More Than the Soulful Spirit of Food

Jon Joyner is the owner of Chameleon Soul Food Restaurant Photo: Urban News.

By Johnnie Grant

“Dreams do come true,” said Jon Joyner as he looked around his newly opened Chameleon Soul Food restaurant and smiled. Then, in an afterthought, he took a deep breath, shook his head, and added, “It’s been a long time in coming.”

Jon picked up his passion of cooking from watching both his grandmothers and his father’s aunt. “I loved lingering around the kitchen to watch them cook,” he mused. “Mixing ingredients together and making recipes from scratch. Everybody loves good food, and I wanted to eat good food! So needless to say, there was some serious cooking going on in those kitchens!”

However, Jon didn’t realize the passion he had for cooking until his
maternal grandmother became ill. “I returned from college and ended up
taking care of my grandmother for quite some time. At the same time I
came to realize that my grandmother wanted food prepared her way! I
would cook something, and she would say, ‘No, no, put a little bit more
of this-and-that in there,’ and I would do it. It was a challenge for
me to duplicate her recipes exactly. And what I prepared came out
exactly to her liking! As time went on, I began to duplicate her
well-guarded recipes and methods of ‘dump’ cooking,” said Jon.

After a long hiatus, Jon returned to cooking school and had to
re-learn the methods of cooking by recipes. “At times I wanted to
revert back to dump cooking on some of the recipes I was instructed to
prepare, but I persevered and was able to graduate. Now I’m able to
incorporate both my knowledge of being a chef, and the well-guarded
knowledge I obtained from my family’s dump cooking recipes,” said Jon.

As Jon stood up, he took a quick glance around the seating area
with a look of amazement on his face; then he glanced up as if looking
to the heavens.

People were beginning to gather at the food counter – a signal
that he had to go and man the food. As Jon walked towards his waiting
customers with a debt of gratitude on his face, he looked back and
said, “Yes – this is very spiritual – and it’s very soulful for me!” 

Jon Joyner stands in front of Chameleon Soul Food, his new restaurant on Merrimon Ave.  Photo: Urban News