SAM HERRIN

I am one of the co-owners of Bonafide Bites. I was born and raised between Franklin and Trafalgar, Indiana and have lived in Brown County full-time for 12 years. Growing up, food and being in the kitchen was a fun family activity for us. We grew and preserved a lot of our own food – from jams and jellies to tomatoes, green beans, and anything you could possibly think to pickle. My mom was the extended family cook and catered large events from weddings to baby showers and anniversary parties. I’ve had a paring knife in my hands as long as I can remember, and my specific job was to garnish the trays and “make it pretty.” It was no surprise that my first real job was in the kitchen at a college cafeteria. I headed out to Los Angeles after graduating high school to pursue a career in broadcast journalism but realized that my heart was in the culinary world, so I headed back home and graduated with a degree in Baking and Pastry Arts from The Chef’s Academy. Since then, I’ve had a varied career balancing being a chef and full-time professional musician. If there are two truths in my life – it’s that I’ll always cook and I’ll always play music!

JOSH ANDERSON

Like Sam, I grew up in a family of home cooks and gardeners. My musical pursuits took me to Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and Las Vegas, all the while working in restaurants and catering to support myself. I decided to seriously pursue the culinary arts as a full-time career bouncing back and forth between Los Angeles and Las Vegas where I had many interesting experiences working large scale and private events for celebrities and with celebrity chefs. After an extended tour tasting my way around Europe, I decided to return home to Bloomington where I found myself traveling extensively again cooking for high profile clients and catering special events at a culinary start-up as a corporate chef. After traveling the world and the country for the past several decades the time felt right to return home and back to my roots to start something of my own.