Aaron Dorman

Chef s of Steel : Johanna and Ryan Flemming

Title : Owners and chefs at Caribbean Roots

Location : 625-B S. Lake St., Gary, IN 46403

Indiana-born Ryan Flemming is a Chef of Steel, but I believe his smoker, “Bonita,” is cast iron.

Bonita is the largest of an array of smokers behind Flemming’s restaurant, Caribbean Roots. The mobile smoker unit almost looks like a steam train; the way Flemming throws oak wood into the burn box reminds me of the way drivers threw coal into the firebox in “Thomas the Tank Engine.”

And the meat inside Bonita indeed will make you feel like you’ve travelled to a faraway destination: the Caribbean Islands.

When photographer John Watkins and I meet Flemming in the back, he’s prepping two kinds of chicken: jerk and Dominican. They’ll be

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