Private Chef Life (Part 3): Chef Sam Kass on Cooking for the Obamas, the Future of Food, and when Oprah Saved the Day

Adrienne and Joe return for the third and final installment of our series on private chef work, and this time they’re joined by the Obama family’s longtime personal chef, Sam Kass. He tells us all about his journey from some of the highest pressure kitchens in America and Europe, to landing with the first family and running the kitchen in the West Wing. Plus, we discuss: Adrienne and Sam’s connection as kids and how their careers in food have taken shape The biggest “kitchen habits” Sam can’t seem to shake from his days in fine dining Fork It or Forget It: Strawberry Sandwiches Sam’s experience working with the Obamas to help shape food policy in America The best lessons he learned from his most important mentor: forget the (proverbial) onions Sam’s new book The Last Supper and how a growing food crisis is already affecting access to some of our favorite foods A story about stepping into the White House for the first time on inauguration and how Oprah saved him from missing it Walk In Confession: the most expensive mistake of Sam’s career involving a massive meal and a lot of butter Follow Sam: @samkassdc Follow the show: @chefscutpod Follow Adrienne: @chefadriennecheatham Follow Joe: @insta.flamm Check out Sam's new Book: The Last Supper

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

• 0:01Adrienne Cheatham?

  Welcome back to another episode of The Chef's Cut. Joe, it is so good to see you.

• 0:06Joe Flamm?

  Age, great to be back. We have part three today of our private chef series. So we have Hyde Park's own, your boy, my new friend, Sam Kass.

• 0:18Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yes.

• 0:18Joe Flamm?

  The Obama's former personal private chef. He's written books. He's worked on policy. He's done a million incredible things. Super fun to have him, Age. What are we getting into with your boy?

• 0:30Adrienne Cheatham?

  So with Sam today, we're going to talk about kitchen habits that people do at home. We have a forget or forget it on the sweeter side. We're also going to talk about how Sam got into private work and how he wound up working for the Obamas. What it was like being in the White House, that one time Oprah gave him a ride. And then he's going to have a hilarious walk-in confession from his time working in Vienna. I cannot wait.

• 0:55Joe Flamm?

  Age, are you even a real Chicagoan if you don't have an Oprah story?

• 0:59Adrienne Cheatham?

  I guess not. And his is epic.

• 1:01Joe Flamm?

  Then let's get into it.

• 1:05Adrienne Cheatham?

  Sam Kass, it is so great to see you.

• 1:09Speaker 02

  It is a pleasure to be here. I'm so happy to be here with you.

• 1:12Adrienne Cheatham?

  It's been years.

• 1:13Speaker 02

  Years, years.

• 1:15Joe Flamm?

  And it's so great to meet you, man. You and I, I know, we haven't met before. We're both South Siders, but it's great to have you on.

• 1:20Adrienne Cheatham?

  I can't believe you two don't know each other. Like Joe won Top Chef. He's like the Chicago champion. He's the one who beat me in the finale, Sam.

• 1:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, see, now I'm putting two and two together, man. Joe, you are like public enemy number one in my house. My, my, I got an eight and six-year-old son, Rafa. Man, don't come in my house. They'll kick your ass. Like they, they were so mad. Now, full disclosure, I know Adrian, she was like a little child, like a little, little girl.

• 1:48Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 1:49Speaker 02

  Growing up in Hyde Park. And I was close with their older sister. And so like, you know, I've just with beaming with pride, watching her trajectory all these years.

• 2:00Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, likewise, Sam. When I started cooking, and especially like when I went to La Bernardette, people from Chicago were like, oh, my God, you know, Sam Kass is a chef. I was like, wait, Sam Kass and I are in the same career now? Like, maybe we'll run into each other. But you were in DC, you were in Chicago. I was in New York. But I was so excited. I heard about all the amazing restaurants you worked at and all these like, cool stuff you were doing. And I'm so looking forward to talking about all of that today.

• 2:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, it's good. But I was gonna say is we were rooting hard for you. When that finale came, man, it was pandemonium in my house, Joe. They were ready to burn it down. They're like, that, they cheated. No way. That steak was tough, or whatever it is you could, you could tell they were pissed, man. So anyways.

• 2:44Joe Flamm?

  I respect it, honestly. I had, after that, about two weeks later, I had Adrian's whole clique from Hyde Park rolled up on me at the restaurant I worked at, about 20 deep. And they were like, so.

• 2:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, I know that clique. I would have been worried about it. I would have been worried in that moment.

• 3:01Adrienne Cheatham?

  You know all of them, Sam.

• 3:03Joe Flamm?

  I'm gonna tell you, Sam, I count a lot of shit that day. I poured up a lot of really nice, really free whiskey. You know, by the end of it, they're like, yeah, whatever. We don't like you still, but you're all right.

• 3:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, you're right. You're right.

• 3:17Adrienne Cheatham?

  Since then, we've all become family. But it was, it was tough in the beginning. I got offers to Nancy Kerrigan, Joe Flamm on the streets of Chicago.

• 3:26Joe Flamm?

  It was the South Side divided.

• 3:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. I'm glad we brought it all together.

• 3:31Adrienne Cheatham?

  Well, Sam, we're gonna get this started. We always ask all the chefs who join us, we ask a personal question to kind of break the ice and get the conversation going. So I want to know, personal question, what is a kitchen habit that you bring home with you? What is something that you picked up in restaurants that you still do at home?

• 3:52Speaker 02

  I mean, there's lots of little things, you know, organizing your prep, you know, in different like, little containers to get it all sorted. Uh, I definitely keep a sharpening stone on hand at all times. Uh, although I've neglected my, my, my babies recently. So I need to, I was actually just looking at my stone yesterday.

• 4:13Joe Flamm?

  It happens.

• 4:14Speaker 02

  Very particular on spoons and peelers.

• 4:16Joe Flamm?

  Yeah.

• 4:16Speaker 02

  Somehow it's one of those like regular kitchen peelers got in my, and I was like, where the hell did this come from?

• 4:22Joe Flamm?

  Are you a, are you a Y peeler guy? Oh, like a Kune Ryan Y peeler guy?

• 4:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:26Joe Flamm?

  Okay. So you're not, you're not a terrible person.

• 4:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. I have some credibility left.

• 4:31Adrienne Cheatham?

  I don't understand straight peelers.

• 4:33Joe Flamm?

  I don't.

• 4:34Adrienne Cheatham?

  Like I don't, my mind can't process how that's affected.

• 4:37Joe Flamm?

  Anytime I see someone with one, I'm like, I will buy you three new peelers if you let me throw this away.

• 4:42Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 4:42Joe Flamm?

  I will send them to your home. I'll send them wherever you want. Like let me throw this away. Let me free you from this chain.

• 4:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:48Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 4:49Speaker 02

  And you're welcome.

• 4:53Adrienne Cheatham?

  It's one of those things that once you get a Y peeler, you're like, how did I ever use a straight peeler before? I don't know how people do it.

• 4:59Joe Flamm?

  I feel like one of the home things, like I can't give up from work is like when I walk into, whether it's my house or somebody else's house and they just have like, uh, like a dish towel or like a kitchen towel laying down.

• 5:09Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh.

• 5:09Joe Flamm?

  I pick it up and fold it.

• 5:10Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 5:11Joe Flamm?

  Like just like without even thinking, I'll just be like talking to them.

• 5:13Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 5:14Adrienne Cheatham?

  Did you fold my towel?

• 5:15Joe Flamm?

  Towel? It's like, oh yeah. No, you left it out. It's fine. It's fine. I'm fine. Like, I wasn't, I wasn't, I wasn't mad about it.

• 5:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:24Joe Flamm?

  I'm just folding it for you. You looked busy. That's all. Just trying to help chef. I'll get a sweep.

• 5:28Adrienne Cheatham?

  For me, one of my habits is everything facing forward in my pantry.

• 5:33Speaker 02

  Me too.

• 5:33Adrienne Cheatham?

  I have to have the labels like facing forward. I'm not as neurotic about labeling things in my refrigerator as I used to be. But all of my dry storage has to be facing forward.

• 5:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's good. Cause I think that would get a little weird. If you had your like little kitchen fridge looking like a walk in with everything labeled. I mean, that would be good, but.

• 5:52Adrienne Cheatham?

  I need some separation of church and state, you know, a little bit.

• 5:55Joe Flamm?

  I, I do get weird. It's like, if I see my, my wife's doing something, she just like rips a piece of tape and I'm just like, oh. She's like, what? I was like, just cut it. She's like, why? I was like, I don't know. I don't know. I can't explain.

• 6:08Speaker 02

  That's some chef shit right there.

• 6:09Joe Flamm?

  I'm like, I can't explain it, but you have to. I need you to. I really need you.

• 6:15Joe Flamm?

  I was like, cause somebody's gonna be super mad at me.

• 6:17Speaker 02

  Not even for me. That's pretty good. That's, that's some real out there chef shit right there.

• 6:22Joe Flamm?

  Right. Where it's like, what, what am I doing? What's wrong with me? Like, you know, I experienced joy without, you know, watching someone rip tape to hang up a balloon for a kid's birthday party.

• 6:33Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yes. Okay, Sam, because as you know, we're talking a lot about private chef work and we're talking about transitioning to that from restaurants. Um, so one last personal question before we get into our first segment. Are you still friends with the Obamas?

• 6:50Speaker 02

  Yes, uh, definitely. I mean, they're like, they're somewhere between, they're, they're like big, big brother and big sister for me. So yeah, no, I'm, uh, I will be with them. I will be with them forever.

• 7:02Adrienne Cheatham?

  That is so awesome. I love to hear that. That warms my heart as a Hyde Parker and a chef and just love all that.

• 7:09Joe Flamm?

  So I worked for Tony Montano for five and a half years.

• 7:12Speaker 02

  Nice.

• 7:12Joe Flamm?

  And, you know, obviously he was one of Obama's favorite chefs. So he had all these great stories of them. And one of the things I used to do at like events, like if somebody was dragging a course, Tony would be like, do you want me to go out and tell an Obama story? I'm like, yeah, we need like, give me 15 minutes. You know what I mean? You know what I mean? Like if one of the other chefs was like having an issue or something, I'd be like, Tony, like go tell an Obama story. You know what I mean? And Tony would go out and he'd be like, did I ever tell you guys about the time at the yard? It's, you know, and everybody would be like, yeah. So like whenever I think of him, I always think of Tony, like, be like, I got this. I could buy you 10, 15 minutes real quick.

• 7:50Speaker 02

  Easy.

• 7:51Adrienne Cheatham?

  That is so cool.

• 7:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, I have a few go-tos. If the party's ever really dull, and I'm like, all right, well, let's just buy some time because this is painful. I got a few of those too.

• 8:03Adrienne Cheatham?

  Well, Sam, we're going to get into our first segment and this is kind of fun, not that serious, but it's a segment that we call fork it or forget it, where we look at stuff we see online or stuff that happens in the industry and we're going to decide whether you fork it, which means you like it, or you forget it, which means you're kicking it to the curb. So this week, and I think this might be interesting because both of you have kids, something I keep seeing, fruit sandwich. Have you seen this?

• 8:34Joe Flamm?

  No.

• 8:34Adrienne Cheatham?

  It's like they sell them in like the Japanese.

• 8:36Speaker 02

  Real quick.

• 8:39Adrienne Cheatham?

  They sell these in like the Japanese grocery stores like next to Onigiri, but it's like milk bread or brioche with a thick layer of like sweetened whipped cream in it. And there's fruit layered inside. So you get that cross section and it's like kiwi or strawberries and whipped cream on bread. Fork it or forget it.

• 9:01Joe Flamm?

  I don't think this was a part of Sam's school lunch program.

• 9:04Speaker 02

  Definitely was not. But maybe.

• 9:07Adrienne Cheatham?

  Not part of the let's move.

• 9:09Speaker 02

  I mean, let me just say, I've never met anything Japanese that I didn't love. So right now it's like instant credibility. Like if you'd have told me that was from basically anywhere else, I'd been like, forget that.

• 9:19Adrienne Cheatham?

  I saw your face change when I said it was a Japanese grocery store.

• 9:23Speaker 02

  But if the Japanese are doing it, then it's got, it's got promise. And you know, some milk bread, I don't know, like, I don't think I would credibly make that, but I bet you it could taste delicious. I have not had it, so I can't say, but I'm just going to ride with my, with my Japanese brethren and say, yeah, that sounds good. Let's fork that.

• 9:42Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, I feel like it's one of those things like, I'm not making that for my children because they would be running through walls afterwards. They'd probably be super stoked if I did make that, you know, whipped cream fruit sandwich. They'd be like, yeah, this is a perfect meal. Like the Japanese figured out everything. They're the best at trains. They're the best at sandwiches, you know, like.

• 10:01Speaker 02

  Whiskey pasta. They're the best at basically everything.

• 10:03Joe Flamm?

  Right. Uh, but if I'm, when I'm in Japan, I'll probably eat one of these fruit sandwiches and I'll be like, holy shit, this is the best thing ever.

• 10:11Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, I, part of me wants to try it, but I'm, I'm not there. I have to see it like five times before I can say I'm going to eat a whipped cream sandwich also.

• 10:19Speaker 02

  I mean, it's not that different than like a, like strawberry shortcake on like a fresh biscuit, which is incredible. I mean, it's basically the same thing.

• 10:29Adrienne Cheatham?

  Cause it tampers down the sweetness. That's a good point. Oh.

• 10:32Speaker 02

  It's basically the Japanese version of that. So, and I'll, I'll eat that all day long.

• 10:36Adrienne Cheatham?

  You know what, Sam? I think you've converted me. I might fork this one.

• 10:39Speaker 02

  Yeah. I think we're forking it.

• 10:41Joe Flamm?

  I'm gonna, I'm gonna be in Japan in like a month. I'm gonna eat one. I'll send you guys a picture.

• 10:44Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, yes.

• 10:47Joe Flamm?

  Oh, eat probably eleven of them. Sick as shit.

• 10:50Adrienne Cheatham?

  So Sam, part of the thing we're going to talk about, and we are going to get into some more deep stuff. You and Joe actually have a lot in common with policy work. But before that, one question that I want to ask is how you made the transition. You had worked in some amazing restaurants. You were high level management. You were sous chef, CDC. Can you tell everybody some of the places you worked? And what made you switch or how and why you switched to private work?

• 11:17Speaker 02

  Yeah. Um, yeah, I started at three, one, two, Chicago on Randolph. Dean Sennella, one of the great humans. Uh, love that man. And he, he got me, he got me started. Um, and I didn't know shit. I worked there for a summer. My friend was sous chef there. I just started showing up and, and for whatever reason, and it was really a bad choice on his part, but he let me, he put me on the posse station like, like three weeks in. It was a disaster. But, uh, that's one way to learn how to cook, uh, and cook fast. Uh, then I went, uh, I was finishing University of Chicago and went abroad to Vienna and I worked in a Michelin star restaurant there. For about a year and a half, mostly as an illegal immigrant.

• 12:01Speaker 02

  Uh, before I got run, before I got run out, I ended up actually getting run out of town by the authorities, but that's another.

• 12:07Adrienne Cheatham?

  Sam, I had no idea.

• 12:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, we could tell that story. Um, but they kicked my ass and just really taught me hardcore like how to cook. And that was an amazing experience. And, um, and then I came back and worked at a vec just after it opened, which is a real, also, you know, Corin was just she's a genius. And yeah, she's just, she's one of one. And, uh, and it was, it was rocking back then. That was, the vec was a fun place to work.

• 12:34Joe Flamm?

  Yeah. So you were there was that like oh, six, oh, seven, that era?

• 12:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, like, yeah, right when it opened, yeah. Oh, six. That was the first, me and Erling were the first two people hired after the original crew.

• 12:44Joe Flamm?

  Oh, wow.

• 12:45Speaker 02

  We started the same day. Yeah.

• 12:46Joe Flamm?

  Yeah.

• 12:47Speaker 02

  Chicago, shout out there.

• 12:48Joe Flamm?

  That was, uh, that was mine and my wife's first date, I think in two thousand.

• 12:51Speaker 02

  There you go.

• 12:53Joe Flamm?

  Nine, because it was like, I remember I was like, I'm taking this girl on a date. My chef at the time was like, go to a vec. He's like, order the cheapest bottle of champagne on the list and it'll still be awesome. Just get bubbles from there. He's like, all the food is killer. Like sit up at the chef's counter and it was just, I mean, like, I can still tell you every dish I ate. You know what I mean? Whatever that was damn near 20 years ago.

• 13:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's great.

• 13:15Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, I went there actually when uh, my husband and I were dating and he was on a trip with me to Chicago and like, he was meeting my best friend for the first time and we went to AVEC, the three of us for dinner and had an amazing meal. We still talk about that.

• 13:27Joe Flamm?

  That's crazy. I wasn't invited, but whatever.

• 13:30Adrienne Cheatham?

  I mean, this was before I knew you, you know, now you would totally be there. So Sam, how did you switch from, from that to working private chef for the Obama?

• 13:41Speaker 02

  I knew that I wanted to see the world and that as much as I loved cooking, you know, at times it felt a little constraining to me, you know, being in one place every day. And, you know, I was, you know, young and, and just really cared about travel uh, more than anything at that point and just trying to experience as much as I could. And so when I was actually at AVEC, after about a year, being there for about a year, I got offered a private chef job in New Zealand with a family who was sort of gonna spend, you know, uh, part of the year there. And I was like, yeah, absolutely.

• 14:17Adrienne Cheatham?

  Nice. Put me in.

• 14:18Speaker 02

  Done. And, you know, it was one of those things where, you know, they kind of, they paid, I worked, I was, I think each stint was about four months, maybe a little less, three to four months. I, so I did it for two seasons. And I just banked my pay there and then within travel, uh, sort of cook and travel all over the world and then came back again. And then did that again. And then I finally came back to Chicago. So I spent between Vienna and then about five years sort of just out in the world.

• 14:46Adrienne Cheatham?

  Wow.

• 14:47Speaker 02

  Make, make a little money and then just trying to get anywhere. So all over South America, all over Southeast Asia. All over Europe, you know, a lot of those countries is if you're like willing to rough it, you can live for a long time on not a lot of money.

• 15:01Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 15:01Speaker 02

  And experience so much and food just takes you to these most amazing places and meet just incredible people all over the world. So that was really my prime motivation and it was an incredible vehicle to do that. It also served me, you know, very well in just developing my own skills and identity as a chef. You know, it's one thing when you're getting technically good by repeating somebody else's food, but when you're on your own, it's a pretty beautiful way to start to decide, well, who am I? Like, what is my, what is my style? What is my, what is my take on all this? And the difference about being a private chef than being a restaurant chef is that, you know, restaurants,

• 15:43Speaker 02

  you're basically making the same thing for different people every night. But as a private chef, you have to make something different for the same people every night.

• 15:51Adrienne Cheatham?

  Every night. Yes, you nailed it. Yes.

• 15:53Speaker 02

  And that's a very different challenge, right? And it's a balance on trying to mix it up. But also, you know, people also like to eat the same stuff sometimes. So it's like, I had actually had to learn to repeat dishes. At first, you think it's got to be something new every night, which for your own like development of identity is a, is a good challenge. But they're like, can I just get that pasta you made? You know, that pesto pasta two weeks ago was incredible. Can I have that again? You're like, oh, right. Yeah, I like to eat the same thing, too. And so that's how it started. And when I came back to Chicago, so I did two seasons in New Zealand. At that point, I was like 26. And all my friends were like getting jobs at like law firms and cutting big paychecks. And I was broke as shit with a bag on my back and like no real sense of what I wanted

• 16:38Adrienne Cheatham?

  to do. Hashtag chef life.

• 16:40Joe Flamm?

  But I got a bunch of cool stories.

• 16:41Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right. And some really cool knives.

• 16:44Speaker 02

  I got some knives and some cookbooks. And at that point, I was already very focused on food policy. So I was like, I got some food policy books. And I wanted to organize chefs around food policy. That's sort of like all I had figured out. And I got back to Chicago and that fam, the family that I was cooking for in New Zealand was actually from Chicago and randomly, so you know, it was a lot of preparation and then it just luck, right, is the way this all worked, which, which, and I think preparation.

• 17:15Speaker 02

  Is the thing that allows you to identify and take advantage of opportunities, right? If you're not prepared for it, it's not an opportunity.

• 17:21Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 17:21Speaker 02

  So I was prepared for the opportunity, but it definitely got very lucky. So the dad of that family ran into Michelle on a flight and they had known each other from Chicago, like political circles. And I had been very much focused on health and he was like, you know, or Michelle was like, you look great, you know, like you've lost weight, like what's going on? She's like, oh, this guy Sam. And, and I had known the Obamas a bit in high school, not well, but they, they knew who I was. And so she put two and two together. And so then Senator Obama had just launched his campaign like a month prior. And Michelle had a full job and two very young girls and was being asked to do more and more for the campaign.

• 18:03Speaker 02

  And like, there was no staff, you know, there's no, uh, and she had no real support system besides her mom, who was amazing, but you know, there's only so much one, one grandmother can do.

• 18:16Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right.

• 18:16Speaker 02

  And, um, and so I started cooking for them every other night. It's funny to think back, I would make dinner and then leave leftovers in the fridge for them to heat up the next night.

• 18:28Adrienne Cheatham?

  Ah.

• 18:29Speaker 02

  That's how it worked. I would come every other day. The idea of them heating up like a cold plate of leftovers.

• 18:36Joe Flamm?

  It was a wild thought of like Barack Obama going home and being like, oh, let me microwave this ziti real quick.

• 18:42Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right.

• 18:45Joe Flamm?

  Cause it's Thursday night and I'm on the south side, baby. Let's go.

• 18:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's so funny to think about that. It's really funny to think about that. And, uh, and so, yeah, that's how, that's how it started.

• 18:57Adrienne Cheatham?

  That is so cool. So preparation, I think is so important. And that's something that we've talked about with private chef work is it's usually people who have been a sous chef, who have some kind of like managerial experience. You're, you're at a level of maturity in your career and your skillset. It's not just like, oh, I graduated from culinary school and I'm becoming a private chef. There are some people who do that, but you miss out on so much by not working with ingredients, working with people and learning for a few years in a restaurant.

• 19:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't, I don't see how it's even possible to be a good private chef if you haven't worked in restaurants for a while. Just like how you think, how you organize, how you prepare, how you understand like menu design to ensure your success.

• 19:46Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah. And if you're doing a multi-course, how do you, you don't even know how to time the dishes, how to time what you need to have a head done or?

• 19:55Speaker 02

  Dinner party, like you're one, if you're, if you're coming out close, you're one dinner party away from getting fired.

• 20:00Joe Flamm?

  Right.

• 20:02Speaker 02

  And so, yeah, no, that, those, those skills and just like having the exposure about learning from people who really know what they're doing. I mean, I never went to culinary school and one year working in a restaurant, I had surpassed most of the kids that who were starting from culinary school. There's just a different level of development that comes when you're just having to do it in real life. And I'm not saying don't go to culinary school. Like there's a lot of incredible chefs who have gone to culinary school. So you could, there's both paths are available, but the minute you're in a restaurant responsible for actually executing under pressure.

• 20:36Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right.

• 20:36Speaker 02

  It's a different, it's a different ballgame.

• 20:38Adrienne Cheatham?

  And you may not have gone to culinary school, but you did go to this little school in Chicago, what called the University of Chicago, you know, no big deal, but.

• 20:47Speaker 02

  Different, different set of skills I got there.

• 20:49Joe Flamm?

  Yeah. Pretty good batting average too, what I read. 366 career average? Is that what I read? That's pretty good. That's pretty good.

• 20:55Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, yeah.

• 20:55Joe Flamm?

  That's pretty good, man.

• 20:57Adrienne Cheatham?

  Sam in the HPK.

• 20:58Joe Flamm?

  I didn't know this guy was ballin' down there. I was like, alright.

• 21:01Speaker 02

  Play a little bit.

• 21:02Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, a little bit. I'll get you on my 16-inch softball team. Let's go.

• 21:07Speaker 02

  For those of you listening who are not from Chicago, 16-inch softball is a very weird sport, only played in Chicago with a gigantic ball the size of a large grapefruit. But anyways, I digress. Keep going.

• 21:18Adrienne Cheatham?

  That's funny. I remember Sam playing, playing baseball in the Hyde Park Kenwood League when we were young and we would all be like lined up watching Sam and Karan and Tarek and some of the other like older guys in the neighborhood like cheering you guys on. Good times.

• 21:32Speaker 02

  Having the fans.

• 21:35Joe Flamm?

  I always think like one of the interesting things of like, you know, you were saying like you didn't go to culinary school, but you know, just going right into a kitchen. I always, you know, because people ask me a lot. They're like, oh, do I need to go to culinary school? And I always feel like. Going to culinary school is like trying to learn a foreign language and just taking the classes, right?

• 21:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:51Joe Flamm?

  Like you're gonna kind of get it. You're gonna get how it speaks, but like until you're really in a kitchen and you're like immersed in it, you won't really know how it works. Like it'll give you a base of knowledge to get in there, right? So you're not coming in with nothing, but like if you're just living it every day, if you're immersed in it, like you're gonna pick it up because it's all you're doing. You know, especially back then, like cooks were working, you know, a hundred hours a week. It was like, that was all you did. You know what I mean? Eat, sleep, cook. That's, you know, barely sleep and barely eat, but mostly just cook.

• 22:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, I, exactly. I totally agree with that. I also feel like when you're thrown in the fire like that, you're like fighting for your life, you know? It's like a survival thing. And, and just not dissimilar from language, like if you show up in a country and you're living there and you, the only way to communicate is for you to figure it out, the urgency for you to figure it out is far greater and you will figure it out. And same is true for cooking, like, you know, if you don't know anything, your hunger for like knowledge just to survive is intense. And I think that's what the, the, like the chefs in, in, in Vienna were like surprised by because, you know, here I was in this very foreign place in this incredible kitchen at a very high level.

• 23:02Speaker 02

  And they're like, wow, you're like handling, like you're handling your business. Like, yeah, cause I don't know anything of what you guys are doing. Like, I don't know any, I, all of this is, every little teeny thing was new. And I just was like, just with aggression, just swallowing information and technique and just learning and going home after 15 hour days and just reading cookbooks or sometimes we were most often pretty drunk when I got home. But when I woke up in the morning, I would start reading those.

• 23:29Joe Flamm?

  Right away, right away. You know, getting that coffee, a pastry and you know.

• 23:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. That's exactly right.

• 23:35Joe Flamm?

  Well, I think like want and resilience are such undervalued like things in this industry that you have to have, and I guess in anything else too. But it's like, if you want it more and you're willing to just keep showing up. And I feel like there were so many times early in my career where like the chef was genuinely shocked, like I showed up again the next day. It was like, really? After that night, you're back again? All right, fuck it. Like, let's go.

• 23:58Speaker 02

  I will never forget, I'll tell you a very specific story. I, I, so I did my, I went to, I was finishing your Chicago and Vienna, so that's why, why I was there. So I finished that like the last semester, so it was three months. I was trying to figure out how to get back there. Like it was an amazing time. They're like, come back, we'll really train you. I was like, all right, bet. And but I couldn't get a permit. So I ended up just going back. And when I got back, they're like, all right, dude, they call me Yankee. They're like, all right, Yankee. Now, we were going nice on you before, even though it did not feel that way. And they were like, game on, motherfucker. Like, let's go. And it was sort of like, I don't know. Four or five months in. And man, every night, something had gone would go wrong. Like, I worked so hard. I was the first person there. I was the last to leave. I was killing myself.

• 24:43Speaker 02

  And no matter how hard I tried, I fucked something up bad, you know, like, bad, like, the sir, I threw the service off every night in some way. And I remember walking, it was like, three or four in the morning. I walked home and I just, I just ended up sitting down on the curb. And I was like, I don't think I can't do this. Like, this isn't, like, I don't got it. Like, I, I need to go home. Like, this isn't working. And and I was like, going, like, telling myself all those negative thoughts. And then I just was like, wait, hold on for a second. Like, fuck that. Like, no, like, that's not, that's no. That's not how we roll. It's like, think, like, no, I don't quit. Like, we don't quit.

• 25:24Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 25:25Speaker 02

  And I just, and it was, and then, like, it was literally like, the next day, it started getting better. And like, each day, like, I started getting it. Like, I've, like, I didn't make that mistake again. And that other one, I didn't make it either. And, okay, I was on top of that. Okay. Tonight wasn't totally, I mean, I made a couple of mistakes, but it was, you know, it was like, just at that breaking point.

• 25:45Joe Flamm?

  Right, right, right, right.

• 25:46Adrienne Cheatham?

  It's always dark before the dawn.

• 25:48Joe Flamm?

  One little win a day, you know, that one golf shot that looks good, that keeps you wanting to play, whatever it is, you know, and it's like.

• 25:55Speaker 02

  That's right. And and then it started getting better. And then I started, you know, really performing better and feeling much more confident. And and a lot of it becomes a confidence thing. It's like, when you feel like you're on top, you start performing better, right? You're not, you know, nervous and tense. And so you can think more clearly, be more organized. Get your shit together, attack it with a plan.

• 26:13Adrienne Cheatham?

  It's usually when you like, you have to like hit rock bottom to be able to like pull up and see the bigger picture about what you're doing wrong. Why? It's like you can make a mistake, but don't make the same mistake twice.

• 26:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:24Adrienne Cheatham?

  Why am I making the same mistake again? What am I not noticing? And you know, we've all had that kind of like service where like I got kicked out of La Bernardine one night. The chef, Chris, at the time was like, get the fuck off my line. He was like, no, you know what, Cheatham? Get the fuck out of my restaurant. I was like, yes, yes, chef. Um, should I clock out? No, I didn't even clock in. So, you know, totally fine. I'm not getting paid anyway. Um, so I'm out of here. And I went in the locker room because there's no crying in kitchens. So I get to the locker room, my eyes are a little red and watery. I'm like, I don't, I don't have what it takes to work in a Michelin star kitchen. I had been there at that point for eight months or a year.

• 27:01Adrienne Cheatham?

  And I'm like, God, you know, maybe I need to go back to a more casual restaurant, hone up on some skills and then try Michelin dining again. Maybe come back in like a year or so. But I was like, well, I mean, I have rent next week. So what am I going to do? Quit my job? No. Uh, so I just showed up the next day and the chef looked at me. He was like dap me up and was like, all right, you came back, let's go. And from then on, same thing, like the little mistakes that I kept making before, I stopped repeating those mistakes. I moved on to another set of mistakes. At least I had that breakthrough.

• 27:37Joe Flamm?

  I think the shittiest reality of the industry, right? Is like whenever it's like, things aren't going well, like the, the hard truth of it, the answer is like, well, you need to work harder. You need to do better and it's all on you. And it's like, that's a shitty feeling of like, oh, I just need to do better every day, all the time. And then everything will be fine if I was just better all, every day, all the time. You know what I mean? It's like, fuck, I was hoping there was another answer here.

• 28:03Speaker 02

  There's no other way but through. I'll just say, I do think resiliency is, and this is true in life. Like if I've, if I've been able to witness one thing from Barack Obama on down of all the kind of amazing people that I've had the chance to meet. Resiliency, I think, is probably the most underrated. Resiliency and curiosity, I think, are the two most underrated characteristics of success in the world, no matter who you are, what industry you're in. The people who are the best at what they do are super curious, always and forever. They're always just interested in new ideas, new techniques, new approaches, new thinking. Could be having nothing to do with their core, whatever it is that they do.

• 28:45Speaker 02

  But there's something to learn and pull in from everybody's experience. And I'll tell you, it's like an intense characteristic of the most successful people that I've met. And resiliency, like, you know how many times Brock thought it wasn't going to work? You know, like, he was 30 points down the polls when I started and nobody knew his name outside of Chicago. So like, you know, I think it is wildly undervalued as a, as the differentiator between success and failure in, in life. Cause we, everybody who's made it has had the moments that we just described. Every single person, multiple, multiple times. And the question is, you just decide to keep on going.

• 29:23Adrienne Cheatham?

  There's something that you two actually both have in common also. You both work a bit with food policy. Joe works with No Kid Hungry in Chicago.

• 29:32Joe Flamm?

  Okay, I, I work a bit with, I think is an accurate description. I think, you know, Sam has, yeah, like, set the bar and created, I think, an incredible space for like chefs to speak on food policy. And I think that's one of the things, you know, I've always, you know, just had a ton of respect for you for it, not only as a chef, but it's like, when you had the opportunity to use it to create a space to, to, to be heard, I thought you've done such a phenomenal job with it. And, you know, it's just incredible. And it's, I think, you know, inspired so many of us to feel like, oh, like, We can, could, and should get involved and that our voices matter. And like, we know about food.

• 30:16Joe Flamm?

  We feed people for a living. We should be part of the conversation, right? And I think, you know, we're able to do so much of that now, and all of us are so driven to do so much of that. That because of, you know, yourself and some of the others like you have done, you know, the incredible, laid the groundwork for us.

• 30:30Speaker 02

  Oh, man, that means so much. I can't, I can't tell you. Yeah, I agree with you, obviously entirely. I mean, it's funny, it's interesting, like my early days in the White House, I had to be very conscious because people were sort of like, you're the chef. What are you doing in this policy conversation? And I'd be like, you're like a policy wonk. Like, what the fuck do you know about food?

• 30:48Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right, right. It's like, what are we, it's like the shut up and dribble, like to athletes. Like, we're still people and we have opinions and we live in this world.

• 30:55Speaker 02

  Well, and we have real knowledge of food and feeding people. And so, yeah, I got a lot of shut up and, shut up and cook in the White House. And both internally and externally, but also internally. And, you know, I made a very, a real point of every time I'd go to one of those meetings, I'd put on a suit. And the first, first time I walked in, into a policy meeting, one of the staffers like, what are you doing here? Why are you wearing a suit?

• 31:22Speaker 02

  Be, because there's this sense that, you know, you guys just cook and leave the rest to us. But, but, but first of all, that hasn't worked very well. Like, we got a lot of problems when it comes to how we do ourselves.

• 31:34Adrienne Cheatham?

  Amen, amen.

• 31:34Speaker 02

  And secondly, like, there's a deep, you know, chefs sit between the people who grow our food and all the implications of how it's grown on the environment, the land, the water, and the communities that produce it. And the people who consume it, which is, like, we really are translator and between the, really what makes the food system work. And we have an incredible power, not just in terms of what we're putting on our plates, which is both just economically very powerful and from an educational standpoint, but we also tell stories and can educate and influence, you know, eaters, which is in many ways, the most important thing to do. Including like, a lot of influential policymakers and business leaders, they all come into restaurants.

• 32:19Joe Flamm?

  Yeah.

• 32:19Speaker 02

  Some chef knows every important person in, in, in, in America, that's for sure. And, and we have a really important understanding and perspective on what it means to feed people, what's possible. And we have, I think, an incredible power to help guide the country. Forward in a to help ensure that you know, the next generation can eat like we're going to eat and hopefully better than we're going to than we have been eating now. So I agree with you, man. I still think we haven't even really scratched the surface on the power of chefs in this conversation.

• 32:52Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, completely. And I think it's, you know, people forget that it's like, you know, restaurants are such functions of our community, right? Stretching from right around that restaurant to the city of the people we employ to the farmers in our state. And that like, I feel like restaurants, sometimes they're like the canary in the cave, right? You know, we feel everything first. If it snows, we feel that effect on business instantaneously, you know, market downturns, whatever it may be, like instantly restaurants feel that not, you know, in a couple of weeks, it's today.

• 33:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:22Joe Flamm?

  And so I think it's like, it's such a tight connection with the community. And I think like, we only exist because of our community and we feel that in the restaurants every day. So it's like, if we don't support them, how can we expect them to support us? And it's not that different of a function than a public, you know, official, except they just have way more access to us and they could change their mind on us a lot quicker and a lot easier than, you know what I mean? Just be like, well, I'm gonna stop going to this senator's restaurant, then he's gonna have to shut it down and we'll get a new fucking senator on this court.

• 33:53Speaker 02

  I wish we could.

• 33:54Joe Flamm?

  That'd be sick. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know how to push that policy through, Sam, but if you want to show me how I will, I will, I will.

• 34:01Speaker 02

  I'll be the first to endorse it. I don't know, but let's figure that one out.

• 34:04Adrienne Cheatham?

  I think we need more senators opening restaurants so we can do that then. So Sam, your first book, Eat a Little Better, was more of a cookbook, but you have a new book coming out, right?

• 34:14Speaker 02

  I do.

• 34:15Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, tell us about that.

• 34:17Speaker 02

  So this book is titled The Last Supper and it is, it has been many years in the making. It was due quite a long time ago, but better late than never. And actually, the timing is, I think, quite good. It comes out October 7th. It is really focusing a lot on what the future of food looks like, what's really at stake, and how do we start to overcome many of the challenges we face largely as a result of climate change. And I don't think people realize how, I mean, to your, to your point, I mean, The food system is really on the front lines of climate and is already being decimated by climate change right now in ways I don't think people really realize. You know, we're seeing different foods that we are, you know, take for granted and enjoy every day, already being

• 35:02Speaker 02

  severely impacted. And these are foods like coffee, wine, chocolate, shellfish, crustaceans of all kinds, peaches and stone fruit nuts. The list is long in terms of what's happening already. I mean, a couple of years ago, we lost 90% of the Georgia peach crop last summer, or this past summer. The drought was so severe in Spain that all the major cava producers laid off all their work. They had no grapes to harvest. The snow crab fishery in the Pacific Northwest will likely be closed for the third season in a row because there's, we've lost about 90% of the crabs in five years because of climate. It's playing out right now. And

• 35:42Speaker 02

  when you model out, you know, chocolate prices are up about 200% the last year because also because of extreme drought, all climate related. So I do these dinners called the Last Supper, which is a menu with these foods that are already being impacted and will likely not be around, you know, for our kids and grandkids, at least not at a prices that we've like gotten used to where like an average person can get a cup, a cup of coffee. And, you know, just coffee, wine and chocolate, you know?

• 36:14Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, that's like my whole day right there.

• 36:16Speaker 02

  Between those three, it's sort of like, I got everybody's gotta care about climate change now, you know, I don't, for me, it's coffee and wine. I mean, I don't, I like chocolate, but I, coffee and wine, it's like, I'll, there's nothing I won't do. I can't live without coffee and wine. What is life without?

• 36:31Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right. It's crazy because you're right. Like I've been, I always visit wine regions. So this past year, like in France or in Portugal, and that is something that everybody has been talking about for at least five years, is having to move some of either planting new grapes that work better in the climates that their area is changing to, or trying to move wineries to different areas and find those favorable slopes and those favorable conditions where they can take their winery and grow somewhere else because the climate is changing so drastically.

• 37:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, there's growers in Champagne right now who are buying land in England because they don't think they're gonna have enough, you know, consistent harvest in Champagne. You know, things are fucked up when the French are buying land in England to make champagne. And that's, you know.

• 37:21Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, you know, can you imagine the conversations that were going around around those tables before?

• 37:25Speaker 02

  There's the stress.

• 37:26Joe Flamm?

  The first, the first Frenchman who brought that up, how fucking mad everybody else was. It's just like, no, no, like, we will fucking burn this country down before we do that. You know what I mean? Like, like, we will, we will invade England again and make it France before we buy land in England. Yeah, that's, that's wild. I can't imagine the conversations that would have to be had.

• 37:47Speaker 02

  And that, these kind of things are happening all over the world, and they're also gonna start affecting the bigger crops like wheat and rice and soy that, you know, are the basis of what basically sustains life on planet Earth in terms of like a caloric standpoint. And, and that's when, you know, those crops won't go away, but those crops will be severely impacted and you'll see yields starting to go down, or at least major disruptions about where they're coming from. And, and when you get into that, that's when it starts to get pretty, pretty scary from a kind of global stability, national security, forced migration kind of standpoint.

• 38:22Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 38:23Speaker 02

  And so this is the kind of thing that, you know, we have to do a much better job at helping people understand like what we actually mean when we say the world's climate change. I think what's really been lost is that emotional connection about, you know, what, what we're actually, two degrees, I always joke like, and I always joke, you know, two degrees warmer like that, being from Chicago, that sounds great. I'm like, yeah, let's warm this shit to two, that's it, we don't want five.

• 38:51Joe Flamm?

  We'll take four.

• 38:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know, and.

• 38:53Adrienne Cheatham?

  So instead of negative five, it'll be negative three? Hell yeah, sign me up.

• 38:57Speaker 02

  And what's the problem with that? So I don't think we've done a good job. I'm thinking, no, I think we've totally failed at having people understand what we're talking about here. And what we're really saying is like, our way of life is really under threat and our ability to pass down a future to our kids that is anywhere near as delicious as the ones that we've been so lucky to have is truly at risk. And so food tells that story in a very powerful and emotionally connected way.

• 39:26Adrienne Cheatham?

  Sam, let's take it to a segment that we call the mentor moment. And this is brought to you by the San Pellegrino Young Chefs Academy. This is a time where we talk about people who have been mentors in our career. Like, we've talked a lot about Tony Montuano being like a great friend and mentor to Joe. And some of the people he's come across, some of the mentors in my career, like Erica Pear. Who's a mentor in your career that you've had that really helped guide you? Whether it was in restaurants or as a human being?

• 39:55Speaker 02

  I obviously could give you a bunch of different. I've had, you know, been able to work with some pretty incredible people. But I don't get to talk about the chef who trained me very often. So his name was Alois Trent. He was a sous chef at the restaurant in Vienna. And he really taught me basically everything I know. Uh, like my foundation of cooking. And he was an absolute machine. Like, he was one of those guys who was spotless at all times. Like, if he had a tiny drop of, like, somebody got him on it. He never got himself, but if somebody would splatter him with a little thing, he'd have to go change his coat. It was like, they fucked me. Yankee look, they fucked me. I couldn't even see it. I had to squint and be like, I don't see anything. His station was immaculate.

• 40:41Speaker 02

  He had every tool. Always. He had, he probably, he spent all of his money he ever made on knives and whiskey. And like, he had the nice, he had cases, suitcases of knives, suitcases of the most, every tool you could, but everything was labeled, everything was in order, everything was perfect. And he gave me like just some fundamental rules that, that I took with me far outside the kitchen. You know, first, like, taste everything, like, meaning like, try it on yourself first. No matter what you're doing, like, put yourself in the shoes of whoever it is you're working for. And so in policy, it was the same thinking, right? But, you know, make sure that you think it's good. Never serve shit was rule number two. Like.

• 41:24Adrienne Cheatham?

  Solid rule.

• 41:25Speaker 02

  If it's not great, don't serve it.

• 41:27Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yep.

• 41:28Speaker 02

  And like, it's a really simple rule, but if you follow it in everything you do, no matter where you're working, it's a, that is a rule for success. And there's a lot of times where it's like, it's much easier to just serve it, but you know it's not right. And it's like, don't serve it, ever. There's two more rules they gave me that really served me. There was one time I was so in the weeds, like I was just not prepared for service. Service was, you know, it was like four thirty or something. And I was like running around and he was like, I was trying to make a sauce that I hadn't prepared. And, and he was like, what are you, what are you doing? Look, and I'm like looking everywhere. He's like, I'm like, I'm looking for onions. He's like, Yankee, fuck the onions. Just focus on like the thing you really need to get done.

• 42:13Speaker 02

  Meaning like, learn how to prioritize what's most important. And like in that moment, would it be nicer with the onions? Yes. Did you have to have the onion for the, whatever it was I was making? Like, no, like what you needed was a sauce ready to go that was like good. Even if it wasn't exactly perfect. And it was like, right. So like, I'd taken that everywhere I go. I'm like, what is the most important thing right now? Uh, like in the White House, that was, you know, that was the lesson I came back to. Two more quick ones. One is like, you can learn from everybody, even the worst line cook. Yep. He would call them water cooks. Even the water cooks, like the guys who would use water for things. He's like, never use water in anything, always stock. But he's like, even the water cooks could teach you something. Like how to chop an onion better, how to do this one.

• 42:57Speaker 02

  One technique, everybody can do something better than you. You can learn from literally the worst, but you can get something out of them. And the last one I think was most important was, um, he was like, you're gonna cook for terrible people who don't know anything about food. You're gonna work for horrible chefs who are just mean and nasty and not good human beings. You don't cook for any of them. Like you always cook for yourself, like you cook to your own, meaning like your own standard. Like you don't, you don't come down or just doing it for these other people. You have to create your own standard for your, and next, your own set of expectations for excellence for yourself. And you always are meeting them because if you get mad at the guests because they want their steak well done. Or your chef is just being like a jerk.

• 43:41Speaker 02

  If you're cooking for them, that's going to impact your own standard and the way you approach. But that has to come from within you. And so those lessons, like I took those to the White House. Like the way I ran all the stuff that we did there. As well as cook were things that, you know, pretty universal. And it was, you know, it's he served me. He served me very well in that regard.

• 44:01Joe Flamm?

  There's two things I love about that more than anything. And one of them is this idea of you in the White House, looking at Barack Obama and being like, Barry, fuck the onions. Let's just get it done. You know what I mean? Like, and I don't know if that ever happened, but in my mind, it did. It was like a super sick ass moment. And then the other

• 44:19Adrienne Cheatham?

  He's like, Sam, what are you talking about?

• 44:20Joe Flamm?

  Of you just like shitting on staffers, calling them water cooks. You know what I mean? Like, like, watch them walk around, and look at these fucking water cooks. Get the fuck out of my policy meeting.

• 44:31Speaker 02

  Man, I had a lot of definitely to deal with some of those.

• 44:34Adrienne Cheatham?

  I'm gonna always refer to people as water cooks.

• 44:36Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, water cooks. That's one of the best, like wildly specific kitchen. And it's so good. It's so good, dude. It's so good. Thank you for that. That is, that is poetry.

• 44:45Adrienne Cheatham?

  So when you were in the White House, there is such a well oiled machine of the culinary operations there. I've read about some of those chefs who have been there and Joe's cooked there when he cooked for the State Department and John Kerry before. So like, there is this massive culinary program at the White House. So when you come in as the private chef of the first family, how do you fit into that? Like, what's the breakdown there? Like, are they like, yeah, get out of my kitchen? Or is it like, no move over and make room for Sam Caff?

• 45:17Speaker 02

  It's a very interesting, astute question. It didn't normally happen that way. So it was, so when I entered, it was like, it was, it was, it took a while for everybody to feel each other out. Like, you know, I walk in on inauguration day, like, I'm at inauguration, I'm actually, I'd somehow lucked out, like, at the last minute, I just was handed this, like, literally a golden ticket. It actually was a golden ticket. So I was like, right above President Obama, as he was being sworn in. Like, I had this incredible view. But then I had to figure out how to get from there into the kitchen before he got there to cook dinner. And there's like, a million plus people there. So that was like, really a tall task.

• 45:53Adrienne Cheatham?

  You had to cook dinner that night?

• 45:55Speaker 02

  That night.

• 45:56Joe Flamm?

  You're walking around, you're like, hey, I'm Sam. It's my first day. Somebody could just shit, like, you're a star showing up.

• 46:01Adrienne Cheatham?

  Show me where the walk-in is, so I can cook dinner.

• 46:04Speaker 02

  So like, all right, I'm gonna do a little, it's just funny, it's a Chicago thing, so I'll drop the name. But the way I actually find, I was like, trapped. I couldn't, like, it was so many people, and there's no cars. I couldn't get up to the White House. And I was like, I was starting to get kind of nervous, because it was like, I'm not sure I'm physically gonna get there. And I I hooked up, I hitched a ride on Oprah's bus. Uh, who I had just cooked for, who I had just cooked for like a month prior. So she saw me, she's like, Sam. She was like, Oprah.

• 46:38Adrienne Cheatham?

  Save me.

• 46:39Speaker 02

  Hey, how you doing? She's like, you need a ride? We're gonna go up to the viewing stand. I was like, oh, yes. You get a ride, you get a ride. Exactly. So I, as I hitched a ride with Oprah, we drive up to the White House, which was like, save me. Yeah, then I go up to the front, like to the security door. I'm like, um, my name's Sam. I need to get in there. They're like, you know, they look at everybody, just walks up like that, like, oh, this is probably somebody trying to like, jump the fence. Anyway, so they let me in and I walk in.

• 47:11Speaker 02

  And you don't know where anything is, you don't know. And it's chaos because they're basically moving out the president, President Bush, and moving in the Obamas. And they have like six hours to do the whole thing. And they wanted to feel like they're home by the time they get there. It's obviously far from perfect, but they wanted to, the basic furniture that they've asked for and all the basic art, like all that is switched out. So it's chaos. Everybody's running around like crazy. And I'm like, um, where's the walk-in? I need the chicken, you know?

• 47:42Speaker 02

  And it's so it's like, it's hard to describe the insanity. And so I, I, I find my stuff and I go up to, I sort of, you know, start prepping and I go upstairs and, and on that night, it's like, you know, they have like 12 galas to go to. So like they get in at six, they're eating at six 21, they're dressed by six 43 and they're back out, you know, it's like the food was not the.

• 48:05Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right, not the main event.

• 48:06Speaker 02

  And I, and I, you know, and I've known them and I, so I wasn't like, for me, it was just like, I, they just need something they can eat. There was so much like angst about me coming in and just curiosity. So on this, on the, on the second floor, which is where their family dining, where they would eat as a family, the prep was done on the, on the bottom floor, but you go upstairs to where they would actually eat. It's a tiny little kitchen, like your kitchen in New York is like the size of this kitchen up there. It's like a teeny little thing. It's got a little table for two, like a teeny little round table, and that's basically it. So I get up there, there's like 20 people packed in this little teeny kitchen just to like, try to see what I'm about. So it was like,

• 48:47Adrienne Cheatham?

  Just in there like sharkin sizing you up.

• 48:50Speaker 02

  It was like all the butlers, all the chefs, all the ushers, they were all were just in there like, all right, what's this dude's about? And I cooked, I cooked brown rice, broccoli and barbecued chicken, not just, you know, like, cause I knew for them, like they just needed something that was gonna fill them up.

• 49:07Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right.

• 49:07Speaker 02

  And they weren't, they didn't give a shit about what they were eating that night. It's like they've just become present and all like, you know,

• 49:12Joe Flamm?

  Right.

• 49:12Speaker 02

  What's the cook on this, whatever. Whereas like everybody else would be worried about impressing them. I was like, that's the least of what they need, that they're worried about tonight. Just cause I was comfortable, but it was intense. So, and they were like, saw what I cooked, they're like, oh, this dude ain't shit. It's basically, I could just tell. They're like, what? You know, they're,

• 49:31Joe Flamm?

  The barbecue chicken boy over here, huh?

• 49:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. So it, it, so it took a while. And I think the other thing was the, the challenging part, well, first of all, I think they were all, and they, they're like my family now, like, I, I, you know, they are some of the most important humans that I've ever worked with and the most beautiful humans I've ever worked with. But, you know, coming in, they had spent eight years under, under President Bush. And he just doesn't care about food. He's like very honest about that. Like, I don't give a, he, he thought that, you know, time eating is just a waste of time. Like, it's just not his thing. And so after eight years of that, you know, and then comes Michelle, who, and Barack, but particularly Michelle, who like cares about food and cares about health and got kids and,

• 50:15Speaker 02

  so there, there was an adjustment period of sort of changing the culture of what we served, which was complicated piece of business to sort of help change in a way that was still like, we're all gonna be a team, but.

• 50:32Speaker 02

  All this has got to change. So the the beginning was a little little tricky, but I think what they quickly realized is like, once we did the garden, you know, I did the garden was the first big thing I did there.

• 50:41Adrienne Cheatham?

  That was so exciting.

• 50:42Speaker 02

  I included all of them and we all did that together and they started getting a lot more attention and they started saying, oh, wow, food is going to be a major part of what they're doing and a big spotlight and so much value for the work that the kitchen was doing. And then once they sort of saw that, you know, they realized like, um, we're all we're all going to do it together and and this is good for them. So it be then it became just like family.

• 51:05Joe Flamm?

  Dude, I love that. Just like a kitchen is a kitchen is a kitchen. Like you showed up literally with the fucking president and you were the you you were FNG, man. You were the

• 51:14Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 51:15Joe Flamm?

  Like, I just love that it didn't matter. It's like the same day one, but like it sounded like, you know, my first day of espionage and I'm getting side eyed by the people who've been there 21 years and they're like, so you're the new sous chef? And it's like,

• 51:27Adrienne Cheatham?

  What's this guy about?

• 51:28Joe Flamm?

  Oh, like, I'm not going to change everything, but like, I'm gonna change some stuff like, you know, like, and it's just like, that's like, I don't know. One of my favorite parts of like, what we do is like, a kitchen is a kitchen. Kitchen doesn't matter if it's in the White House or if it's in Italy or if it's in South Side of Chicago, like a kitchen is a kitchen.

• 51:44Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 51:45Joe Flamm?

  And there's something so fucking cool about that.

• 51:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, I agree. No, it's a hundred percent true. A hundred percent true.

• 51:51Adrienne Cheatham?

  It's so good to know that you can go anywhere in the world and have that same experience.

• 51:54Joe Flamm?

  Yeah. I mean, we were going to ask you for a walk in confession, but I don't know if that there's anything that could top that story.

• 51:59Adrienne Cheatham?

  I know, right?

• 52:00Joe Flamm?

  Getting rescued by Oprah to cook your first dinner in the White House.

• 52:04Adrienne Cheatham?

  That that is a great

• 52:05Joe Flamm?

  Like the Oprah tinge of that is just like,

• 52:08Speaker 02

  It's really funny. It's really funny.

• 52:12Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oprah, give me a ride.

• 52:13Speaker 02

  Oprah, help me. Yeah. All right. Well, I we can leave you there. I mean, I have, I have, I

• 52:19Joe Flamm?

  If you have one, I'll take it. Oh, oh, no, no, no. If you got one, we will.

• 52:22Adrienne Cheatham?

  We will not hold you back.

• 52:23Joe Flamm?

  Yeah.

• 52:24Speaker 02

  All right. I'll tell this. I got I got one good one from the early days. So this was in Vienna. I don't think I've ever told this story publicly. Um, so this was in Vienna and like this is it was December, which is of course the busiest time, especially over there. Like the holidays are like a huge thing and we work seven days a week and every day was massive parties of, you know, 40, 50, 60. You know, top parties and like four of them at the same time, like they had rooms that they turned into private dining rooms. Like it was a whole thing. It was insane. And it was a Saturday night and everybody had done all their prep for the week. So like, it was, you know, sort of like a French

• 53:05Speaker 02

  style, French Feeny style kitchen, but the French technique, like so sauces that had been prepped, you know, prepped all week long and just so much went into it. His fa- his most famous dish was this lobster dish that he had taken like a classic pork dish and like made it. So it was like this gigantic buttered lobster sauce, you know, like that kind of thing. Huge pot of it. And it was like probably 12:30 and everybody's frantically trying to get out of, out of there. So we can go drink at this bar 15, 16. And so we loaded up the cart, like a three level cart, all the sauces. Big glass jars of lentils, big glass jars of pumpkin. Yeah, you know where this is going. And

• 53:49Speaker 02

  fully packed. And I was like, all right, guys, I'm gonna go take everything down. I'll, I'll put it all in the walk in. We were on the fifth floor.

• 53:57Speaker 02

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

• 54:23Adrienne Cheatham?

  You were the guy.

• 54:24Speaker 02

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

• 54:55Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, God.

• 54:56Speaker 02

  And as I grabbed the cart, everything, every pot, every glass jar, all of it went careening down the stairs. There was butter sauce from the ceiling.

• 55:10Speaker 02

  And it had these glass panels, like the, the, the railing was like these glass panels. Five floors down on all the glass, all the way down to the bottom. And it made this huge noise. It was all these pots and pans and breaking glass careening down the stairs. They say, as they, as the guys would tell the story, they came out, they said that like they couldn't see me like I had turned so white that I like blended into the wall. The first, first, the, the, the gummer shade was like right there. So he came out, he was like, he was like, what's going on? What happened? Holy shit.

• 55:51Speaker 02

  And then he went back in and then the sous chef came out. He's like, Yankee, what's happening? And he just like, he just saw, he's like, and he just like, looked down and then he looked at me and then he looked down. And he just, this is, I guess we have a lot of work to do.

• 56:10Speaker 02

  They all came out. And it's like, but it's all butter. So like, we're like sloshing it into dust pans and putting it into buckets. And you were slipping and falling because it's so slick.

• 56:24Speaker 02

  And like all the waiters, of course, come out and they bring like champagne and they're all sitting at the top of the stairs, like laughing at me and a couple of chefs who are helping me. And it's just like, and like it's silent because everybody's like mortified because everybody's thinking about like, okay, how am I going to make up for all this prep for this crazy week ahead? And but then it's also so ridiculous. And then everybody just like breaks out of laughter because it's like, you can't comprehend what just happened. And, uh, and so then we kind of get it. So it's sort of okay. Like, it's not clean by any sense, but like the glass is picked up and the lentils are picked up, you know? And then I come back the next day and for 12 hours to scrub the floor all the way down and they, I had to like hang to clean the glass because it was like in between.

• 57:07Speaker 02

  It was a disaster. Like it was thousands and thousands of dollars worth of food. I don't know how much, but it was so much money with food. And they didn't, they kept, they let me come back. So, uh,

• 57:19Joe Flamm?

  Holy shit.

• 57:20Speaker 02

  They needed you to

• 57:20Joe Flamm?

  They probably couldn't believe you. They probably couldn't believe you were still standing there. You know what I mean? I would, I would have half contemplated like, I should just throw myself down the stairs. So at least it looks like I fell and then I'll get some empathy here. They'll be like, like somebody that's like, are you okay? But like, oh no, the whole car fell on me. You know what I mean?

• 57:40Joe Flamm?

  These Austrian stares are way different, you know, like the American stares work. It's weird. It's, you know, a pitch thing. I don't know.

• 57:48Speaker 02

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

• 57:52Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, my God.

• 57:53Speaker 02

  Crazy. It was crazy.

• 57:55Joe Flamm?

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

• 58:09Speaker 02

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

• 58:18Joe Flamm?

  Oh.

• 58:18Speaker 02

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

• 58:25Joe Flamm?

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

• 58:34Adrienne Cheatham?

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

• 58:40Joe Flamm?

  How many drinks did you have to buy that night?

• 58:42Speaker 02

  I all of them.

• 58:43Joe Flamm?

  Yeah.

• 58:46Speaker 02

  All of them.

• 58:46Joe Flamm?

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

• 58:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 58:51Adrienne Cheatham?

  All on me tonight.

• 58:52Speaker 02

  Just go for it. And probably tomorrow, too.

• 58:54Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just give them. Oh, dude, that was awesome, man. Thank you for sharing that. That was killer, dude. The whole thing.

• 59:02Speaker 02

  It's classic.

• 59:03Adrienne Cheatham?

  That was epic. And thank you so much for being here with us today. It's, um, it's great to see you. So proud of everything you've done. Like Joe said, you're an inspiration for not only chefs and career paths, but for your work in policy and everything that you do. You've been a huge inspiration to both of us and so many others. So thank you.

• 59:21Speaker 02

  You know, this has been such a joy. I'm so proud of you. I've been, you know, just watching you grow and realizing like, damn, she's like, I'll just say, it's like, oh, she's working in Libra then, damn, she's like surpassing my ass. That's okay, go ahead. Uh, and Joe, we'll forgive you for winning, even though I will say at least in this house, it's contested to this day.

• 59:43Joe Flamm?

  Tell the boys when they, when they come, they can have as much ice cream as they want to eat until, until they come around to me.

• 59:50Adrienne Cheatham?

  No bribing, no bribing, cuties.

• 59:52Speaker 02

  That's all it'll take.

• 59:53Joe Flamm?

  In Chicago, I still live on the South Side. I'll bribe the shit out of people. I have no problem with it. I have no qualms.

• 59:58Speaker 02

  That will be very effective. That'll take care of it real quick. Adrian, who?

• 1:00:06Adrienne Cheatham?

  That was a blast. I love it. But before we go, guys, Joe and I have a very special request. Don't forget to leave a review wherever you get your podcasts because it really does help and it better not be a one star review. This concludes part three of our three-part private chef series and this has been such a fun time to open all these doors and have all these conversations. So, thank you guys for following along with this.

• 1:00:31Joe Flamm?

  So, make sure you follow along on IG @TheChefsCutPod. Don't forget to like and subscribe to the podcast wherever you download it so you can get back into it next week with more chefs and more fun.

• 1:00:43Adrienne Cheatham?

  This has been the Chef's Cut. Life beyond the past.