Chef Dan Barber on the Farm-to-Table Movement, Making Our Food Supply More Delicious, and Faking Rare Lamb in an Emergency

Adrienne and Joe are joined by one of the most celebrated chefs in the world, Dan Barber of the legendary Blue Hill at Stone Barns and Family Meal at Blue Hill. He tells us all about his innovative approach to cooking and sustainable agriculture, including how he runs his own kitchen at Blue Hill. Plus, we discuss: Farm to Table: Has the word lost its meaning? The origins of “farm to table” and why it spread all over the world Fork It or Forget It: Facial hair in the kitchen Which shoes do each of our chefs prefer to wear when cooking? The story behind Row 7, a seed company he founded to prioritize flavor in produce His famous honeynut squash, and how it came to be Dan reflects on his mentor, Chef David Boulet A Walk In Confession featuring overcooked lamb and some beet juice Follow Dan: @chefdanbarber 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.

• 0:01Adrienne Cheatham?

  Welcome back to the chef's cut. I am Adrian Cheatham.

• 0:05Joe Flamm?

  And I am Joe Flamm.

• 0:07Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, you are.

• 0:08Joe Flamm?

  Who do we got today?

• 0:10Adrienne Cheatham?

  Joe, I am so pumped. Today, we have Michelin starred chef Dan Barber, the chef and co-owner of Blue Hill at Stone Barns. He's also the chef-owner of Family Meal at Blue Hill here in Manhattan. He has won every single James Beard Award there is to win, from Outstanding Chef, Best Chef New York, the Leadership Award. He was also, in 2002, named by Food and Wine Magazine as Best New Chef. So, his whole career spans decades, and he's also incredibly influential with his company Row 7 that produces vegetables that are bred for flavor,

• 0:54Adrienne Cheatham?

  not for drought resistance, not for chemical resistance, but for chefs and the general public to have the most nutritious, most delicious products possible.

• 1:05Joe Flamm?

  I'm so excited for this one, and honestly, I was a little nervous going into this one. This is, you know, one of those legendary chefs, you know, Blue Hill. I think, you know, we all watched the chef's table on Netflix with it.

• 1:15Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 1:15Joe Flamm?

  You know what I mean? And I think it was one of those that, like, we were all enamored with, you know, where it was just like, every single thing they do up there, it's like a fairyland. But it's also like, you know, it's, it's an incredible, you know, it's a Michelin-starred restaurant and all these things. But like, with the farm there and all these things, it almost feels more sometimes like, like it's a think tank, right? Like it's a university, like it's some special training ground, where, you know, especially when you created a seed company and all these things, like, I was, you know, this was one that I was like nervous going into. Like, he's, he's a serious chef.

• 1:50Adrienne Cheatham?

  Very, very.

• 1:51Joe Flamm?

  Like, and I've never, I've never met Dan in person before. So, it's going, going into this one, I was, I was a little tightaged.

• 1:58Adrienne Cheatham?

  I mean, I'm not gonna lie. So, I did a residency, I was one of the chefs in residence at Blue Hill at Stone Barns, and it was a very intimidating kind of experience because you're working with every single program on the farm. So, they have massive. Farmland, they have an agricultural program. They have lead farmers. They have people who are out there in the fields, bringing you stuff in the morning. Like chef, do you want to use this tomato or this tomato? Do you want your okra this big or this big? I'm like, oh my God, like I've never been presented with the scope of this. Then they have their husbandry and animal program, fermentation labs. It's kind of like Noma before Noma. You know, it's like the stuff that they've been doing up there is intense. And I was like, oh my God,

• 2:43Adrienne Cheatham?

  I'm supposed to be teaching them my food? Like what?

• 2:46Joe Flamm?

  Right, right.

• 2:48Adrienne Cheatham?

  I mean, he made the environment so welcoming and it was just as much about me learning from them as them learning my philosophy on food. But it was the most eye opening experience because that is what I feel like every chef wants to get that experience.

• 3:05Joe Flamm?

  And the other thing that like, you know, before we started recording, he gets out and he says, sorry, I'm gonna have to keep this short because I dropped a knife through my foot.

• 3:13Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right.

• 3:14Joe Flamm?

  Cut free tendons. But you know, like, I'm good for, I'm good for an hour.

• 3:19Adrienne Cheatham?

  I know.

• 3:19Joe Flamm?

  It's just like the most like, really, shouldn't you like?

• 3:22Adrienne Cheatham?

  Reschedule?

• 3:23Joe Flamm?

  Right. He's like, no, I'm good. I just, I only got an hour, but I'm good.

• 3:27Adrienne Cheatham?

  And what does he say?

• 3:28Joe Flamm?

  I'm good. It's just a knife through the foot.

• 3:29Adrienne Cheatham?

  We say, are you okay? And Dan said, yeah, but I'm pissed.

• 3:33Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, but I'm pissed. Yeah, but I'm pissed. That was the greatest. That was the greatest.

• 3:37Adrienne Cheatham?

  That is the most chef response to hurting yourself.

• 3:39Joe Flamm?

  Right. Like, are you good? Cause like a knife went through your foot.

• 3:42Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right.

• 3:43Joe Flamm?

  And he's like, yeah, I'm pissed. But it's like, hell yeah.

• 3:45Adrienne Cheatham?

  So pumped to talk to him. So Joe, what are we also gonna get into conversation with Chef Dan about today?

• 3:52Joe Flamm?

  All right. So today, even though we just got into feet, we're talking more about feet. Hopefully this doesn't become a thing, or maybe it does for the podcast. Who knows? We got a fork and a forget it. Two of them, actually. Double fork and a forget it today. I think that'll be right up his alley. Little review, review. See what's going on up there. See how he feels about unruly guests in upstate New York. I think we gotta do a little line check talking about Row Seven Seats. Super cool company. Super interesting. Something that I am, you know, and I know we both are super obsessed with. So gotta ask some questions about that. A little mentor moment from, you know, somebody who's had a legendary career and a walk in confession that shows that beats are no new thing for Chef Dan.

• 4:35Adrienne Cheatham?

  All right, Joe, let's do this.

• 4:42Adrienne Cheatham?

  Chef Dan Barber, the man, the myth, the enigma, the legend is here with us today. Chef, it is so good to see you.

• 4:50Speaker 02

  What part of me is the enigma?

• 4:54Speaker 02

  I'm naked in front of you. I have nothing to hide. What's the enigma?

• 4:58Adrienne Cheatham?

  The question is always, what's coming next? For me, that is always the question is what are you working on next? I'm always so curious because you are just like a wellspring of knowledge that it's always so great to talk with you and I'm always wondering what you're working on.

• 5:12Speaker 02

  Thank you. That's very sweet. Then I accept that as that's something.

• 5:15Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, I feel like that's fair. That's fair. And I'm glad you explained it, Adrian, because I wasn't sure what you were talking about either. And I was happy that Chef Dan asked that question, so I didn't have to. Chef, one, just an honor to have you on, but to get into it first, we like to ask kind of just a question to get it going, some thoughts from chefs and kitchens. And so one of the questions I wanted to ask you, because you've been, you've been, you've been cooking for a while, I think it's fair to say. And I think one of the things that we weirdly talk about all the time, and I feel like cooks ask me all the time, is what are you wearing for kitchen shoes these days, chef? What's on your feet?

• 5:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know, I go with like, just sort of cheap, uh, black shoes. I got nothing interesting for you.

• 5:56Joe Flamm?

  Laces or no laces?

• 5:58Speaker 02

  I'm doing laces. I used to wear the, I used to wear the clogs. They don't work for my feet. I'm just like, kind of like a workaday black shoe and I'm done.

• 6:07Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, because you're a runner.

• 6:09Speaker 02

  I roll through them, I gotta say. I go through many, many pairs in the course of the year.

• 6:14Adrienne Cheatham?

  And I mean, your restaurant is massive. All the, the square footage of Blue Hill at Stone Barns and Family Meal in the city, you're, you're covering a lot of steps each day.

• 6:23Speaker 02

  I am, I am. I get my aerobic workout during the night.

• 6:27Adrienne Cheatham?

  Are you currently upstate at Blue Hill at Stone Barns or are you in the city?

• 6:30Speaker 02

  Right now I am. Right now I am. I'm up here, uh, I'm up, I'm up here most days. Uh, and I got the kitchen crew hard at work behind me here.

• 6:41Speaker 02

  And I'm already watching them screw shit up. So that's great. That's why I have windows, I have windows on my office. So I can look out and see what all these millennial tattooed millennials.

• 6:54Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, that makes me so happy.

• 6:54Speaker 02

  Actually, not even millennials, Gen Z. What am I talking about?

• 6:57Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 6:57Joe Flamm?

  I was gonna say, you can see another tattooed millennial right here. Check out what I'm doing, Chef, so.

• 7:02Adrienne Cheatham?

  I know exactly where that office is. I, um, when I did the residency program that you had back in twenty twenty-one or twenty-two, I was up there. That was.

• 7:11Speaker 02

  Twenty-one, yeah.

• 7:12Adrienne Cheatham?

  I would be like, is, is Chef Dan like watching everybody from the office? Yes, he is. Yes, he is. Joe, what is your kitchen shoe?

• 7:20Joe Flamm?

  I am like, you know, I, I'm like you, Chef, where I'm like constantly on the search for that thing that's gonna like make my feet somehow feel better, like that we're not on them for twelve, thirteen hours a day of that, you know what I mean? Like, there's gonna be some magic ones. So it's like, I have three different pairs. Like, I keep a different pair at each restaurant. And then it's like, I change my shoes probably twice a day. Um, like, I'll wear one shoe.

• 7:42Speaker 02

  Do you really?

• 7:42Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, like, I'll wear, I'll wear a pair of shoes like for prep, and then I'll switch my shoes for service. Cause I like some better for like when I'm walking around. And then if I'm just standing at the pass expoing.

• 7:53Speaker 02

  That's so cool. That's so cool.

• 7:55Joe Flamm?

  I'll, I'll change it out. And I'm a bigger guy, too. So it's like, uh, but yeah, I'll rip through them. So it's like, I'm constantly, but I, I don't do laces. I always feel like I'm too like messy. I always like drop something. So it's like.

• 8:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:05Joe Flamm?

  I'm like, that, that it's like the laces are dirty, then you throw the whole shoe away. It's just, you know, everything's, everything's ruined.

• 8:11Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 8:12Joe Flamm?

  What about you, age?

• 8:13Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, I was.

• 8:14Joe Flamm?

  Do you see slides, you say?

• 8:15Adrienne Cheatham?

  No, I was, I was a Dansko girl for about twelve years. Um, because I like the extra height. It would give me an extra inch and a half, two inches. So that's the difference between reaching a saute pan or a pot. That's over the range. So I needed the height from the Danskos. But it did give me a really bad like bunyan and a bone spur on the top of my foot from where the, it's so hard, it rubs there. So I've switched recently. I'm trying some different non-slip sneakers now, and I rotate through Birkenstocks and I try different things, but I haven't found one that's just like the, the Goldilocks of kitchen shoes.

• 8:53Joe Flamm?

  Haven't found the magic one. I had a buddy who used to wear, uh, like ref shoes, like black, like NBA ref shoes.

• 9:00Speaker 02

  That's cool.

• 9:00Joe Flamm?

  He used to buy, they were a tie, cause they were non-slip. And he was like, swore by, up and down.

• 9:05Adrienne Cheatham?

  Nice.

• 9:05Joe Flamm?

  It was just like a weird one that he was like, dude, they're the best.

• 9:08Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, we should have Chef Dan ask the Gen Z in his kitchen what they're wearing and get some advice.

• 9:13Joe Flamm?

  Oh, probably.

• 9:14Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 9:16Adrienne Cheatham?

  Well, speaking of your, your Gen Z and, and your kitchen brigade and all your years in restaurants, we're going to get into a segment chef that we call fork it or forget it. Fork it means you're in favor of whatever this thing is. Forget it means you're kicking it to the curb and.

• 9:33Speaker 02

  Do you have to justify why, why you chose which?

• 9:36Joe Flamm?

  You can, but I don't think at this point in your career, you have to fucking justify anything, chef.

• 9:40Speaker 02

  Thanks, pal. I appreciate that.

• 9:41Adrienne Cheatham?

  So I think actually we'll tee it up. Maybe we'll do two fork it or forget it's because you might cycle through these kind of quickly.

• 9:47Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 9:48Adrienne Cheatham?

  First one, how do you feel fork it or forget it? Facial hair in kitchens. Cooks with facial hair.

• 9:56Speaker 02

  Oh, and you can't go in between. You can't be like, I'm not, I'm not, I'm neither for it nor rejecting of it.

• 10:02Adrienne Cheatham?

  Exactly.

• 10:04Speaker 02

  I mean, it is both. I'm against it, but the culture is so for it that I, I'm, I'm meaninglessly against it. So I've dropped my, my average, you know.

• 10:14Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, there used to be a time where, where chefs could make people shave.

• 10:18Speaker 02

  Oh shit. Yeah. You could not go into a kitchen with facial hair. I'd be definitely, that wasn't that long ago. Uh, so that thing, that thing, you know, happened, uh, came out of nowhere like Greek yogurt, you know, where that fuck that come from?

• 10:32Joe Flamm?

  Even, even the Yankees changed their stance on facial hair. You know what I mean?

• 10:35Speaker 02

  That's right. That's right. Because they couldn't, there was no way you could stand, you know, in the way. So sometimes that happens.

• 10:41Joe Flamm?

  Yeah. I remember when like Grace opened in Chicago and like everybody talking about that. It's like one of Curtis's things was like, you had to be clean shaven and you had to cut your hair. And that was like guys like talking about going to Stages and they're like, oh man, I'm going to have to shave. I'm going to have to get a haircut. Like, you know, and it was like such a big deal to like show up as like, you'd be with like a clean shaven face. It's just like, I don't know if I could live like that.

• 11:04Adrienne Cheatham?

  I mean, Joe, we used to call you baby face, Joe. Now you've got a five o'clock, eight o'clock shadow, but uh.

• 11:09Joe Flamm?

  This is like, this is like, this is like a four day shadow. I'm, I'm, I'll, I'll myself on that. I've never had that issue where I've been able to grow enough facial hair that it's been an issue for any chef I've worked for. And I also spent my life going to Catholic school where it's like if you had any even thought of facial hair, you had to shave it.

• 11:26Adrienne Cheatham?

  That's a sin.

• 11:27Joe Flamm?

  You know what I mean? While you said the rosary.

• 11:29Adrienne Cheatham?

  I remember a guy showing up at La Bernardine and getting sent out of the kitchen to go shave. Literally, the chef was like, nope, here's a razor, go down to the locker room and shave. You're not working today in this kitchen with that on your face. It was crazy.

• 11:43Joe Flamm?

  Yeah. That's, yeah, that's, I mean, I think that's such a begone thing. Like, for me, it's like, I'm just happy to have cooks. You know what I mean? They got facial hair, they have a face. I'm excited they have a face connected to their body.

• 11:57Speaker 02

  They have a heartbeat and I'm fine, exactly.

• 11:59Joe Flamm?

  Right. I'm like, it's great. No, I love, I love that handlebar scruff mix you got going on. I think that's a beautiful, it's a beautiful look for you.

• 12:11Adrienne Cheatham?

  Okay, one more fork or forget it. How do you feel about the term generally thrown around quite frequently at restaurants being described as farm to table?

• 12:22Speaker 02

  Farm to table. I knew you were gonna say that.

• 12:24Adrienne Cheatham?

  Of course.

• 12:25Speaker 02

  I should've said that before. Okay, so that one is definitely throw it. I mean, I can't, is it throw it? What's the thing?

• 12:32Adrienne Cheatham?

  Forget it.

• 12:33Speaker 02

  Forget it. Throw it, forget it.

• 12:35Adrienne Cheatham?

  Same thing.

• 12:36Speaker 02

  No, that thing has been so dumbed down, you know, it's like, it's like people saying regenerative agriculture, you know, it's like, what the, what do you mean? What are you talking about? You know? And, and there's no, there's no agreement on a definition of what farm to table is. So it means everything. And then it just, it sucks for the people who are, who are doing it right. And there are a lot of chefs who are doing it right, you know, you know this. So, yeah, I'm, I'm bummed, but yet again, you know, it's a little bit of a, a little bit of a mixed bag because farm to table also encapsulated a social movement.

• 13:11Joe Flamm?

  Yeah.

• 13:12Speaker 02

  Which, an exciting social movement that was started by chefs. So, it was really started by chefs, Nouvelle cuisine chefs in the 70s in France who rejected the Michelin prescription.

• 13:26Speaker 02

  For a restaurant, which was like accepted classics and, you know, it was how good, you know, you went out to dinner in the fifties and sixties and like you already knew what you were gonna order, you know, uh, before you got to the restaurant. It's just like it was every, the same dishes were everywhere. It was how good were you at preparing it and how much of a twist were you putting on it and like, you know, those chefs broke the, really out of, out of shackles. And we're like, no, we wanna honor the morning market. They were the first farm to table people. They were the real ones.

• 13:56Adrienne Cheatham?

  Wow.

• 13:57Speaker 02

  Uh, they, they, they, you know, did something very bold. I mean, to us, we understand how bold it is because Michelin was everything back then as it is today. I mean, today it's important, but back then, it was everything. These, these guys, they're all guys. They were out nowhere and if you hadn't, if you didn't get your third Michelin star, nobody was driving there. So you're cooked. There was no internet. You know, so it was, it was intense and for like Paul Bocuse, who, you know, has, you know, a complicated reputation. Uh, you know, he, he, he busted himself into a whole new galaxy by saying, we're not gonna be shackled. By the way, we're also not gonna be stuck in the basement, uh, getting drunk.

• 14:40Speaker 02

  You know, we're gonna have our name on the goddamn restaurant. It's not gonna be an unsigned menu. The maitre d' is not gonna have the name of this place. It's gonna be the chef. And that was a revolution. So the origins of farm to table are right. Uh, and, and that, that ethos became contagious around the world and, and in the US, uh, that really got us out of what I think, you know, the seventies and commodification and industrialization. And there was an awakening on the coattails of like Earth Day and the whole, the counterculture movement. You know, those all things worked in tandem, but, but it was chefs who led the food part, really was. And unfortunately today, as in with most movements, they tend to get adopted and dumbed down.

• 15:23Speaker 02

  And here we are at adoption and dumbing down. So we gotta, we gotta protect those things because they do have meaning. Uh, and they can move mountains, you know, and change landscapes, literally. Uh, not to mention that, that, that, you know, having a direct connection with a farmer that produced your food always makes food taste better and makes chefs look like better chefs. So I, I, there's nothing bad about it. It's just the... Unfortunate dumbing down of what is actually a pretty pure term with a lot of history.

• 15:51Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, I completely agree. It's one of those things now, I feel like where people are like, oh, you don't say like your restaurants are farm to table, but you know, you support these farms. You do all these things for the farmer's market, whatever, and all this. I was like, because it's like redundant. It just seems like it seems almost disingenuous now.

• 16:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:08Joe Flamm?

  You know what I mean? Where it's like, like, yeah, of course we're supporting like, because in my mind, I feel like because of, you know, those chefs who were doing it in the seventies and, you know, chefs like you who have done so much work on every front. It's like, that's like the bare minimum. If you want to play now is that you're supporting local farms. You're using great local produce. You're using, you know, local purveyors for eggs and meat, whatever you can't like, that it's not a niche thing anymore. It's just like what you should be doing. This is how we all should be cooking. So it's like, to say like, oh yeah, like we're a farm to table Croatian Italian restaurant feels like absolutely fucking insane.

• 16:44Speaker 02

  That's hilarious. But you know, you make a really good point. You make a really good point. And that's the flip side of the coin. I'm the cine. I'm always looking for the hole in the donuts. My wife likes to say about me, but the truth is, you're right. It's the movement farm to table has gotten so popular that in some ways it's infused itself into everything. Especially on the chef level. And I, I think to credit chefs and restaurants, even the ones who aren't doing it to the extent that one would hope or expect, whatever. Chefs in general just are supporting the right things, you know, we're cooking from scratch. We're making good food. I don't know a chef, even middling ones that aren't at least halfway interested on where their food is coming from and how it's prepared, how long it sits in the wok and all that stuff.

• 17:27Speaker 02

  And to that extent, you know, we really are the revolutionaries. I mean, look where our country is right now. Look at the state of both how agriculture is, how food is produced. The processed food represents sixty five percent of American diets now, seventy, almost seventy percent. You know, so there's a lot to say for scratch cooking, fresh cooking and chefs who care about flavor and probably nutrition. But Adrian, I'm interested to hear what you think here.

• 17:52Adrienne Cheatham?

  Well, I mean, it's like the pendulum swings so far in both directions. Everybody's so concerned about getting things that don't grow during this time of year, don't grow in this hemisphere. So it is, like you said, the commodification of things where the global food supply is so accessible that I think chefs are the ones reminding people that it's more exciting to cook with local produce from your area when it's in season. So it's almost like going against the grain. It's like being counterculture to what the popular trends are. I want to be able to buy avocados year round. Well, guess what? I mean, like, that should be like a luxury

• 18:31Adrienne Cheatham?

  thing, not something that you just have completely, you know, unfettered access to 24/7/365. Let's look at what is indigenous to this area and what is the time of year that it's at its peak. It's not, it's like how you talked about nouvelle cuisine, which is interesting because I always think about the farm to table movement, kind of beginning with the chefs in California. I didn't really realize how that had its roots in France.

• 19:00Speaker 02

  Well, but, but remember, but hold on, just remember that you're right, you're not wrong. But like Alice Waters, where was her inspiration? It was France.

• 19:09Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 19:10Speaker 02

  You know, so, so it was, you know, atomized here in California and reinterpreted with California, obviously. But I don't think you're wrong. I think you're right. It's just the, it predates that.

• 19:21Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right. And if you think about that counterculture movement during the 60s and 70s and back to the 50s, it was cool to be able to tin food and preserve it and ship fish to the middle of the United States where there was a landlocked area. So it was almost like going against the grain to focus on what's coming from the farms as opposed to what's being preserved to ship across country. So it's like another iteration of this kind of counterculture about what the popular food trends are.

• 19:51Speaker 02

  I think that's a really good point. I haven't thought of it that way.

• 19:54Joe Flamm?

  You know, it's almost like, and it's funny, like, they did all this work to be like, oh, let's make food as like efficient and as like plug and play as possible.

• 20:02Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 20:02Joe Flamm?

  And I feel like sometimes, like as chefs, we're sitting here screaming of like, no, no, no, like. But we don't want to. They're like, can't you just do this? It's like, I could, but like, do you get the idea of just like making something from like eggs and flour? And how awesome that is when you get awesome flour and awesome eggs and you figure out like the exact egg you want to use. And when you find that egg and you're like, this is the egg. Like, and how great that is. And, and you know what I mean? It's not, you know, like, you know, chef up there. I remember like watching your, your chef's table and you're like, this is, you know, the, this is the butter from that cow and this is the butter from that cow. And I know every single person who watched that, every chef I know was like, this is the coolest fucking thing any of us have ever seen.

• 20:44Adrienne Cheatham?

  And this is the time of year.

• 20:46Joe Flamm?

  Right. Like normal people were like, oh, this is insane. Why is this guy making, you know, single origin butter of cows? And you know, for like chefs, we were like, this is, this is it.

• 20:55Adrienne Cheatham?

  This is the pinnacle.

• 20:56Joe Flamm?

  This is the truth. This is, you know, this guy is flying as close to the sun as we have seen.

• 21:02Adrienne Cheatham?

  So chef, we're going to get into our next segment and I think Joe's going to take this one away. This is one that we call review, review. So this is a segment where we read some of these reviews that typically have nothing to do with the food. They have nothing to do with things that are within the human bounds of control to create this guest experience and we get to address them, AKA clapback on behalf of our industry.

• 21:29Speaker 02

  I love it. What a great idea. In other words, these are, are comments that are completely out of the control of the chef of the restaurant, and yet they're included in the review usually as a damnation against the restaurant. Okay, good. I can't wait for this. What do you got?

• 21:43Joe Flamm?

  So we wanted to open it up to you, either if you had one that you've always wanted to respond to, or I could open up one from, from your book and let you respond to what you think about it.

• 21:53Speaker 02

  Well, you tell me. I mean, I, I just, I got one this morning and I look, I, I look over comments or we, we do a nightly report the captains put together and I report every table and give a little breakdown and summary of, you know, what they feel what right and what they felt were wrong. I make them do it before they go home just so we could, I can read it, you know, either late at night or in the morning and just have that as part of the meetings today. And it was just like funny that like, there was this table of six, they spent a lot of money on wine. Yeah, they're actually a pretty good table, you know, like, pretty experienced diners, sort of, or they thought they were, but they weren't, they weren't annoying. It's just like, like, we got to sort of, you know, we do before, we have no menus here, so we sort of put together, the, the ticket comes in empty.

• 22:38Speaker 02

  Here's the, here's our ticket for the, for the table, you know, it comes in like this. I have it upside down, yeah, no, comes in like this, and then, you know, usually at the bottom, the captain's saying, you know, the, obviously the table number, but also gives a quick note, and then says like, you know, first time, or, or anniversary, or business dinner, or celebration, you know, and then they come in the kitchen, we have this conversation, like, what do they like, what are they here for, and then we, you know, divide up, like, the animal, literally, of like, you know, i- i- i- you know, last night, they're, the table four's celebrating a, a business deal, you know, some dudes from Wall Street, you know, they start with, with champagne, they order like this terrible cab, you know, California cabinet, whatever, it's, it's fine, you know, okay, great, you

• 23:21Speaker 02

  know, they got the lamb chops, you know, we had a, a lamb in from the farm, they got the lamb chops, they had this other Brazilian table, so psyched to be here, waited a year to come here, couldn't, you know, they get, you know, this huge menu, but they got the lamb, a piece of the lamb neck, they got some, uh, uh, goat brain, we had some goats also, so they got the brains, that, that's how we divide the animal, we do the same thing with the vegetables, depending, so, the, the Wall Street guys got the kind of down-the-pike menu, and the Brazilians, and everyone else, yeah, so that's how we fit, anyway, so I was six stop, you know, I was like, we, we did a huge menu, encouraging them to buy more wine, of course, and, you know, the first part of the, uh, menu was always like, little, little bites, like snacks, uh, we did like, maybe seventeen snacks,

• 24:04Speaker 02

  uh, and then we go into like, and they're all finger food, you know, and then we go into rapid-fire courses, which can be like, six or seven, like, quick things, so like, after the rapid-fire courses, you know, the guy, the head dude, whatever, you know, calls over the captain, according to the notes, and says, you know, we really love this, but like, uh, we'd like to be served some meat now.

• 24:24Speaker 02

  And so that time was this was looking over their menu, everything they had and out of the 28 tastes, so either hand, you know, finger food snacks or actual portions of pork and I had a 28, 14 of them had protein, mostly, mostly were meat. But they weren't like hulking steak, you know, it was like, it was like they had, you know, a condiment of meat with a, with beautiful pepper that we just got from the farm yesterday. We were doing like, we're all stuff where meat was like bolstering grains or, or vegetables or tubers and it's so frustrating, you know, and so they ended up not having a great meal because they felt like there wasn't enough protein and, and but that was totally in my

• 25:07Speaker 02

  control side. This isn't probably the worst example you've ever had on the show. No, no, that's a great example. Because it's not, no, man, you're just being nice to me because I'm the guest. But yeah, go ahead.

• 25:17Joe Flamm?

  This is what I think is interesting about that. And I, I've had this conversation with, with another chef where it's like, it's, I feel like sometimes that people want to go to a place to say they're at the place, right? But they're not willing and you know, Adrian and I had talked about this before to like fully engage in that, that social contract of like, I'm here, I'm in your house, I'm going to do what you're doing and I'm going to let myself open to the experience, right? They're saying like, I want to be here because I heard this place is super nice, but I also like, don't really want to like get outside of my comfort zone. Like, I want, you know what I mean? A 32 ounce ribeye with a Napa cab. And it's like, why did you come here?

• 25:55Adrienne Cheatham?

  You could have gone to a steakhouse for that. Yeah.

• 25:57Joe Flamm?

  Right. It's like walking into a Porsche dealership and being like, I want the biggest truck you have lifted on 38 inch tires. And they're like, we don't have any of that. That's not what we sell here. And so it's like, it's just like, to me is wild, the thought of there's like, oh, we just, you know, just, just send us out some steaks out. It's like, well, what do we do it? It's like going to the orchestra and be like, when are you going to play thunderstruck? Like, well, that's not what we're doing this evening. They're like, yeah, no, we want to hear thunderstruck. That's how fucking rules.

• 26:27Adrienne Cheatham?

  And we've talked about that. It's like a social contract that when you, when you go to a restaurant, and I think it was Ayesha Nerjaya who said it. She said, when you go to a restaurant in a mindset of like, you're submitting to what the experience they provide is. And there's a social contract that you're providing this experience that you're not going to get at another restaurant. So the expectation or the hope is that the guests come in willing to experience what you have to offer and the, the entire beginning to end that your restaurant provides from food to beverage to ambiance, to being on the farm, being in this transformative, transporative, kind of like

• 27:09Adrienne Cheatham?

  all encompassing space, as opposed to saying, I just want what I want in this setting. That's not, that's not the hope for guests. The hope is that when you go to a place as special as like Blue Hill at Stone Barns, you are asking to experience what that is, not order a steak.

• 27:29Joe Flamm?

  Right. And I think that's like the tough part of it, right? I think it's like the balance of chefs where it's like, we have to be like, you know, not so crazy. We're like, you have to do everything exactly how I say, but it's like, play ball with me a little bit. Take a little risk. You know what I mean? Do it the way I want you to do it. Like, there's a rhyme and a reason for everything we do. We think about every little detail like absolute maniacs. Like, just give us, give us a little bit of trust. Like, you know what I mean? That's all, that's all we're asking. You know what I mean? Just give us a little, little trust. Walk out on the sledge with me. I won't push you off.

• 28:01Adrienne Cheatham?

  I mean, I saw some of the coolest stuff when I was up there, like the, the carrots that you dip in beef tallow and dry age those. And so they get this kind of like meaty texture and dense consistency. And they also pick up that kind of like dry aged meat, kind of aromas and that funk. And it's like, enjoy that. Like, just get your mind right and say, this is a beautiful experience that I'm not going to get somewhere else. I'm going to be happy and enjoy this. So, yeah, that's, that's actually a great example, Chef.

• 28:31Speaker 02

  All right. Thank you, guys, for making me feel. I appreciate that.

• 28:38Adrienne Cheatham?

  So Chef Dan, you have so much going on in both of your restaurants, but one of the things that I think a lot of the chefs and even, you know, people who are not working in the food industry are familiar with Row 7 and the produce and these interesting things that you're doing there. So we'd love to talk a little bit about Row 7, how that got started and some of the things like the sweet garlic, the badger flame beets, you know, all the, the cool things that you're, you're doing with Row 7.

• 29:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, so Row 7 was started right here in this kitchen, like, you know, I like to say it was started about 10 years before we actually started the company because I had this conversation with a squash breeder named Michael Bezurik. He was up and coming squash breeder. I didn't know any, I didn't know anything about seeds genetics. All I knew was like heirlooms is what I was like the evangelist for, old stuff, you know, heritage, everything, because that's where the flavor is. This is what most chefs feel, it's true. But then I, I, he came into the kitchen after his meal and I didn't know what to say to a squash breeder. So I'd say the first thing that came to my mind, I was like, why don't you breed a butternut squash that actually tastes good?

• 29:54Speaker 02

  Why, why are we told in every recipe to add maple syrup and brown sugar and butter to make the thing taste good, you know? And he got very serious and he said, I've never bred a butternut squash that tastes good because no one's ever asked me to select for flavor. And that was the, that was the, it was sort of like the lights went out and the curtain went down. It was like a before and after moment because I, up until that time, I was just like, I was like, I didn't, I never considered like a modern breeder. I thought modern breeders were like GMOs and then like, you know, CRISPR and all this technology I wanted to be a part of and I wanted to honor the past.

• 30:35Speaker 02

  But then this journey of like creating a butternut squash that actually tastes good with him, like I, I was like a, it was like graduate school. You know, what you learn is like these guys and women breeders, but scientists today, just they don't talk to you and I, you know, they talk to the industry. And what does the industry want? They want, nobody would say I'm anti-flavor, but everyone would say I'm really pro-yield. I'm very pro-shelf life. I'm very, very pro size, shape, color. Like, it has to be exact, you know? It has to fit in a skew, which is how the whole food system works, all calculated by skews and distribution and, you know, storage and all of that, centers for distribution.

• 31:18Speaker 02

  And then, you know, in the marketplace, everything needs to look the same and perfect. So that takes breed it, that's very hard to do. And that's about selection. So you have to prioritize selection. So what if, this became the company, Rose Heaven, what if chefs were at the table of the conversation, you know, and had a voice, had a stake, because we do have a stake. And then I'm learning, I'm like, well, okay, not only can you select for old genetics, like old flavors that are in old genetics, but you can marry those with modern varieties and create a very productive, delicious, modern variety of whatever you want.

• 32:00Speaker 02

  And squash was the thing we worked on. I was like, super excited to be involved with it. And trial number 898, I love that, we all love the most. You know, bringing it to the industry, everyone says that'll never work because the squash was about 40% smaller. So it looked like a butternut squash. I don't have it in front, but it looked like butternut squash.

• 32:21Adrienne Cheatham?

  Is that the honey nut?

• 32:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's it, became the honey nut. What you just said, trial number 898 was the honey nut.

• 32:27Adrienne Cheatham?

  Wow.

• 32:27Speaker 02

  And we just sent it out to a bunch of chefs and advocated for it. And the thing like sparring, it's like kindling. And also, I'm gonna fast forward just for the interest of time here. It's 15 years later, this honey nut is in Costco, it's in Walmart, it's in Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, it's in every major farmer's market from here to LA. It's grown on thousands of acres. And it's upending the squash market, which is 85% of squash that we eat. And so that just, that whole thing. Got me to realize, like, without any advocacy, I mean, yes, I did some social media and chef friends did a lot of social media. Because this delicious, this is the kind of squash you put in the oven, you've had it, it sounds like you've had it.

• 33:08Joe Flamm?

  Yeah.

• 33:09Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, the flavor is amazing.

• 33:10Joe Flamm?

  Yeah.

• 33:10Adrienne Cheatham?

  A sprinkle of salt.

• 33:11Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, they have them.

• 33:12Speaker 02

  That's it, that's it. It's salt, it's like nothing else.

• 33:15Joe Flamm?

  You get them at our farmer's market, you know what I mean?

• 33:17Speaker 02

  Right.

• 33:17Joe Flamm?

  They grow them out in Marengo, Illinois now.

• 33:19Speaker 02

  Right. That was just selecting for flavor and it's 40% smaller, so it's got 40% less water at least. I mean, butternut squash is like 80% water and that's a superfood. So I don't know what the hell honey nut is, but I, so, so I was like, what, you know, I started meeting all these breeders and they all had, everyone was like, oh, I have this variety in my desk drawer that everyone has said won't work. I've got, how many conversations I've had like that, it's incredible. And, and that's why we started the company, because we had this like, this hopper of like honey nut squashes. The Badger Flame beet, I don't know if you've ever heard of that. That was from a, yeah, from a, a breeder in Wisconsin, uh, who I was here, I was right here in the kitchen. Another, like, not that long after that, that conversation with the squash breeder.

• 34:04Speaker 02

  He's like, called me up, he said, I hear you're interested about, uh, you know, new variety. He's like so excited to talk to someone who's interested in flavor. And he's like, you know, I'd love to show you some of my beets. So I was literally on the phone with him, okay? And a, and a captain comes in the kitchen, okay? So, so remember, no, no, no menus. Back then, we were doing tips, so the waiters were making their money on the tips. And, and at the bottom, you put the allergies, you know, and the ticket comes in. It was like, the, uh, we had like 25 tickets that night, I would say. No shit, 20 of them was like allergic to beets. Because it was the middle of winter, we serve a ton of beets here. I mean, that's, people have multiple courses of beets, you know? And, and they, their tips were suffering because people were pissed that they were coming and getting beets.

• 34:49Speaker 02

  So, so I was so, I was so annoyed and it was happening while I was talking to a beet breeder. And he was like, I think I got a beet for you. So he sends me this beet, that's this yellow beet. And, uh, turns out he created it because his kids were embarrassed that he was a beet breeder. Because their friends made fun of them because they're, you know, the dad created the worst vegetable in the world.

• 35:11Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh.

• 35:11Speaker 02

  So he like took it, he's an orthodox Jew, he's like, family is this whole thing. So he's like, he set out, he's also incredibly brilliant scientist. So he set out to figure out, why do kids hate beets actually? And there's a reason. It's called jasmin, it's this cluster of compounds that is very earthy and kids are very sensitive.

• 35:28Adrienne Cheatham?

  They say it tastes like dirt.

• 35:29Speaker 02

  Dirt, yeah, jasmin. And so he selected against jasmin and created a, a, a, almost nonexistent jasmin. Actually, it has some jasmin, otherwise it would taste like a potato, but it, but it has some jasmin. But it's stunning. It is a stunner. It's so beautiful. It's shaped like a sweet potato, actually. Uh, which is why the industry rejected it. It said, it's not a beet. We don't, we don't have a spoon for this. So that was it. It was done. It was in his desk drawer, literally. So I was, so we started the company with it and now it's grown. You know, not, I'm not being arrogant or haughty. It's not me. I had nothing to do with it. I just like any idiot would taste this thing and be like, it's the most unbelievable beet you've ever tasted. You can eat it raw, literally raw. We shave it raw for a salad because it's so low jasmin. You just like, you enjoy it. You can eat like a carrot.

• 36:14Speaker 02

  It's crazy.

• 36:15Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, I think that your sous chef Kylie and Nick, they were, they were like, always like chef, you gotta try this beet. And they would like shave it off. They're like, you want a beet snack? You want a beet snack?

• 36:23Speaker 02

  And they were.

• 36:24Adrienne Cheatham?

  I love this beet, so keep it coming.

• 36:25Speaker 02

  They get, they get 5% of all sales, so that's.

• 36:28Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. You got a commission structure going with your chefs over there. They're like, how many beets can I get you into today, Adrian?

• 36:35Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right.

• 36:37Joe Flamm?

  But I have like the midnight romas like at my house right now. Because I used to, one of my good buddies who I lived across the street from, he, uh, he grew up in Indiana and he's a great, like, I mean, and we're in backyards on the south side of Chicago. This guy plants an unbelievable garden. It's gorgeous. And he did it the first year and I was so impressed and I tried to plant a garden and everything died and I suck at it. So I bought some of the row seven midnight Roma seeds and I was really excited about them. And I was afraid to grow them because I didn't think I could do it. So I gave them to him and now he's been growing them for like four or five years now.

• 37:10Adrienne Cheatham?

  Wow.

• 37:11Joe Flamm?

  Cause he like saves the seeds and does everything.

• 37:13Speaker 02

  Nice.

• 37:13Adrienne Cheatham?

  That's a deep dark tomato, right?

• 37:15Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, and so it's black on the top and they're unbelievably delicious. They make a great tomato sauce. We make salads with them. But like every time he comes over, he always, he always brings me some, you know, whenever we do dinner or whatever and I make sauces and then I'll send them back.

• 37:28Speaker 02

  It's the best tomato in the world. Hey, Aria, can you get the midnight Roma jelly that we made from Kylie just last night? Just, I want you to see this thing we just did last night.

• 37:38Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, that's so cool.

• 37:39Speaker 02

  But yeah, that's a Roma tomato, you know, that, that, that, when was the last time you had actually a pasted Roma tomato that tasted really good?

• 37:47Joe Flamm?

  Right.

• 37:48Speaker 02

  I mean, they don't exist. The old, the old ones do, you know, old, obviously heirlooms do, but yeah.

• 37:52Joe Flamm?

  But yeah, but we're growing those on 92nd Street.

• 37:55Speaker 02

  No shit, no shit. That's awesome.

• 37:57Adrienne Cheatham?

  How many seeds are in the row seven catalog now?

• 38:00Speaker 02

  Well, right now there's probably 20. I mean, we're a tiny company. We're very, we select each one. They have rich stories, you know, thank you, thank you. My chef, Nick, who you mentioned, he like, you know, because we were doing like a smoked sort of tomato condiment with the midnight Roma's. But we took off the skin because the skin is, it's very, you know, it's thick and so it doesn't, didn't work in it. But the skin, as you just said, it's black and it's white. It's so awesome. So he took it and I don't know if you can see this, but he just pureed it. So that's skin and water.

• 38:36Joe Flamm?

  Oh.

• 38:36Adrienne Cheatham?

  Wow.

• 38:37Speaker 02

  I mean, it's, it's totally gelified and that's all the pectin in it.

• 38:40Adrienne Cheatham?

  I was gonna say, is the pectin that high in the skin?

• 38:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's crazy. And the flavor is so, I mean, it's, it's very, it's like, you know, it's tannic, but it's like a whole different dimension of tomato. It's tomato tannic, not grape tannic. It's so interesting. So I made a jelly out of that and I, I made a tartare of the midnight Roma and mixed it. It mixed the jelly of the skins and it was so good.

• 39:03Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, man.

• 39:04Speaker 02

  I was so happy last night doing that. I was like.

• 39:06Adrienne Cheatham?

  And that color is so gorgeous and that's why I agree chefs should be more involved in this process because we're not selecting for drought resistance. We're not selecting for insect resistance. We're selecting for what tastes good.

• 39:20Adrienne Cheatham?

  And everything else comes after that. Like, you know, I don't care if the color of the flesh of the squash is the deepest orange color, is the flavor at the peak that it could be. You're not selecting beets for higher sugar content, you're selecting for intense flavor.

• 39:36Speaker 02

  Totally, and chefs need to be at the table because we curate this stuff every night.

• 39:40Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 39:41Speaker 02

  That's the idea. And the, it's a whole, if there's a grander thing, if there's, if there's like a, you know, overriding idea here, it's what you just said. It's like chefs need to be in the conversation because without chefs, we end up in a place where we are now, which is 65% of our seed supply is in the hands of four companies.

• 40:00Adrienne Cheatham?

  Chemical companies, right?

• 40:01Speaker 02

  And they're all chemical companies. They're all chemical. So it's like, you don't make money on the seed, you make money on the chemical intervention. So my question to you is, what is the incentive for a chemical company to have a strong plant that doesn't need chemicals? Right. I mean, it's just, it's such a rigged game, like, makes me sick. So I started this thing really because I wanted to advocate for some, what I call the refugia breeders, the people who kept these seeds around because they were excited about it and even though no one wanted them. So I wanted to be like the Ellis Island for the rejects and the uncovered. And just keep it as a small, you know, whatever. But, you know, it gives me chills just talking, thinking about it because,

• 40:41Speaker 02

  you know, I mean, I think you guys feel this way too. It's like, every day, we love this job, it's the best industry in the world, it has its problems, but it's the best industry in the world. But there is a sense of, in the white tablecloth world which we're in, that, you know, you're catering to a very, very elite crowd, you know, you are. Food is expensive. I've got, I'm looking at 30 cooks, you know, I'm cooking for 45 people tonight. It's like, it's just, it's a hard game and it costs a lot of money and it's a rarefied world. And the idea that...

• 41:18Speaker 02

  At my age, anyway, I'm 55. You know, that's all you do with your career. And there's nothing wrong with it. It's not that. It's just that as any chef, when they get to a certain age, it's like you want the vectors to stop pointing in and point out. You know, and how do you do that? I think one way, there's many ways, but one, look, Jose Andres does it another way. You know, there's many ways up the hill of getting what you've learned out to a larger audience. But one way is to democratize seed and to democratize flavor. And by the way, nutrition, because everything we're talking about is nutrition. It's high nutrition. Flavor are flavonoids. Flavonoids are nutrition. So you cannot have one without the other. That also is a late inning revelation.

• 42:03Speaker 02

  I never understood that. So good food is good for you. And often, most often, it's very good for the farmer because it means that if it tastes good and has high nutrition, it's a strong plant. A strong plant does not need chemicals to intervene. So all of a sudden, you've got, within this tiny little seed, you know, kind of like string theory. You got the thing that answers a lot of problems. And I like that idea a lot. I didn't, this is in why I started the company. If I was that smart, I would admit it. I'm not. I just started because I was excited for more stuff for me, me, me, me. This was eight years ago, you know, for my kitchen. And I wanted to fund it. Now I'm like, I don't know. The thing is, like, I love to go into a supermarket and see our varieties because we're also a produce company now. It's just a seed company. Our varieties are growing.

• 42:48Speaker 02

  They're in every region of the country now. They're grown on tons of acres, large scale organic acreage in the West Coast, on the East Coast. And to me, it's like, it's very fulfilling that we can, we're like the David and Goliath against these chemical interests that's making our environment sick and our Americans sick. Truly, full stop. And to upend that is going to be. Not a, you know, you should be more farm-to-table, you should be more generative, you should be more organic, you know, finger-pointing thing, because you know that lasts about as long as this conversation, you know. But it's like, it's the thing of deliciousness, you know, we're gonna, it's gonna be hedonism and pleasure and delight that I feel good about for the younger generations.

• 43:32Speaker 02

  I mean, they, they are interested in food in a way that we weren't, at least I wasn't in the, in the seventies, eighties, growing up, I mean, forget it. These guys are dialed in, these younger generations. And so I think there's a lot of hope for getting better acquainted, better understa- better understanding of what flavor is, because then you go after it, you know. You don't, you don't accept less.

• 43:53Joe Flamm?

  I think you're also creating, you know, I think what's really important to me is like, you're creating access to this, right? You know, like Blue So, it's like, that's, you know, it's a mythical place in my mind, it's unreachable, but it's like, now it's like, you know, it's crazy to me, you're like, hey, I'm gonna take this thing that I have, that we worked so hard on, and I'm gonna share it, and I'm gonna spread it. And like, creating that access to it, I think, has been the coolest part of it. That it's not just like, oh, you can get these Honey Nut Squash now. You're like, no, we can get them. You can serve them in your restaurant in Chicago. You can grow Midnight Roma's in your backyard, you know what I mean? Like, get these, you know, like, all, like, that to me is the coolest part of it. Like, that, like, geeked me out, you know, when those seeds first popped online, and

• 44:36Joe Flamm?

  you know, I bought a bunch of them, it was like, oh my God, this is, like, I couldn't believe it. I was like, this is so cool. And then I had to, like, give it to my friend to grow, because I was like, dude, these are like, you know.

• 44:45Adrienne Cheatham?

  You're like, passing off the baby.

• 44:46Joe Flamm?

  Right, right. I was like, I was like, can you, can, could, like, went to his house, I was like, can you grow these for me? And he's like, sure.

• 44:52Adrienne Cheatham?

  And I mean, that's the thing, good, good food has the power to change the world, especially through nutrition and access. And speaking of changing the world, you've mentored a lot of people, so we're gonna get into what we call our mentor moment now. This is brought to us by San Pellegrino Young Chefs Academy, where it's all about mentorship. We know about a lot of the chefs that have come through, the Family Meal at Blue Hill, and the Blue Hill at Stone Barn's kitchens, all the chefs from your family tree, your genealogy, but who is a chef that was a mentor to you and played a role in your career?

• 45:27Speaker 02

  Well, the chef David Boulet and I ended up sort of later in my career after I cooked in a bunch of restaurants, ended up there and it was it was so different. The kitchen was a chaotic, absolute bananas organization. Actually, I that's me now today, this thing. You know, he had a menu, but he would just go off on his own. You never knew what the menu was. He was changing it constantly during the night. You know, we were doing 240 covers, 200 covers, 220 covers. It was brutal with, you know, with 20 courses and, you know, it was very high pressure, but it was a high wire act.

• 46:10Speaker 02

  And it was an amazing experience to be a part of a genius. I think he's a genius, just a genius with flavor, with combining flavors. I've never seen anyone, anyone, I've worked with incredible chefs, both worked for them and worked with them. I've never seen anyone like Boulay put together ingredients as it was otherworldly. He would pick this and that and put in a blender and, you know, anyone can do that and it tastes like shit, but you know, on TV, you're like, oh, this. But the things were just like, they would make you weak. I mean, it was really, it was a real, it's every night was like that with him and it was high octane, you know, and to me, it, you know, came at the right moment in my career. I think if it happened early, I don't know that I would have been very intimidated, but

• 46:55Speaker 02

  I actually gravitated towards it and I created the tempo of the kitchen and the audible nature of it is what I, you know, I inherited that and I'm grateful to him. He died last year, this time last year, unfortunately, a terrible early death of what I think is a genius and who really never got his due. By the way, you talk about people who he mentoring. Uh, you know, if you look at American.

• 47:23Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, everybody came out of Boulé's kitchen.

• 47:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:27Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, I worked for Bill Kim and he was, uh, he was one of Boulé's sous chefs.

• 47:31Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 47:32Joe Flamm?

  And that's what, and he used to say the same thing, you know, and Bill worked for great people. He worked for Charlie Trotter, he worked for, uh, Jean Bonchay, he worked for Susanna Foo, like all these incredible chefs, but he said Boulé, like that was one of those that just like was so different and so transformative and just like the stuff he was doing with flavors and just like, he was so ahead of the game that it was crazy.

• 47:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's true.

• 47:55Joe Flamm?

  And I think that's just like a name that's like, you know, it's one of those ones that's like, you know, for like young cooks today, like, do they even know that name?

• 48:02Speaker 02

  I just, Joe, Joe, I literally asked my cooks the other day, like, you know, Boulé, and everyone looked at me like, who was Boulé?

• 48:09Joe Flamm?

  Right.

• 48:10Adrienne Cheatham?

  Wow.

• 48:12Speaker 02

  Man.

• 48:12Adrienne Cheatham?

  You couldn't have a conversation about food and not talk about David Boulé when I was coming up in kitchens, him and Gray Coons.

• 48:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:19Adrienne Cheatham?

  Now, I feel like younger chefs just know Gray Coons because of the Coon spoon.

• 48:23Joe Flamm?

  Right.

• 48:23Adrienne Cheatham?

  But they don't know about his impact.

• 48:25Joe Flamm?

  They have no idea that's a chef.

• 48:26Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right.

• 48:26Joe Flamm?

  They have no idea that's a chef.

• 48:28Adrienne Cheatham?

  It's like, oh, Michael Jordan was a basketball player. It's not just a shoe line, like, oh, my God.

• 48:33Joe Flamm?

  Them finding out Gray Coons is a chef is like, if they found out, they're like, oh, Le Creuset was the most famous French chef of all time. You know what I mean? They're like, I never met Chef Le.

• 48:44Speaker 02

  You guys are funny, man. That's great.

• 48:46Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, my God. Well, Chef, we're gonna bring it to the end of our show. We love to do this segment that we call Walk In Confessions because we know Dan Barber, Row Seven, Michelin-starred chef, we know the Dan Barber you are today, but we may not know the Dan Barber that you were earlier in your career. And Walk In Confessions is a time where we share a funny story from our career, something we did, a mistake we made, or a time that we had to really pull a rabbit out of a hat to make it happen, sometimes making purees in the middle of service, or. You know, things like that to fix it before you got all kind of hell from the chef.

• 49:28Adrienne Cheatham?

  So if you don't mind sharing with us a special walk-in confession of yours, we would love to hear that.

• 49:34Speaker 02

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

• 49:51Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 49:51Speaker 02

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

• 50:34Speaker 02

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

• 50:54Joe Flamm?

  Holy shit.

• 50:56Speaker 02

  I'm still, I'm still exhaling.

• 50:59Speaker 02

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

• 51:06Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh my god.

• 51:07Joe Flamm?

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

• 51:12Speaker 02

  Right, dude. Beets, beets saved my life. How about that?

• 51:19Joe Flamm?

  Dude, that is, that is awesome. That is like one of those moves that's just like all time of just like, what do I do? It's like, I'm gonna rub this out here, I'm gonna throw this up and I'm gonna hold my breath and clench and just be like, you're just sitting there just like, don't make eye contact with anyone. So it's good to go? Yes.

• 51:36Adrienne Cheatham?

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

• 51:47Joe Flamm?

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

• 51:58Speaker 02

  Dude, you and we, it's all the same experience. It's so great. You guys are great. I mean, you made my day. Thank you for, even though I got a big hole in my foot, I gotta go get an MRI.

• 52:08Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, Chef, um, thanks for keeping the episode when you, you know, when a knife fell through your foot.

• 52:14Speaker 02

  No, I'm glad I did. Like I said, I don't have this much fun at 11 o'clock in the morning.

• 52:19Joe Flamm?

  Maybe, maybe, maybe a thicker kitchen shoe, Chef. I don't know. You know, something with a little bit more durability on the top end to keep those toesies.

• 52:25Speaker 02

  Next time I won't wear sandals when I'm near a cutting board. Thank you, guys.

• 52:33Adrienne Cheatham?

  Man, that was so amazing. Chef Dan is, he's incredible to talk with. So smart, so funny, so witty. And I can't wait to go back to Blue Hill at Stone Barns and eat there again someday. Um, hopefully soon.

• 52:47Joe Flamm?

  Can't wait for you to take me.

• 52:48Adrienne Cheatham?

  Next time you're in town. But until you come to New York, Joe, where can people find you?

• 52:53Joe Flamm?

  Uh, they can find me online at Instaflam, in person at Boulevard Steakhouse, Rosemary Chicago, or at Il Cartofo. Age, when you're globe trotting, where can they track you down at?

• 53:04Adrienne Cheatham?

  You can find me on Instagram at Chef Adrian Cheatham. You can check out the Sunday Best Cookbook and you can also track the podcast at The Chef's Cut Pod on IG as well to keep up with clips from all of these great episodes and all of these great chefs.

• 53:20Joe Flamm?

  Well, that was an absolute ripper of an episode. So I'm Joe Flamm and for Adrian Cheatham, this has been The Chef's Cut.

• 53:29Adrienne Cheatham?

  Life beyond the past.