Bonhomie

Sometimes making a good photograph has more to do with access than creation. Case in point, my recent visit to Chef Phillip Speer’s new restaurant, Bonhomie.

I, along with about 20 of my fellow athletes from Grit Gymnasium, were treated to an evening with Phillip, who shared with us how to rethink healthy flavorful food.

We are all trying to figure out how to eat better, not blander. We learned how to brine, roast, toast and pickle. My own cooking has already changed and I’m excited to eat healthy again for the first time in a long while.

I treasure opportunities like this one to see someone in their element, doing what they love and imparting knowledge. Enthusiasm is contagious. And Phillip has the kind of passion for food that everyone should be infected with.

When one athlete asked about what it was like in the restaurant industry, he explained how hard you have to work to open one restaurant, how small the margins of profit can be, and how successful restauranteurs have five or ten places. “Its the worst,” he said, “but I love it, and I wouldn’t do anything else.”