In an unassuming strip mall, collected among the desert sands and grandeur of the West, in Cave Creek, Arizona, sits a restaurant of world class level. If you aren’t looking for it, you may miss it. But it’s there. It’s spinning like a top, perfectly pivoted on the genius and passion of Master Chef Kevin Binkley.
A few years ago, Cristina and I took an unknown journey to the hallowed halls of Binkley’s and after a transcendent meal that took over three hours, I proposed the blissful idea of marriage to her. And since she fortunately thought my idea was a good one, she took the interim title of being my fiancé and me hers. I think it was the food that helped to seal the deal. I thought that a fancy meal would help, but I never imagined that both she and I and Chef Binkley would all fall in love at the same time. And only two years ago, this quintessential marriage was forged in heaven, consecrated among the hills of the Cave Creek desert, all built upon one “amuse bouche” at a time.
Now, with my Wife, for our second anniversary, and with the ideal of recharging our souls and celebrating our mutual love each other and of the food experience, we traversed north to the shear end of Scottsdale Road and made our pilgrimage to this restaurant again. From the moment you walk in, the experience begins, the tone is struck, and you are wrapped elegantly from the outside world like intricate origami, and from beginning to end they execute their passionate orchestra.
I have been fortunate to dine in many excellent restaurants in my life. But my wife is the real connoisseur of dining. I am still enthusiastically trying to catch up with her. She has a nutrition and hospitality degree from Rutger’s University and has studied cuisine both academically and practically with New York City right in her backyard growing up. And with all her experience, she holds Binkley’s, without reservation, among the best in the world. And with my still fledgling experience in the dining world, it is easily the best food experience I have ever had.
Food is about connecting with your deep self. It is the Real Medicine, if we let it. Food is about experience, and through the willingness of experiencing, we can find new levels of health. The more variety you explore, the more you understand who you are. Variety of the food and the variety of its execution is the key. And the more you explore, the more of the positive elements, the “nutrients”, you share within your body, helps to foster real understandings. These types of food experiences help us to transform the mundane idea of simply eating into a transcendent experience that brings you closer to knowing why we are really here…to Live!
When you eat, you are sharing your own body with the elements of that food, the nutrients of the food, how it smells, how it tastes, how it looks and how it feels. When careful attention and exquisite purpose of how food is grown, harvested, prepared, executed, and with reverence and focus partaken, we experience the real depths of food. Our grand design is to fully sense food. The more we understand this, and the more we place this ideal to the forefront, the more health we experience, and the more healing we experience. Various elements of food help you to reorganize and become whole, which is the definition of healing…to make whole again.
“Grand” things do indeed come from our beloved Grand Canyon State. And among other physical wonders, we Arizonans can find ourselves, if we dare, sharing dinner with a true artist.
On behalf of myself and my Wife Dr. Cristina Romero-Bosch, we encourage you to seek out a true food experience, for the sake of your health and healing, as you personally and uniquely see and experience it, and travel north to Binkley’s.
To Your (Real Food) Health,
Dr. John A. Robinson
p.s. Happy Anniversary my Beloved…
