Thyme & Seasons

I'm working on a story about a restaurant in Bountiful called Thyme & Seasons Market Place. The story goes something like this:

A guy is born and raised on a rice farm in the Mekong Delta. Growing up, he eats only fresh food that is picked from the garden or caught from the river the same day. He eats local foods that are in season. He eats simple meals but realizes they are healthy and delicious.

The guy moves to America and trains in a French restaurant in Washington D.C. He has a passion for food, but, spends 30 years as a computer consultant (also working part-time in restaurants). He is really smart and even becomes the director of something for IHC. Then, he retires and decides to use some of the money he's amassed to open a small, unassuming restaurant.

He wants to cook food like what he ate growing up -- fresh, local, in season, simple, healthy. He is worried about things like mercury in the fish and corn-fed cattle. He knows how to prepare 300 different fish, but, he disciplines himself to mostly making halibut and salmon since that is what the local taste buds demand. He develops a menu that includes American, BBQ, Vietnamese, Chinese, Thai, seafood, vegan, gluten-free, and real Neapolitan pizza. He spent two years tracking down 00 Italian flour with a 14% protein content before he added the pizza to the menu. Now, he wants to start pressing his own olive oil.

I interview him on the phone and find out he could talk for hours. He insists I come to his restaurant, so I snag a girlfriend and head to Bountiful. His restaurant does not appear to house the "fine dining" menu he has described, but, once inside, we are taken in by his charisma, escorted to the kitchen, amazed by his burner with the 12-inch flame to cook super hot stir-fry, delighted by our meal, intrigued by his stories of rice - Did you know there is black rice? And, that rice should always be consumed less than six-months after it is harvested?

When we can eat no more, he brings out the flourless molten chocolate cake (yum) and the "Heaven Meets Earth," a combination of New York cheesecake and creme brulee. We tell him we have to go, but, he takes us to his indoor herb garden and makes us smell the refreshing lemon grass. Then, it's back to the kitchen for a pasta demo and on for a tour of the art gallery decorating the small dining area.

We have to go because we really are late for picking up our kids. But, as we drive away, I'm feeling really grateful for this job. And, I'm also moved by this man's comments about wanting to offer free cooking classes to kids to help combat the childhood obesity epidemic and the way he already offers reasonably priced cooking classes to adults and then gives them his cell phone number to call him anytime if they have questions while preparing the dish at home. I am touched by the way he said that working with computers took patience, but, now he works with special education students (teaching them to cook) and it takes one hundred times more patience so he considers it his greatest accomplishment in life. I'm also pretty impressed by his statement that running his restaurant (he is a one man show) feels to him like being a kid in a big toy store every day. I love meeting people like that.

Thanks Eric and Jan for the referral. I think I'll be signing up for a cooking class soon.