're gonna try this dish. I'm gonna make you a fan.

• 26:42Adrienne Cheatham?

  Point taken, but we're gonna, okay, so moving on. What is your fork it or forget it?

• 26:48Joe Flamm?

  Oh yeah, this is one, and I don't know how, I feel like people have polarizing opinions on it, and this is what brought it up. Uh, but my fork it and forget it is like Lake Crusades.

• 27:01Joe Flamm?

  And so I was reading this article, they have this Lake Crusade table sale where it's like, and people go like it's like, like Coachella. Like they camp out, they tent out, and it's like all these colors you can't get. It's like at a discount, and then after people buy them, they go out and they trade them in the parking lot. Cause you can buy like mystery boxes of Lake Crusade where you like, don't know what you're gonna get.

• 27:26Adrienne Cheatham?

  What do you guess by the weight of it?

• 27:27Joe Flamm?

  You just pick it up, there's just like a box and you just pick it up and it's like fifty bucks and I'm like, and it's like somewhere like random, it's like in like San Jose, you know what I mean? Like, but people fly like across the country to go to this thing like with their friends and it's like three days long and they're all like partying in the parking lot and like swapping like really, you know, like unique Lake Crusades in the parking lot and all that.

• 27:52Adrienne Cheatham?

  That is crazy.

• 27:53Joe Flamm?

  I love it. I love it. Like, you know what I mean? And it's one of those things for people, we're like, oh, you know, like, a Staub's just as good. It's like, sure, it's just as good, but I don't like it as much. And it's like the idea of it, it's like, I kinda wanna go. I kinda wanna go. I wanna get a crew together and be like, yo, who's ready to go have a boys weekend?

• 28:17Joe Flamm?

  Like, me and the homies are getting Dutch ovens. Let's go.

• 28:23Joe Flamm?

  And I'm yeah, and I know like this thing is just built for me, but uh, I don't know if you're a fan or if you think I'm completely out of my mind.

• 28:31Adrienne Cheatham?

  No, I'm actually a huge Lake Crusade fan. This is actually their 100th anniversary year. Whenever Lake Crusade has like a collab, they did this collab with this artist that I love, Sheila Bridges, and I was like, oh my God, I want that. They have a new color coming. I'm like, oh my God, I want that. But it's like, I don't have the kitchen space to buy all of this.

• 28:52Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, and I used to always buy like the one off ones at like Marshall's.

• 28:56Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 28:57Joe Flamm?

  You know what I mean? Like Marshall's would have them. They'd be like, oh, this one's like kind of fucked up or like a really ugly color.

• 29:01Adrienne Cheatham?

  It's got a little chip on the top of it.

• 29:03Joe Flamm?

  Right, right. You'd be like, or something's like messed up about it. And I would go buy those because you could buy them. They're like cheap. So it's like all my like old ones are all like wild colors and look gnarly.

• 29:13Adrienne Cheatham?

  Not just the flame orange?

• 29:15Joe Flamm?

  Yo, they're like, they're like a three tone orange. They're like, what do they call it? An ombre? Yeah, they're like an ombre. Like they look like a pickup truck on like 26th Street, like you'd be like, they're just absolutely insane looking. But I've had them for, you know, 20 years because like I bought them when I could afford them. And they were like on sale at Marshall's, like when they put like the third sticker on it.

• 29:38Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yes.

• 29:39Joe Flamm?

  Yellow and red. And you're like, oh, this bad boy for 40 bucks? That's coming home with me.

• 29:44Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yep.

• 29:45Joe Flamm?

  That's coming home with me.

• 29:46Adrienne Cheatham?

  Done. I don't care if I have to walk and carry this like Lake Crusade on the train. It's coming home. So when I married my husband, Steven, he was like, we were moving in together and he was like, I hope you don't mind, but like I have this Lake Crusade Dutch oven. I was like, oh God, I knew I loved you for a reason.

• 30:04Joe Flamm?

  You were like, oh, this man has a dowry?

• 30:05Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yes, yes. He came with a dowry of a Lake Crusade.

• 30:09Joe Flamm?

  It's like, baby, you got a Dutch oven dowry with you? Man.

• 30:13Adrienne Cheatham?

  My Lake Crusades at that point, because I lived in a tiny studio when we met. So my Lake Crusades were like the three quart, maybe a four quart. And he had this like massive 12 quart, beautiful blue Dutch oven, no chips, no cracks. I was like, oh yeah, this is the man for me.

• 30:32Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, he was just like running your head through. He's like, what are you doing?

• 30:37Adrienne Cheatham?

  He was like, this thing has been with me from DC to New York. I will not let it go. I was like, it will have a great home with us, baby.

• 30:43Joe Flamm?

  Especially with somebody like doesn't cook all the time. You're like, oh man, this thing's like barely used. There's low miles on this bad boy. I'm taking mine and like buried it in a fire and I'm like, that should, that should be all right. It'll be all right. You can't kill these things. It's fine.

• 30:57Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah. Roaches, rats and Lake Crusades will survive the apocalypse and I will fork the hell out of Lake Crusade.

• 31:06Joe Flamm?

  All right. Let's close it out this week with a walk in confession. Uh, I think we only got time for one this week, Hage. So I think, uh, I think you should kick it off, but this is our segment where we kind of tell those stories that never see the light of day. They kind of die within the walk in walls, the soundproof chamber of our souls that is in the depths of restaurants themselves. So you said you got one dialed up this week and I, I really can't wait. I look forward to these.

• 31:30Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh yeah. Okay. So I've got a good one and I was so embarrassed by this as a young cook. I should have known better. I should have done better and I didn't. Um, I was at La Bernardine and I was on the hot apps line on the AM shift, covering this guy on vacation. Now at dinner at La Bernardine, you get three beautiful little plated canapé before your meal arrives, but at lunch you get a bowl of salmon rillet. So that's salmon that's been poached in white wine, shallots, water, mixed with chopped smoked salmon, lemon juice, chives, house made mayonnaise. It's delicious. It's simple, but it is, it's like little

• 32:09Adrienne Cheatham?

  technical changes can make it not what it should be. And so I was on the station making this and I was in such a rush. I'm covering this guy on the AM shift while he's on vacation. I had worked the PM, but the AM had a lot more prep. So I'm like rushing through stuff. I have my poaching liquid on. I get the salmon scraps from the fish butcher. And I'm like, you know, the sous chef, Rob at the time told me like, This guy, Rob Siska, he was like, you know, cheat them, make sure all the salmon's the same size before you put in the poaching liquid. I'm like, yes, chef, you know, okay, I totally get

• 32:44Joe Flamm?

  No doubt, no doubt.

• 32:45Adrienne Cheatham?

  No doubt. I'm on it. Don't worry. I got this. I was like, looking through and it's like forty pounds of salmon scraps. I'm like, eh, they're all, they're all scraps. It's all trimmed from the edges. They're all roughly the same size. Wrong. So I put, I put it in the poaching liquid. And once I take it all out, I mix my rillet, chef tastes it, you know, adjust a little more white pepper, a little more lemon, blah, blah, blah. You go through it, chill it down, you know, at least an hour before lunch service starts. Waiters are packing up their bowls. They're taking them out to the lunch tables when they arrive. And this guy comes back. Oh, one of my favorite front waiters, Ramon, who would talk shit about every cook in the kitchen all the

• 33:25Adrienne Cheatham?

  time. Ramon was that kind of dude. And so Ramon was like, uh, chef, can you take a look at this? I don't think this is how it's supposed to be. So the chef goes-

• 33:35Joe Flamm?

  Oh, no. Oh, no.

• 33:37Adrienne Cheatham?

  There was a baseball sized chunk of raw salmon

• 33:41Joe Flamm?

  Oh.

• 33:42Adrienne Cheatham?

  in the middle of the bowl of salmon rillet. And the customer, God, I was so embarrassed, had, you know, taken a bite or two, spread it on their little sourdough chips. And then when they got to the center of the bowl, it was just like poached on the outside, but like dead raw.

• 34:00Joe Flamm?

  Just, just a nugget in there.

• 34:02Adrienne Cheatham?

  It was like, at least a four or five inch piece of just raw salmon. It was like scored on the outside, but still.

• 34:10Joe Flamm?

  Oh, just the, the, the front waiter reaction of like, chef, I don't think this is what it should be. It's like, the more understated the front of the house person is about what happened, the worse you know it is. You know what I mean? Like, that could have been a thumb. You know what I mean? The way he said that. You know what I mean? If it's something little, if like, it's like, if you forgot to put like cheese on something with cheese, they're like, chef, there's no fucking cheese on there. But like, when something like weird like that happens, they're like, um, I don't think this is supposed to be the way that is. It's like, well, there's a shell casing in there from, you know, nine millimeters. So no. No, that's not how we normally serve the re-.

• 34:44Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, that's we don't serve raw salmon with cooked edges.

• 34:48Joe Flamm?

  How hard did you get ripped up for that one?

• 34:50Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, my God, the chef tore me up. First, Rob, the AM sous chef who had already checked my my stuff.

• 34:59Joe Flamm?

  Oh, he had tasted it too. So you know, he got absolutely smoked.

• 35:04Adrienne Cheatham?

  He was like, you motherfucker like I told you.

• 35:06Joe Flamm?

  I told you.

• 35:07Adrienne Cheatham?

  Then, at that point, it was out of his hands and the chef above him who comes in right at 12 o'clock to to send an expedite lunch service. He was the one who tore me up, but he looked at Rob first and was like, Rob, you idiot. I can't believe you let this happen. So of course, it's like Chef Chris tore me up then during lunch service. And then afterwards, in the walk in, Rob gave me another bag of shit.

• 35:28Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, cuz you know.

• 35:29Adrienne Cheatham?

  He got me in trouble.

• 35:30Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, you know, you got him wrecked. That boy went right under the bus.

• 35:34Adrienne Cheatham?

  And I did a dinner with Rob, maybe two years ago. And mind you, this happened in like oh, nine, maybe 2010. I did a dinner with Rob in Atlanta at Lazy Betty a few years, like two, maybe three years ago. And he was like, Hey, you remember that time with salmon?

• 35:51Joe Flamm?

  You're like, yes, I will never forget it.

• 35:52Adrienne Cheatham?

  He was like, I'm sorry for bringing that up. I was like, no, you shouldn't be sorry, chef. I'm the one who's sorry for getting you in trouble. Like, my bad. That's all.

• 36:00Joe Flamm?

  It was you never forget those things.

• 36:02Adrienne Cheatham?

  Never ever.

• 36:03Joe Flamm?

  That's brutal. Hey, but you survived the day.

• 36:05Adrienne Cheatham?

  I did. I did. I didn't get sent home because I had too many tickets on the board and they didn't have another sous chef to cover my station.

• 36:11Joe Flamm?

  Yeah.

• 36:12Adrienne Cheatham?

  But I did get.

• 36:13Joe Flamm?

  You get lucky that way. Sometimes we're like, I know I would get sent right now if they weren't so desperate for just a warm body here. I think that saved me so many times. The first two years of my cooking career. It's just like, there's no like, I'm not the I'm the worst option, honestly, for being real in this moment, but they have no other option. And you know, sometimes the best ability is availability.

• 36:34Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right. I love that. Oh, my God. Well, you can send me home, but I am in the middle of picking up five dishes and I got three more coming up right behind it.

• 36:43Joe Flamm?

  You're like, also, I'm like barely getting paid to be here. So you know, like, we're cool guys, right? Come on.

• 36:50Adrienne Cheatham?

  Hey, I'll make sure they're all trimmed right tomorrow. Sorry.

• 36:53Joe Flamm?

  You guys need help with staff meal?

• 36:54Adrienne Cheatham?

  I'll.

• 36:56Joe Flamm?

  No, I'll sweep the, I'll sweep, I'll sweep, I'll sweep, I'll sweep.

• 36:59Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, yeah, that was, that was a perfect day. Yeah, so that's my, that's my walk in confession for this week.

• 37:05Joe Flamm?

  I loved it.

• 37:06Adrienne Cheatham?

  Well, Joe Flamm, AKA my BFF, that is it for today's episode of The Chef's Cut. Joe, how can people follow along with you and your restaurants?

• 37:16Joe Flamm?

  Um, you can find me in real life at Rosemary in Chicago, Il Carciofo and Boulevard Steakhouse. If you want to find me online, I'm at Insta Flamm.

• 37:26Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yes.

• 37:27Joe Flamm?

  Age, if they want to chase you down, where they find you?

• 37:30Adrienne Cheatham?

  On IG at Chef Adrian Cheatham and I guess my cookbook, Sunday Best is also out there. That's another way to follow along with some recipes and stuff that I do. You know, everybody, if you like the show, feel free, please leave us a review. Uh, not a one star and most important, because we will call you out.

• 37:49Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, we will, we will come for you.

• 37:51Adrienne Cheatham?

  We will. Most importantly though, hit follow to subscribe wherever you're listening so that you don't miss a new episode when it drops.

• 37:58Joe Flamm?

  Um, and tell your friends, word of mouth is the best thing for us. Help us spread this thing so we can keep having fun, uh, keep making great episodes for you all out there. Until next week, this has been the Chef's Cut.

• 38:12Adrienne Cheatham?

  Life beyond the past.