"This is the hardest work a person can do," says Chef Steve Howard, "but I consider it my passion, my life, my hobby. At the end of the week when I'm tired, I know it was work, but until then, the excitement of it is always there."
Like many Texas individualists, Steve Howard threw over one career to find his true passion. Howard started in New Orleans, but his first career was in the film business as a successful cinematographer working at PBS. Cooking was his hobby, an instinct he inherited from his father who worked in the food service division of the military. "Food was always in my life. It's in the blood," says Steve. Howard was tiring of the film business, when he took a trip to New Orleans and met Paul Prudhomme. A pivotal moment, he saw what he wanted. "I told him I 'd like to come work for him and become a chef. I actually moved down there and sat on his front porch for about four to five weeks to convince him that I was very serious." Prudhomme saw the young man and watched. When it seemed as if Howard wouldn't leave, Prudhomme told his manager to "do something with that guy from Texas." Howard says that once he got his foot in the door, he knew he was doing what he should be doing. "I was in New Orleans, working with a great chef - and they accepted me even though I was from Texas!" He continues, " Paul was creating a new thing and I was fortunate to be there. Then Emeril came along. He was quite shy in those days."Prudhomme become a major player in the food industry and soon he was ready to expand. "I wasn't interested in going to the places where he was heading, so I thought hard and decided to come back I checked out the Hill Country, looked around, and this was it. I created Navajo Grill which was successful from the beginning. I focused on a blend of Creole, Mexican, Caribbean and Texan. There's a little Asian influence now." I brought a few food ideas into this area. This seemed to be my niche. There was no labor pool for this because no one had ever seen what we were doing before. I washed a lot of dishes.Howard finally sold Navajo Grill and opened a catering company that served some of the hunting ranches in the area. But as a chef Howard wanted a storefront. " It's not the same. One thing about cooking is that if you don't live it every day, don't have the 24 hour passion, you don't belong in the business. Catering kept me too far away from that feeling"
He found the cottage on five acres high on the hill that would become Bonterra. "I was very fortunate to find this place, and I wanted it to be different and new, so I worked with an artist friend to make Bonterra a place with art work on the walls, with a rustic feeling and an out door terrace. I was back and was happy."
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