Karen Akunowicz on Boston’s Food Scene, Bib Gourmand, and the Importance of Powerlifting!!

Adrienne and Joe are joined by Bib Gourmand award-winning Chef Karen Akunowicz to talk about the Boston food scene, excellent food at a great value, and the importance of finding balance in and out of the kitchen (if that’s even possible). In this episode, we also discuss: Fork It or Forget It: Lobster Rolls (cold or hot?) The booming Boston food scene and how Karen got her start as a Houston’s bartender Prominent female chefs in Boston and the example they set Her restaurants (including Fox & the Knife) achieving Bib Gourmand status Training in Italy and making Italian food (with a very different chef background) The influence of her time working at Disney World and what hospitality excellence looks like Karen’s time spent outside the kitchen as a powerlifter The illusion of work-life balance (especially when you’re building a career) Walk In Confession: Karen’s first day as a line cook… and head chef for a night Follow Karen: @chefkarenakunowicz Follow the show: @chefscutpod Follow Adrienne: @chefadriennecheatham Follow Joe: @insta.flamm

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

• 0:02Adrienne Cheatham?

  Today on The Chef's Cut, we have a guest who is a true badass. She is a powerlifter, she's a former bartender, a social media comedian, and, oh yeah, she just happens to be an award-winning celebrity chef who is also nicknamed "The Queen of Pasta." We're talking about how she got started, and that is Houston's.

• 0:22Speaker 01

  Houston's.

• 0:23Adrienne Cheatham?

  And you're the bartender.

• 0:24Speaker 01

  I knew you were gonna say it.

• 0:25Adrienne Cheatham?

  I did.

• 0:26Speaker 01

  I love Houston's.

• 0:28Adrienne Cheatham?

  What community means to her?

• 0:30Joe Flamm?

  You're making that magical moment.

• 0:32Adrienne Cheatham?

  It's not.

• 0:33Joe Flamm?

  You're making a magical moment in South Boston with an Amaro card.

• 0:36Adrienne Cheatham?

  What makes the perfect lobster roll?

• 0:38Speaker 01

  Hot buttered lobster, but they put mayo on the bun.

• 0:41Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh. If you haven't figured it out yet, it's Chef Karen Akunowicz, the James Beard Best Chef Winning, Michelin Bib Gourmand Awarded, powerlifting powerhouse behind some of Boston's most loved restaurants. But first, Chef's Cut Nation, we need 10 seconds of your time. Please rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts. Your support is the reason we've grown so quickly, and your support will help us keep going.

• 1:12Adrienne Cheatham?

  Chef Karen, thank you so much for joining us today. We are so excited to talk with you.

• 1:18Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me, guys. I'm a big fan.

• 1:20Adrienne Cheatham?

  We do this segment called Fork It or Forget It, right? And fork it means you like it. Forget it means you're gonna kick it to the curb. And we have a special Bostonian addition because you are like the reigning queen of the culinary scene.

• 1:36Speaker 01

  Oh, that's so nice. Thank you.

• 1:38Adrienne Cheatham?

  So we wanted to know, which one? Hot buttered lobster roll or chilled mayonnaise salad-style lobster roll?

• 1:46Speaker 01

  Okay, so I do have a lot of opinions about this. So I'm going to say hot buttered is my go-to. I also have, I have a house in Maine. So I'm up in mid-coast Maine a lot, as much as we can get up there. I live right by Georgetown Lobster, which is like the best place to get lobster. You sit on the dock, you look out where they catch the lobster. But, um... Uh, the clam shack in Kennebunk does hot butter and it's not in a like a hot dog, you know, like the hot dog buns that you get lobster rolls in. It's like a round roll and it's hot buttered lobster, but they put mayo on the bun.

• 2:21Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh.

• 2:22Speaker 01

  It is the fucking shit. It's the shit.

• 2:26Adrienne Cheatham?

  Um, oh my God, that sounds so.

• 2:28Joe Flamm?

  My Midwest heart so happy.

• 2:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's really, really, really good and I love those guys. Um, you can get their lobster rolls on Goldbelly. I send them to my mom, my mom sometimes. But so I'm going to say that for me, that is like the best of both worlds. But if it was just hot buttered or cold, I would say hot buttered always.

• 2:47Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, but that place sounds phenomenal. I gotta try that. Ooh, yes.

• 2:51Joe Flamm?

  I like it.

• 2:51Adrienne Cheatham?

  Well, speaking of Boston and I guess now Maine, but back to Boston. Um, the culinary scene there has always been, um, pretty awesome, but it's getting a lot more attention in the past few years. And you know, especially like even Michelin entered the Boston area. But how has the Boston food scene evolved in the time that you've been there?

• 3:15Speaker 01

  Well, I think that, I mean, I, I feel like I've been here, I've been here forever. Um, I've been working in restaurants in Boston since I was 21 and I'm 47 now. So, um, so it's a, it's a long time.

• 3:27Adrienne Cheatham?

  Just a couple of years.

• 3:27Speaker 01

  Just, you know, no big, no big deal. Um, still a spring chicken. Um, you know, I think that there is just an explosion of folks doing great food in a lot of different neighborhoods. I always say Boston's a city of neighborhoods. So my restaurants are in, in South Boston, Southie, um, traditionally very towny Irish Catholic neighborhood. I mean, when we opened Fox and the Knife, everyone was like, you think people are going to come to your restaurant there? And I was like, yeah, I think that if we have, you know, if we have great food and great hospitality and we're really nice to people. Yeah, I, I do think people are going to come. They were like, that's not what they want in that neighborhood. But here's the thing about it, it is a neighborhood. People live there.

• 4:10Speaker 01

  And so the neighborhood has been, always been, you know, amazing to us. And, and we've, we've done, we've done okay for ourselves there. So I think that there's a lot of neighborhoods that had. Amazing food that you could go to, but there are chefs that are now not just operating in Back Bay, downtown Boston, the South End, which are like, you know, more affluent neighborhoods. We're kind of spreading out into all the corners of the city. And, you know, I think people are making really fun, interesting and personal food. And I do think, I mean, I always say, especially for female chefs in Boston, we've always kind of had, had the run on that. I mean, I came up in the front of the house before I started cooking. And,

• 4:54Speaker 01

  you know, I had all these amazing female chefs to look up to, Lydia Shire, Joanne Chang, Anna Sartone, Barbo Lynch, who were owning and operating their own restaurants. So it, if you see it, you believe that you can be it. Like, do you think like, that's an, that's an attainable, like, look, look at all these women owning and running their own restaurants. So that's something that I can do as well. But I think that, you know, our food scene is, I think it's becoming a lot more fun. And, and I think, I think that's really cool.

• 5:21Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, I was thinking about that before the call. I'm like, man, Boston has been like, the female chef powerhouse, like, for

• 5:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, a long time.

• 5:29Joe Flamm?

  Like, for as long as I've cooked, you know, as long as I've known about it, it's been like, that's been like, the spot. And it's so like, you know, like, odd. It's like, you know, I mean, like, that's the helm of it. And I mean, Chicago, we have incredible ones, New York, obviously, too.

• 5:42Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 5:43Joe Flamm?

  But like, Boston has been, you know, I mean, a powerhouse, like, forever.

• 5:48Speaker 01

  But yeah, I mean, you go back to, I mean, Boston's, we're kind of never at the, at the forefront of, I wouldn't say we're often at the forefront of anything. But that's something that's just kind of always been the case here. And it, you know, there was a restaurant called Michaela's that a lot of female chefs worked at and branched out from there. And, yeah, I mean, it's always just been something that's, that's not only been Prevalent, but has been very visible in Boston and I feel pretty lucky for that.

• 6:17Adrienne Cheatham?

  A lot of cities like you would hear about a bunch of, you know, men, a bunch of male chefs. And then there'd be like one woman chef who's got a restaurant here, you know? But in Boston, it was always like the women were the headliners there. And that is really cool. I've always wanted to spend a little more time in Boston to get to know the scene a bit.

• 6:34Joe Flamm?

  And I feel like the difference is there you have a bunch of female chefs who worked for female chefs. Cause there were so many there where it's like, I worked for Steph here, but like Steph didn't work for any female chefs. Cause there just weren't that many, you know what I mean? There were, you know, there were a couple and then, you know, she became, you know, who she is. And now, you know, I mean, a million people have worked for Steph. Cause she has, you know, 11 restaurants.

• 6:54Adrienne Cheatham?

  97 restaurants.

• 6:58Joe Flamm?

  And so it's like, you know, everyone has worked for Steph. If you've worked in Chicago, basically at this point, so it's like, I felt like she kind of, you know, rejuvenated that scene in Chicago and brought it to another level. But I felt like Boston was always kind of the standard in that really and truly in the years past. But I also think like the interesting thing is like, all three of us have all worked for a house. We all started in front of the house, which I think is, is really interesting. And, you know, I know for me, it gives me such a different viewpoint of it. And I also think cooking Italian does too. But it's like, I feel like it gives you a more distinct thing of, and you know, one of the things you said about opening a restaurant in Southie, like if we're really nice to people, you know?

• 7:40Joe Flamm?

  Just like, how did that front of the house shape like how you open a restaurant, how you run a restaurant and like that focus on hospitality? Do you feel like you're more dialed into that?

• 7:49Speaker 01

  I think for sure. It's always been something that's super on the top of my list. I, you know, I would say it's of course the food is first, but our hospitality is, is, is right there. And it's really specific. I have a really specific and clear point of view of what I want our hospitality to be and what the expectations are. Especially at Fox and the knife, our kitchen is very small and it's in the middle of the restaurant. So from the past, I could see every table, but one, there's one that's like in the back corner that I can't see that I have to walk around. And the kitchen is really this big, so I have to walk around to add to pasta and then I have to go like this and look to be able to, to see that, to see that one table. But I can see everything. So I can see what's going on. I can hear what everybody's saying.

• 8:30Speaker 01

  And if I hear something that I'm like, oh, that, that doesn't resonate, I'm going to call it out right away. And I tell people that I was interviewing. A floor manager yesterday, she was asking me some questions and I was like, I worked in the front of the house for a long time and I have a really specific point of view and what I want that to look like and how I want that to be. And it's, it's, you know, the heart of the restaurants. And I'm sure that's annoying. I'm sure that's annoying to the front of the house.

• 8:58Adrienne Cheatham?

  No, you know what you're talking about. And I mean, Joe oversold it a little bit. I did not really work front of house. I mean, my mom was front of house. So I kind of learned by like, I was

• 9:09Speaker 01

  Same, same, osmosis.

• 9:10Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, I was like raised in a non-smoking section because you used to be able to smoke indoors. So we would do our homework in the non-smoking section. And then I did bartend for a little bit. Um, when I was, you know,

• 9:22Joe Flamm?

  You worked in front of the house.

• 9:23Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 9:23Joe Flamm?

  You bartended.

• 9:24Adrienne Cheatham?

  I mean,

• 9:25Joe Flamm?

  You don't, you know what I mean?

• 9:26Adrienne Cheatham?

  It was more slinging.

• 9:27Joe Flamm?

  Live under that little shade tree, cheetah.

• 9:28Adrienne Cheatham?

  It was more slinging vodka cokes or vodka diet cokes, like in New York, you know, at 4am. But Karen, you also bartended and there is a chain, like chains, you know, we talk a lot of trash about chain restaurants, but there is one chain that gets a lot of respect from chefs and even Danny Meyer gave it a special shout out because they set operations, they do great food and it's consistent from location to location. And that is Houston's.

• 9:56Speaker 01

  Houston's.

• 9:57Adrienne Cheatham?

  And you bartended.

• 9:58Speaker 01

  I knew you were gonna say it. I did. I love, I love Houston's. As many of us that worked there were all like, oh, give me a C spin. Let me, you know. Um, yeah, I worked for Houston's. I was an opening bartender at Houston's when they came to Boston and opened in Fennel Hall. So very tour, you know, very touristy area on the, on the Freedom Trail. And I mean, I've worked in really busy restaurants that, well, we were flat out, like five deep every night when we opened. Their hospitality, their training, I was not a manager there, but I know about their, their manager training. Just everything is

• 10:38Speaker 01

  so spot on. And their vision of hospitality, it's here. It's like top notch all the time is truly guest first. It's like, what can you do to make that guest experience special? What can you do to make, make people come back? And I think for, you know, for being a chain, I think the, you know, the food is great. I, you were like, do you want to go to Houston's? I would say.

• 10:58Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, no matter what city I'm in, it's like, it's like, if I don't know where to go and I'm just meeting up with people. I'm like, is there a Hillstone or Houston's around? I'm there.

• 11:07Speaker 01

  And that everything we did, I tell people, you know, when we would work service bar, our service bar was separate from the regular bar. And it was this little box, kind of in the dining room by the, by the pass, by the line. And, um, I mean, when we trained, they stood behind you with a stopwatch and they timed you. They timed you. You had to pass all of your time tests and then you would get randomly timed. Um, you know, when you worked there, like, how long did it take you to make these cocktails? And then they would test them because they, it wasn't only time, they had to be perfect. And you, I mean, you cranked if you were in on dining room bar.

• 11:42Joe Flamm?

  Do you remember your times? Like, are you like, I still got a two-minute martini in me?

• 11:46Speaker 01

  I wish I did. I wish I did. But I should make something up and just, and just say it. Um,

• 11:50Adrienne Cheatham?

  32 seconds flat.

• 11:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. We also squeezed, we squeezed juice fresh for, for singular drinks. Not like, hey, you know, it's a Caraff or a Canberra or whatever it is. It's like, if you were making a Greyhound, you were squeezing a grapefruit fresh into the drink. Like, the standards, I mean, the standards are very high. And I think it's one of the places that I, and, and I really, I'm a Virgo. Um, and I, I always think restaurants, kitchens, bar, like, those things just made sense for me. It was like the, the place that I made sense in the world. Like, my first line cooked up, I was like, oh, this is what I'm supposed to do because I haven't fit anywhere. I don't make any sense. I don't make any sense anywhere. I'm like such a frickin' weirdo. I'm a, you know, square peg in a

• 12:36Speaker 01

  round hole everywhere I go. And it was like, finally, like, bing. Um, and, and I really felt that way there. So I, I really, as, as I tend to do, like, kind of glommed on to that. I was like, oh, my God, hospitality's so important. Um, I also worked for Disney World. So not,

• 12:52Adrienne Cheatham?

  I didn't know that.

• 12:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. So not in, not in restaurants. I did college program. So I worked in, and I was one of the opening cast members of Animal Kingdom. Um, and that also, so not restaurants, I didn't work in food service, but that guest service hospitality, that you going out of the way to make magical moments was so important. And I feel like those are two of the really defining,

• 13:15Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 13:15Speaker 01

  not kitchens I worked in, but really defining places that I worked that have shaped me to be who I am.

• 13:21Adrienne Cheatham?

  Those are really great training grounds, too. I mean, those are like the best places to learn that.

• 13:27Joe Flamm?

  I think it's so interesting to like through our careers, you know, everybody I think always assumes like our greatest inspiration or greatest stuff came at, you know, the best restaurants we worked at, right? When we worked for these incredible chefs, but I think there's so many things when we've talked to chefs, restaurants, whatsoever, it's like the stuff they picked up along the way at random places or random people, you know, like for me, it's like working for my best friend's dad in high school and like how he was at the general manager of a bar in a strip mall in the southwest suburbs of Chicago, like influences so much of what I still do today because it was just like a way of doing things, a way of treating people, a way of how you interacted with the community. So it's like, I always, I love those stories of like, you know, it's like, yeah, you didn't go the Disney route, you know what I mean? You might not be Cinderella

• 14:10Joe Flamm?

  now, but you know what I mean? I think you've done very well.

• 14:14Adrienne Cheatham?

  You kind of are Cinderella though.

• 14:16Speaker 01

  Oh, that's nice. That's nice.

• 14:26Adrienne Cheatham?

  Neighborhood restaurants are the backbone. That's like where my mom worked. Mellow Yellow was a neighborhood restaurant on 53rd Street in Chicago on the South Side. It was not winning any Bib Gourmand sadly, but you did win two Bib Gourmands at both of your restaurants and you just opened a third in the airport in Boston. But explain to people, because we talk about Michelin a bit, but to me, I think Bib Gourmand is more important than Michelin stars sometimes because especially if you're looking at the value that you're bringing to a neighborhood. So just explain a little bit of what a Bib Gourmand is and what it means to you and why that's so important.

• 15:05Speaker 01

  So Bib Gourmand, you know, I think the easiest way to describe it is it's, it's excellent food at a value, at a price that feels like a value. And I know one of the mystery things about it is that every region or city or state or whatever it is, has a different price point. So I have no idea what that looks like for, for Boston or our city. So I wasn't necessarily like, oh, hey, maybe we'll, we'll be awarded a Bib Gourmand because I have no sense of that. One of the taglines that I like that's often said is Bib Gourmand restaurants are places that Michelin inspectors would go back to again and again on their days off. And for me, that's just like, that hits home. I'm like, wow, like somebody like sees us for what we're really

• 15:48Speaker 01

  trying to do, which isn't necessarily the case because you're not. Saying in every interview like, we try, we try hard and it's not, and it's certainly not an inexpensive restaurant. It's, you know, certainly a place people go for special occasions and things like that, but we really do try and keep in, keep that, that neighborhood vibe. So I think that for me, it was, it was more meaningful. Like I, I've said a few times, like that for me, for both of our restaurants, there are only six restaurants in Boston that received Bibgur Mounds designations and we had two of them.

• 16:21Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, wow. Congrats, Alasim. That's huge.

• 16:25Speaker 01

  So it was really, that's like three stars for me. You know, that, that's how, that's truly how, how I, I feel and how I felt about it. And it was, it was surprising.

• 16:36Joe Flamm?

  I feel like the Bibgur Mounds to me are like, it's like saying like, this is where, you know, the Michelin star chefs go eat other days off.

• 16:43Speaker 01

  Right.

• 16:43Joe Flamm?

  You know what I mean? Like, that was like.

• 16:45Speaker 01

  That's like where we want to go.

• 16:46Joe Flamm?

  Right. Like that's always, I wanted to be the restaurants where it's like chefs wanted to eat on their day off. You know what I mean? And it's like, that's what it like feels like for those where it's like, I see that. And I was like, yeah, if I had two meals in Boston, they're probably both at your places. You know what I mean? Like I would, I would do a bag bag there.

• 17:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're just three blocks away from each other. You can walk.

• 17:05Adrienne Cheatham?

  Perfect. Lunch and then dinner.

• 17:07Joe Flamm?

  Maybe a late night at Peachtree City or something, you know?

• 17:10Speaker 01

  Perfect. We'll go together.

• 17:13Adrienne Cheatham?

  Joe and you have so much in common with the like neighborhood restaurant kind of vibe. You know, his places in Chicago are definitely in the same kind of feel, like great hospitality, great food, good value, and the kind of place that you want to go to for all of that. Like all those good feels, all that good food. And you also have something else in common and that's that you both worked for a little bit in Italy.

• 17:37Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 17:38Adrienne Cheatham?

  And so you worked in, was it in Modena?

• 17:41Speaker 01

  In Modena in Emilia, Romania. Yeah.

• 17:43Adrienne Cheatham?

  That's awesome. How long were you there for?

• 17:45Speaker 01

  I was there for a little over a year.

• 17:47Joe Flamm?

  I think the other interesting part too is like, you know, reading your background, it's like, I think, and I'm, I'm sure you've found this too. So many Italian chefs you meet only ever cooked Italian food, right? Like they stayed in that lane the whole time, but you didn't and I also didn't. You know what I mean? So it's like, I cooked Korean food for a couple of years. I cooked French food. I cooked, um, southern food and I, I never planned. I'm being like cooking Italian food as like that my that was gonna be my thing, even though I grew up cooking it like it was just like I was definitely more of like, oh, I'm like, I fell in love with kind of Asian food, working for staff, and I thought I was going that route and then kind of like came back into it. Did you think like always, I'm gonna get back to that?

• 18:29Joe Flamm?

  Or was it just when you opened your first restaurant, you're like, this makes sense for right now, and this is what I want to do?

• 18:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I think there's a part of me that thought I would get get back there. I fell in love, I worked at a restaurant called Via Mata, it was Michael Shaw's restaurant and Christopher Myers restaurant in Boston, and I fell in love with Italian food there because it was, I was very, I'm from New Jersey, I'm very familiar and love Italian American food. I mean, you're like, what's your comfort food? I'm like, give me a chicken par, you know, a chicken parm sandwich. But it was like really an introduction, it was really an introduction for me into regionally specific Italian food. The menus were all in Italian. I remember, so I started working there in the front of the house. I was a bartender there while I went to culinary school. And I remember I had to like pass my menu test and I was going home and I had to look

• 19:19Speaker 01

  up the all of the words. I was like, melanzana? What the fuck is that? And and really studying and kind of being very enamored with it. But I did do a lot of other things. And I remember I went to work for Anna Sortoon, who owns Oleanna, who's been open 20 years in Boston, modern, modern Middle Eastern food, and just one of the most, you know, outstanding restaurants in our city. And I remember telling her, I I was applying for a sous chef job and I had just come home from Italy. And I remember telling her, I like, I don't have experience with, I mean, I eat Middle Eastern food, but I don't have experience with it. And she was like, do you know how to cook? And I was like, well, I I do try. Yeah, do you know how to saute? Do you know how to braise? Do you know how to roast?

• 20:03Speaker 01

  Do you know how to like, do you know how to do? She's like, okay, well, the rest of it is just learning different spices and different seasonings and like, understanding the culture and cuisine. She's like, you can like, read a book, right? And I was like, yeah, I can. Yes, chef.

• 20:18Joe Flamm?

  I've read several. I've read several.

• 20:20Speaker 01

  Yes, chef.

• 20:21Joe Flamm?

  Whole Hunger Games trilogy, knock that out.

• 20:26Speaker 01

  And I was like, okay, but that conversation with her, and she's, she's a badass. That conversation with her, I have used that so many times in my life when I've been in a situation where I'm like, oh, I don't know if I know how to do this. And I'm like, okay, well, I know how to cook. I mean, it was very similar when I went to Myers and Chang, which is where I won my Jane Spade Award, which is a modern Asian restaurant, Chinese, Taiwanese, Southeast Asian. And I remember, I had taken a year off of working in restaurants. And somebody, Christopher Myers, that I had worked for, called me and was like, I think it's really nice that you're saving the world, but I think it's time for you to come out of retirement and go back to restaurants. And I was like, oh, I don't know. He was

• 21:11Speaker 01

  like, well, we want you to come, come be the chef at Myers and Chang. And I was like, Christopher, I don't cook Asian food. And he was like, you eat here all the time. And I was like, that is true. And you know how to cook. And you know, right. And in my head, it's like, well, you know how to cook, right? And I ended up, ended up being there for seven years. And I, I think that, and Joe, I don't know if you feel the same way, but that gives you, it's like looking at food a little bit through a kaleidoscope, right? It gives you just like a different perspective, different like flavor profiles that you're familiar with and you understand. And I think in a lot of ways, and often it's not on the menu, but in a lot of ways, there's, you

• 21:52Speaker 01

  know, that influence in the cooking at Fox and Knife and at Bar Bowl Bay. People used to eat our, when we first opened, we had like a trophy with pesto. And they'd be like, this, like, what does this taste like? And it was because there was like lemongrass and lime leaf in it. And we didn't put it on the menu, lemongrass and lime leaf.

• 22:12Joe Flamm?

  No, no, no, no, no.

• 22:13Speaker 01

  Right? Because I was, I'm always very like, I don't want people to think it's the usual. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and you don't always have to call it out. Right? Or like, call, call it out. It's just, you know, it's like pistachio pesto.

• 22:26Joe Flamm?

  One of the few F words you're not allowed to use in a kitchen.

• 22:28Speaker 01

  Like, um, but, you know, we do it because it makes sense. Where our spaghetti alla vongole at Fox, we, we, we pick it up in, in Dashi. And it's not because, and we don't say Dashi on the menu, but it's just like, why wouldn't you? It makes so much sense.

• 22:46Joe Flamm?

  Right. I ran an octopus dish at Spiajo when I was first there and it was, it was a red wine braised octopus, which is very classic Italian, but I braised it in dashi at red wine. And I just, you know what I mean? Didn't mention that part. And Tony was like, this is

• 23:01Adrienne Cheatham?

  This is so good.

• 23:02Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, thanks. You know, chef.

• 23:03Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 23:04Joe Flamm?

  But it's like, I had the same conversation when I sat down with him to interview to be a sous chef. He was like, you've never worked at an Italian restaurant. Now you want to be the sous chef of a Michelin star Italian restaurant. I was like, right, I know. Um, I know how that

• 23:17Adrienne Cheatham?

  Here's the thing.

• 23:19Joe Flamm?

  I know how that looks. I was like, but I felt like it also like, one, and it was like, I kind of, you know, have the same conversation. I was like, you know, I can cook. Everyone I've worked for is in your cell phone. You can text them. Like, they're all in this city.

• 23:30Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right.

• 23:32Joe Flamm?

  And I go, I'll figure it out. But it forced me to get really good at like researching. It forced me to get really good at like how I created, because it like, it made me read even more, consume even more and like, learn how to digest what I consume a little bit more. You know what I mean? And so, um, I felt like that gave me a lot of perspective, but all those things from there, like, yeah, I felt like I was just looking at things different. And it wasn't always just like throwing those ingredients in, but still how we cook now, where it's like, I think some of those like for me that like, you know, created, uh, influence for me is like that, that like high, high heat.

• 24:08Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right.

• 24:08Joe Flamm?

  Like cook it. You know what I mean? Like fast, hard cooking, which is like, nothing is fast in Italian cuisine. It's just like, wow.

• 24:17Adrienne Cheatham?

  Nothing in Italy is fast.

• 24:19Joe Flamm?

  Right. It's like, what do you mean? What do you mean? You have to be somewhere after this? I thought you were coming to lunch. You should have nothing else to do today. Like, why would you even go to lunch if you had something to do with the next six hours?

• 24:29Adrienne Cheatham?

  Joe and I were talking about this yesterday, too, when we were talking about like your time and his time in Italy. There is such a difference between types of hospitality, like, you know, French hospitality being more like buttoned up and standoffish and, and hovering and a little more rigid. And I didn't realize this, but he was telling me that like Italian hospitality is more warm and gracious and more like you're welcoming somebody into your home. So is that Like that's the style of service that you have at your restaurants?

• 24:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, a hundred percent. So I wanted to, I am also not, everyone assumes I'm Italian. I'm not Italian. I'm fifty percent Polish, English, German, Norwegian. I went when I was very young, I was in college and I traveled. I was in, you know, spring break doing like a European backpack trip with, with friends of mine. And one of my friends was like, I have family in Italy and we're gonna go, we're gonna get on a train, we're gonna go there. And they were gonna hang out with them. And I was like, do you know these people? And he's like, no, I've never met them in my life. But like my grandma wrote to them. And I was like, okay, sounds cool. I will tell you, I know now where we were. We were in Piedmont. I had no idea at that point in time. I was like, I don't even know where we are.

• 25:41Speaker 01

  We got off at a train station. These people welcomed us and were hugging all of us. We slept in their house. They like showed us around. We stayed there for days. They took us to, they were like, Paolo, you have other family that lives here from like your other side of the family. We're gonna go to the, we're gonna go to their house. Like, what do you mean? So like 12 of us show up. It's three of us that are traveling together and then all of his family. Go and just knock on this woman's door. It's just one old lady. Knock on the door. And they were like, this is Paolo. He's like your great grandson or something, or nephew or, and she was like, everybody come in. She gave us, she gave us cake she made us. Coffee. It's a bunch of us. She did not know us. She did not know them.

• 26:23Speaker 01

  She did not know us. And she welcomed, and I was like, whoa, I have to understand, I have to live here because I need to understand. I need to understand this. I need to understand not just the food, which is amazing, but the, the culture and the, the hospitality and all of that. I need to understand that. And that for me is one of the, one of the biggest pieces of, of why I moved there. It's, you know, it's very, it's just, and it's just the way it is.

• 26:54Adrienne Cheatham?

  As somebody who's worked in Italian cuisine and had those experiences and brought that back to the US, what is something that you obsess over in your restaurants? Does one of those experiences translate to what you as a chef-owner obsess over in your restaurant? Everybody has their thing. It's the host stand, it's the lighting, it's...

• 27:15Speaker 01

  I obsess over every... Oh, the lighting. Oh, let me tell you, I'm convinced. I mean, I'm like, you have the marks on the thing. I'm like, but this time of year, it has to be... This is me, every time, every time I'm there, I'm like, guys, I'm like, oh, just a little bit, a little warmer, a little more glowy. This time of year, actually, it just needs to be a little bit up until it gets a little darker, and then we need to move it down. And there, everyone's like, uh-huh, yes, chef, that doesn't sound like you're a psychopath.

• 27:44Joe Flamm?

  And they just go, and they go, is that better?

• 27:46Speaker 01

  Right, without touching it. Good? I'm like, no, it needs to be warmer.

• 27:51Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right, it's like, sit down at a table and pretend you're sitting across from somebody on a date, and look at that, like, look at your colleague across the table.

• 27:59Speaker 01

  Come sit over here. Oh, I'm a big, come sit over here and see how this looks from here. If you're a guest and you're sitting here, come on, come sit with me. And we're looking here, see what you can see in the kitchen? That needs to get, like, down, because you could see that. And everyone's like, yeah, this is cool. You know, one of the things that we have, do a maro service at Fox and the Knife, and we have like an maro cart, and we like, which it was never supposed to be a cart that you pushed around the restaurant. It is a small restaurant, and we have seats packed in. We're always like, oh, that's a, that's a New York four over there, like, you know, it's tight, it's small. That's how we've rolled from like, day one.

• 28:36Joe Flamm?

  It's a New York four, dude.

• 28:37Speaker 01

  It is not, and it's not an expansive...

• 28:39Joe Flamm?

  I haven't heard that expression in a minute.

• 28:41Speaker 01

  I mean, that's how we opened, and we're like, ah, we're probably gonna, we're probably gonna two-top over there, right? Like, there was a space that we had, server stuff, and I'm like, I think we can put a, that's table 40, that's the Campari table. We were gonna put a table right there. We actually have a table that used to be a DJ booth from like, the iteration of like, four... Four restaurants ago and we knocked out the side of it and I didn't have enough money. I mean, we opened with very like shoestring and then turned half of it into half it's a booth. And then we took one of the tables, like we took, you know, took all the efferviny and and cut it. So you could put it against the wall because if you left it as a foretop, it was too long and it gets a chair on the other side.

• 29:26Speaker 01

  One of my favorite seats in the restaurant, but it didn't even have like a cushion on it when we opened. And that was when Jordana Rothman came in from food and wine, the second week we were open and they

• 29:35Joe Flamm?

  Just some old newspapers, just put on the bench.

• 29:37Speaker 01

  You just said, it was just like a bench. It was just like a hard, I mean, there was no foot rail yet. And I remember her sitting like, she was sitting like this and I was like, good, this is good. I'm so happy that that's where, that's where we, we

• 29:52Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right, that's where food and wine is sitting.

• 29:53Speaker 01

  Good, good, good. And I'm like, that's Jordana. And everyone was like, oh, oh, is it? And I'm like, yeah, perfect, good, good.

• 29:59Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, no, that's about

• 30:00Speaker 01

  Everything's, everything's good. I'm fine. I'm fine. Everything's fine. But our Amaro service, I had bought that cart just to like, put the Amaro on in the dining room. And we opened in our servers, just started, we opened with just like such a crack team. It was a lot of people who had been managers that were like, oh, when I took a break from managing, go back to serving. We were very lucky and they just started like wheeling it around the dining room. And the first time I saw it, I was like, what, what is she doing? And they were like, oh, just go up to the table. And so I now have, have become really obsessive about like, everybody has to use the Amaro cart once a night because it's, it's part of the experience. It doesn't cost us any extra money, right? We're not sending them anything. We're not comping their drinks.

• 30:43Speaker 01

  But you're having a real, uh, interactive experience with somebody. So it's like, you know, teaching them about whether they're pouring them a flight, pouring them a taste, saying, oh, this is, this is really what I like. And, and you're having that priceless interaction with people that resonates hospitality.

• 30:59Joe Flamm?

  You're making that magical moment.

• 31:00Speaker 01

  You're, it's not

• 31:01Joe Flamm?

  You're making a magical moment in South Boston with an Amaro cart.

• 31:05Speaker 01

  Oh, where did you make, where did you make magic? When I go to Disney World, oh, I, I was, oh, I used to be a cast member. Like, where did you make magic?

• 31:15Speaker 01

  I love it. I'm like, you know, I'm going in April.

• 31:19Joe Flamm?

  Where did you make magic?

• 31:21Speaker 01

  Where did you make magic?

• 31:22Adrienne Cheatham?

  In true front of house.

• 31:23Joe Flamm?

  If somebody asked me that in the middle of my workday, I would be like, what are you talking to me about?

• 31:27Speaker 01

  What are you talking about? I had a lot of meetings. I had a lot of meetings today.

• 31:31Adrienne Cheatham?

  Front of house faction, because my mom was front of house. She retired. She was with Starbucks on the corporate side for like 20 years. And she retired and got bored. And she lives in Orlando. So now she works part time for Disney and she makes magic happen for the cruise line.

• 31:46Speaker 01

  Where does she, oh, for the cruise line?

• 31:48Adrienne Cheatham?

  She greets people. She greets people at the airport and drives them to the cruise ship and she loves it. She works like three days a week and then plays pickleball four days. Like, and she loves, because she's such like a front of house hospitality person.

• 32:04Joe Flamm?

  Your mom's just out there getting all the tea too.

• 32:06Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, she is. She is.

• 32:07Speaker 01

  A hundred percent.

• 32:08Adrienne Cheatham?

  But she's like, the best thing about it is I get to start their experience. They get to be brought in to their vacation. And she's like, I don't care what's going on. I create their experience. I greet them. I make sure that they're like having a good time. And I drop them off with a smile. Like, she's so happy to be doing this. And it's like, that is the essence of like, front of house. Like, that hospitality is, I was like, I don't, I might have a frown. Like, I am not equipped to do that.

• 32:37Joe Flamm?

  You would be the worst at that job.

• 32:39Adrienne Cheatham?

  I would be horrible.

• 32:41Speaker 01

  I mean, I, I, I love it. I love it. And it sets the, it tests the tone for their entire trip. And it really is. I mean, you leave, you leave Disney World, whether it was like when I was working there or when you, you go there and you just leave and you're like, I don't know why people aren't that nice, just like everywhere. I'm not, you know, I'm not really, I'm not really sure. No one said hello to me when I walked in this store. I walked out and it's me like walking out of like, whatever. And I'm like, bye, thank you.

• 33:06Joe Flamm?

  Zero magic happening to this Best Buy. I just want you all to know that.

• 33:12Adrienne Cheatham?

  You're not making magic over here.

• 33:14Speaker 01

  I didn't buy anything. Bye bye. Thank you.

• 33:18Joe Flamm?

  Zero magic.

• 33:21Joe Flamm?

  Thanks for nothing, Steve.

• 33:22Speaker 01

  We call, we um, we call, we talk a lot about ciao ono. It's like one of our tenants at the restaurant, it's like big, uh, big hello or a big goodbye. So everyone, you know, our whole team, it's like, hello, hello, hello, you know, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye. People will be like, I have never been said goodbye to by so many people leaving a restaurant. And we're like, ciao ono.

• 33:47Adrienne Cheatham?

  So you're providing that balance, you're providing that, that hospitality for other people. And I firmly believe, and maybe it's because when I left restaurants, I was still in my mid 30s, mid to upper 30s, and I left restaurants and to me, I was either all in or all out. Like my life outside of a restaurant, just it didn't exist. It wasn't a thing. How do you create balance for yourself as somebody with now three restaurants? Doing television, traveling, doing events? How do you make sure that you have something for yourself to bring back to your guests?

• 34:26Speaker 01

  Uh, I think it's, it's so hard, it's so important and it's, it's so hard. And I think that, you know, when people talk about balance and because I hear so much from so many people that we interview about work-life balance, like I'm interviewing sous chefs and they're like work-life balance. And I'm like, I always want to say, babe, this is like not your work-life balance time. This is not your time for that. This is your time to, to grind, this is your time to learn. This is your time to like soak it all in. It's, the magic ain't happening in the, in the 40 hours and you're clock in and clock out. The magic is happening in all of the other stuff around it. The experience you're having, the relationships you're having with your sous chef, your chef, your, what you're learning, what you're doing and what you're, what you're putting into it.

• 35:11Speaker 01

  Like you can, I get it, you know, I didn't see my family for holidays for eight years. I didn't, you know, nights, weekends, holidays, but very much the same. I mean, I'm sure both of you, like, yeah, I was obsessed with that. I loved it and I, I still do. And I think that one of the things that's helpful for me is that I don't look at it. I don't look at anything like work-life balance. Like this is my life and it's just all a part of it. Right. And there's this, this great, it's Shonda Rhimes. It's like this great, uh, this great quote she said, she was giving like a keynote speech. At a university. And she was like, people say, oh, you have it all. You do it all. You don't.

• 35:52Speaker 01

  Here's the thing. If you are winning an Emmy, if I'm winning, winning an Emmy for Grey's Anatomy, I am not at my daughter's school play. And if I'm home and I'm being really present because like, my kids have a lot going on or we're going on vacation, like I am not as present at work. Right. And you kind of have to get okay with saying, I do as much as I can here. I do as much as I can there. And I go where I'm needed and I do the best that I can. And I'm giving a hundred percent and it feels like fifty percent. But it's probably a hundred and twenty percent compared to somebody else's. Like, I'm sure all three of us are like, are like seventy-five percent is other people's a hundred and twenty-five percent. Right?

• 36:34Joe Flamm?

  We go hard.

• 36:35Speaker 01

  We go hard. I mean, I just had, I just had-

• 36:37Joe Flamm?

  I've been told I'm intense.

• 36:39Speaker 01

  Oh, me too. Weird. Me too. So weird.

• 36:41Joe Flamm?

  I don't feel that way.

• 36:43Speaker 01

  I just think I'm like, I just care a lot, guys. I just care a lot.

• 36:47Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, I'm just passionate. That's all. And that's, I don't think-

• 36:50Joe Flamm?

  I'm trying to make magic right now. These are core beverages.

• 36:55Adrienne Cheatham?

  But I actually don't think that balance is truly possible in that way. I, I personally don't. And I never achieved it when I was in restaurants. I was either there from five AM to twelve AM every day or, like, I don't know. I just, I don't think balance is possible.

• 37:11Joe Flamm?

  I, I think like, like, people don't realize that. I think you said it beautifully, Karen. It's like, balance is sacrifice on one end or the other. Right? You're either sacrificing work or you're sacrificing home to figure out. And I think like for us, especially like chefs, parents, doing all these things we do, you know, TV, all that, like, there, there's no balance. There's just like, I think like, for me now, it's like, I just, it, just trying to be present. And wherever I am-

• 37:35Speaker 01

  And wherever I am.

• 37:36Joe Flamm?

  It's like, there's never gonna be an even split. It's impossible. You know, I, I shoot for flexibility and I shoot like, if I'm at work, I'm, I'm all in on that right in that moment. I'm trying to be totally present. You know, I'm with my team doing that. When I'm at home, I'm trying to be totally present there. And I think like, that's the best you can do. But it's like, because you know, I think you're talking to young sous chefs and stuff where like, I want this balance. It's like, all right, but you're sacrificing growth for that balance right now. And if you're okay with slower growth, you can have more balance, but it's just going to take you more time.

• 38:06Adrienne Cheatham?

  It's just going to take you longer.

• 38:07Joe Flamm?

  We don't have that option coming up. We were all, we were all gas, no brakes.

• 38:11Adrienne Cheatham?

  There were also no cell phones in kitchens. So when I was at work, nobody could get a hold of me. There was.

• 38:18Speaker 01

  I remember my mom trying to, would try and be like, oh, I've been calling you for weeks. And me being like, I'm at work. I don't know what to like, what do you think? I don't know what to tell you.

• 38:28Adrienne Cheatham?

  In the case of a real family emergency, like I knew the shit hit the fan, like something went on in my family because they called the La Bernardin reservation line and got transferred to the kitchen. And then the CDC was like, AC, you have a call. I was like, oh, this must be bad. Because nobody can get, get in touch with you when you're at a restaurant, like, you know, and that's, I don't know. It's, I think it's a beautiful thing to be fully present and be fully in it and you grow so much faster.

• 38:56Joe Flamm?

  See, see, my mom was CPD, so she just popped in. She just, she'd pop in on my friends too.

• 39:03Joe Flamm?

  I'd hear, I'd see somebody to be like, I saw your mom. I'm like, where? She's like, they just came into the restaurant.

• 39:07Speaker 01

  That's awesome. Good for her.

• 39:09Joe Flamm?

  Popped in. They'd be like, you know, just walked in. Everybody was like, what's going on? They'd be like, oh, it's Janice.

• 39:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. But Adrian, to your point, you know, I do think there, there is a place that you get to where it's like, I always describe it as you have to put soup back in your own pot. Like we're all this soup pot. And if we're just ladling out to everybody, right? The bottom is just going to burn. So if we're not doing things for yourself at some point and finding that, making that time, and it's, it's really hard to make that time. I, you know, we talked a little bit about this before. I'm a powerlifter. It's something that I did a while ago. I never competed and came back to two years ago and start I started competing last year and I have to like carve out I have two days that I work with my coach and then I try and get to the gym in that flexible sense like when I can like yesterday I was like I have an hour I have an hour and a half I'm going to run to the gym before I go

• 39:58Speaker 01

  home and I try and get like one or two more days in but those two days I have to protect like it is my child because everybody everyone's like oh you can do that or you can move that it's just the gym you can move it and I have to it is one of the hardest things for me is is like protecting that time and being like I cannot I cannot cancel the gym I can't I have to go I have to one it keeps me my brain right so I don't kill anybody

• 40:26Joe Flamm?

  Yeah

• 40:28Speaker 01

  But also if I it'll it'll be the thing that goes every time so for the last two years I've been really intense about you really have to it's not just like you know what girls make time for yourself you you need you need to have some self-care it's like when you carve out those times like you have to really protect them yeah it's great for your mental health that's great for your physical health but it is it is my hobby it is something that brings me immense amount of joy truly and I have never had that before in my life so I also feel like I have to protect that as well because otherwise it's like you need to to find I I I think right I'm

• 41:10Speaker 01

  not that good at it but you do have to find those small other things that that bring you joy that are not job related because it's so easy to tie everything about our I won't speak for anyone else but like very easy for me to tie my self-worth to my job and for that to be the only thing that I am and I have lived my life that way that's it I'm a chef that's it that's it

• 41:36Adrienne Cheatham?

  Before we let you go, we have a little bit of a section we call turn and burn. And this is kind of like quick, this or that.

• 41:45Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 41:45Adrienne Cheatham?

  So this will be really fast and then we're going to ask you for your walk in confession. Okay, so for turn and burn, this is a kind of Boston edition fried clams, bellies or strips?

• 41:58Speaker 01

  Strips.

• 42:00Adrienne Cheatham?

  Ooh, okay. Oysters, well fleets or ducksberry?

• 42:05Speaker 01

  Ducksberry.

• 42:06Adrienne Cheatham?

  Ooh, nice clam chowder. Are you thick and creamy or brothie and briny?

• 42:12Speaker 01

  Brothie and briny.

• 42:14Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, and cannoli prefilled or filled to order?

• 42:19Speaker 01

  Oh, filled to order.

• 42:21Speaker 01

  That's kind of a give me. I'm not gonna be like, no, don't give me that. Don't give me that cannoli.

• 42:26Joe Flamm?

  No, no, go give me one that you filled 12 hours ago.

• 42:29Speaker 01

  I don't, I won't, don't want it, but it's like, you know, the intake starts to get, uh, starts to get soft.

• 42:34Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, and some people.

• 42:36Speaker 01

  So if I have the choice.

• 42:37Joe Flamm?

  You gotta eat the two ends first and then you leave the middle.

• 42:39Speaker 01

  And then you leave the middle because and it ends with the, the chocolate chips anyway, so.

• 42:44Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, nice. So our last part of the show Karen is called walking confessions. And this is where we know the Karen Akunowicz today, who has two Michelin bib gourmands and a new restaurant in the airport. But there was a Karen before all this and cookbook author and James Beard Award winner and mother. Yes.

• 43:05Speaker 01

  Guys.

• 43:06Adrienne Cheatham?

  There was.

• 43:08Joe Flamm?

  An absolutely yoked powerlifter.

• 43:10Speaker 01

  So do it.

• 43:11Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yes. Who was the Karen before all of the accolades? What was a funny story or an experience that you remember and you want to share with us as your walk in confession?

• 43:24Speaker 01

  I mean, I feel like it could be like yesterday.

• 43:28Joe Flamm?

  I feel that. I feel that so, so deeply in my soul.

• 43:33Speaker 01

  I sometimes am just like, well, just make it, making the same mistakes. No, um, this, this is a, I don't know if, I don't know if this is going to count as a walking convention, but my, my first shift ever, my first shift ever as a line cook, um, I worked at a very, very small restaurant in my neighborhood of Jamaica Plain, um, in Boston. I still live very close to there. It's an amazing neighborhood. And it was a restaurant called 10 Tables. Guess why? There was only 10 tables. Um, and I like loved like as a, and like as a, um, as a guest, I had, I really loved that restaurant. It felt very intimate and small and special. And that's

• 44:14Speaker 01

  where I went my, my very first job as a line cook. And my, so there would just be two of us on the line. There was like the chef worked the hot side and like I was supposed to work the cold side. I really had no idea. I mean, I had never worked in kitchen before. I will say, I do think there's a bartender to chef or cook pipeline, right? Like you're like you're mise en place, you know how to move, you know how like you can, so, so I think that's helpful. But the, the chef like had food poisoning or stomach virus or something. So like walking from my, I had done a stage and at that stage, the guy working the cold station didn't show up. So I like worked the cold station. It wasn't, it wasn't super complicated, but they were like,

• 44:57Speaker 01

  you're hired. And now I'm like, yeah, you hired me because you needed somebody to work the next day. I go in the next day and she's in the bathroom downstairs, like throwing up, like she's on the floor. And she was tough. She was a tough bitch. And knowing her like now, as long as I knew her for, like the fact that she was like sick and couldn't come out of the bathroom, she must've been dying. And I remember sitting on the floor outside of the bathroom and I was like talking to her through the crack in the bottom. And I was like, so I saw the food yesterday and I have the menu and the owner said to me,

• 45:30Speaker 01

  So if I don't take any walk-ins, do you think you would just cook the reservations that are coming in? And I, you know, I probably should have just said no, but I was very like Frodo Baggins.

• 45:42Adrienne Cheatham?

  I got it.

• 45:43Speaker 01

  I do not know the way. I do not, I will do try it, but I do not know the way. So I was like talking to her and like trying to write down. I remember there was like, there was a trout with beurre blanc and fresh peas and mint. I'll never forget it. There were, there was like a beet souffle on the menu. I had to like mix, like, you know, very, very new American.

• 46:05Joe Flamm?

  You're like a little kid outside the bathroom like, mom.

• 46:08Speaker 01

  Mom, like, what do I, how do I do it? And so I did cook service then. And I, I think, you know, the, the piece of it is like, you don't really know how to cook, right? Like you, you can't go into culinary school, but you don't really know how to cook. You've never worked in this kitchen before. You don't have any moves. You are not a line cook. You do not have moves. You cannot do more than one thing at a time. I could not do more than one thing. And I'm like, I will put this thing in the pan. You don't know how to.

• 46:34Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 46:35Speaker 01

  Put the thing in the pan, start the other burner, close the oven door with your foot, turn around, put the, like, you have no moves. So I just like very slowly cooked for, I don't know, did we do two turns? It was the most stressful night of my life. I'm sure it was terrible. I, I think the, the owner was just giving away free drinks to everybody all night. And, and I, and I just would be like, here's the, here's the one, they're like shaking, like, here's the, the one thing that I made. Here's the salad and, and, um, I mean, we got through the night, um, but what a, what a tiny little hellscape. Hellscape that was.

• 47:13Joe Flamm?

  Put up one dish at a time.

• 47:15Speaker 01

  Literally just like one dish at a time. I'm like, well, here's the, the one dish. I know there's, it's a five top. I remember there was a five top. There was a five top in the window. And I remember just being like, here's your one dish at a, at a time and just trying to like, and not, not knowing at all what I was doing. Um, and that was day one. And I guess I was like, this seems like something I should do for my entire life, guys. I love it.

• 47:41Joe Flamm?

  I'm a chef now.

• 47:43Adrienne Cheatham?

  After that, it's all uphill, right? It's all uphill from there.

• 47:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, you know, so that, thank God I, I didn't have a little, I, I think it's like, thank God I didn't have a little more experience. Because the,

• 47:57Speaker 01

  Blank slate of how little I knew. I think if I knew a little more, I had a few shifts under my belt, I would have been like, oh, hell no, I can't. Right. I don't know that I can do that. You didn't even know enough to know to be scared. To know to be scared. Oh, I knew to be scared. I was like.

• 48:13Joe Flamm?

  Can you, can you imagine like as a chef now, being the chef in that position though?

• 48:17Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

• 48:18Joe Flamm?

  You're just like, you were like, I physically can't get off the floor. And now I just have this new cook out there who's like, so I'm just gonna cook service. Okay. All right. I'll see you later. And you're like.

• 48:26Speaker 01

  But we'd be handing out, we'd be close, we'd be handing out gift cards, we'd be sending everybody down the.

• 48:32Joe Flamm?

  You're like, no.

• 48:33Speaker 01

  Absolutely not. Absolutely not. All reservations canceled. Come back next week.

• 48:38Joe Flamm?

  Oh, don't worry. I'll just go do it myself. You're like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, don't, don't, don't pour that milk.

• 48:42Speaker 01

  Absolutely not. Absolutely not. I don't know why anyone thought that that was a good idea.

• 48:48Joe Flamm?

  Oh, bringing up dishes together, the timing, like how long it takes you.

• 48:52Speaker 01

  The timing.

• 48:52Joe Flamm?

  Like, that's like, one of the things when people always ask, they're like, what's the difference between like a home cook and a restaurant cook?

• 48:57Speaker 01

  Timing.

• 48:58Joe Flamm?

  They understand timing. You don't.

• 48:59Speaker 01

  Timing.

• 49:00Joe Flamm?

  And it's like, they're, and they're so exponentially better at it than like a home cook could ever be because it's so hard to learn. And you need so many reps. And it's like, but it's, I mean, it's everything.

• 49:12Speaker 01

  It's everything. But don't you feel that makes you better at everything in life? Don't you think you're like inherently just better at doing things than everybody else because you are efficient and can multitask and do a lot of things at one time? I think that way all the time.

• 49:25Joe Flamm?

  Also, I'm like, we're going at a pace. Whatever we're doing, there's a pace.

• 49:28Speaker 01

  There's a pace. Come on.

• 49:29Joe Flamm?

  Sense of urgency. Look, I can't turn off the sense of urgency.

• 49:33Speaker 01

  Let's go. We're doing all of these things. I think, you know, my kid is three and a half. And I'm an older parent and like, what the hell is going on? I have no idea what I'm doing. I don't have a lot of experience with kids. I, I wasn't like a kid person, like, oh, I love kids. You know, I didn't know what I was doing, but I really felt like my, my only strength in going into parenthood was that I, I was a chef. And so I could like do a lot of stuff and I could like get a lot of stuff done. I was very efficient at doing things. I think that was my, my real only, only strength, you know, going into parenthood.

• 50:08Joe Flamm?

  Right. I'm just like breakfast, lunch.

• 50:10Speaker 01

  Come on, let's go, let's go.

• 50:11Joe Flamm?

  School starts at 8:05, not 8:06.

• 50:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 50:14Adrienne Cheatham?

  That's my prep list. I got this. Let's go.

• 50:17Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, prep list. Let's go. This is how we do it. Let's make a plan. I say to my kid all the time, I'm like, let's make a plan. And she's like, are we gonna make a plan? And I'm like, yeah, we're gonna make a plan. This is how we're gonna do it. This is what we're gonna do. Come on. Can I make, can I make a plan? And I'm like, yeah, what do you want to do? Play? Great. Well, I know how efficient that is. Not worth a plan, Rogue.

• 50:40Joe Flamm?

  This is a great plan.

• 50:42Adrienne Cheatham?

  Thank you so much, Chef. It has been such a blast hanging out with you today.

• 50:46Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, this was so fun. Thank you so much, Karen.

• 50:48Speaker 01

  Thank you so much for having me. Big fan.

• 50:53Adrienne Cheatham?

  Ah, that is it for this episode of The Chef's Cut. Be sure to subscribe wherever you're listening, especially if you're watching us on YouTube where you can find full-length videos of every episode. And be sure to follow us at The Chef's Cut Pod on IG. For Joe Flamm, I'm Adrian Cheatham, and this has been The Chef's Cut: Life Beyond the Past.