Out Spotlight CVXXVI

Today's Out Spotlight is chef, author, restaurateur, and activist Art Smith.

Art Smith was born and raised in Jasper Florida. He attended Florida State University and while there he started his culinary career with internships at The Greenbrier Resort (an amazing place, go if you ever get the chance) and was then selected to attend the prestigious Walt Disney Magic Kingdom College Program. Following graduation, he took a position working at the Florida Governor’s Mansion where he worked as executive chef for Governor now Senator Bob Graham.

He traveled throughout Europe and Africa as a personal chef, and later taking a position as chef on the American European Express Train. He came back to States and then settled in Chicago,IL. After returning to the US he began teaching at Williams Sonoma. He wowed them, and was so good he caught the eye of the domestic diva, and was asked to serve as a special event chef for Martha Stewart Living Magazine. Then from 1997-2007 he was the personal chef to Oprah Winfrey. He still serves as chef for her special events.

After leaving Oprah, he wanted to get back to the meaning and symbolism of the word “table” and uniting families and friends through the sharing of a meal. To do that he launched a fine dining restaurant in Chicago called “Table Fifty-two." Table Fifty-two serves handmade, organic foods gathered from some of the best farms in the Midwest in his best homey comfort culinary creations. He opened a second restaurant Art & Soul in Washington, DC. Fellow Chicagoans President and Mrs. Obama are fans of Smith's Southern cooking at both restaurants.

In 2002 he received his first James Beard Foundation Award for “Best Cookbook” for his first cookbook, Back to the Table: The Reunion of Food and Family. His second cookbook, Kitchen Life: Real Food for Real Families, received the 2001 Gourmand World Cookbook Award for “Best Family and Children’s Cookbook.”

Smith met his partner Jesus Salgueiro, a Venezuelan artist when he was working in Florida for Oprah. "I was looking for a florist and Maria Shriver Schwarzenegger expressed to Oprah that the best place in town was called "Pistils & Petals." I started buying flowers there. I saw this really adorable man with blue eyes that smiled at me and I smiled back. One time I was feeling sorry for myself and saying there was no love in my life. A dear friend of mine said, 'Jesus loves you.' I said, 'Tell me something I don't know. Of course Jesus loves me!' But he was talking about Jesus the florist and I called him up and made a date."

Smith has a "passionate belief that families (whether a family by blood or a family of friends) all share an innate desire to care for each other, regardless of culture, race or geographic location."

In 2001, Art and Jesus went to New York after 9/11. Smith was asked to cookfor a mother and her three school age children who lost their husband and father in one of towers. The day after they went to a memorial for the international victims. Moved by what happened in New York, when they returned home, Jesus returning to work through the emotions by painting, and Art by writing. He wrote, "For our world is a quilt,its people the fabric, all joined together by common threads."

Working from that Art and Jesus founded Common Threads. The program's purpose is to foster a "familial environment where children can learn to value each other and discover universal understanding and mutual acceptance." Part of that is teaching children about different cultures through art and food and how to cook healthy ethnically diverse foods and traditions. It is now in more than 20 afterschool programs all over the US. This past summer, Smith raised $10,000 for their program competing on Bravo TV's Top Chef Masters.

In 2006 Art & Jesus were the first openly gay couple to be named “Chicagoans of the Year” for Common Threads. Smith received a second James Beard Foundation Award for humanitarian work in 2007. And in 2008, they were inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame for their work.

Smith also participates in the Chicago GLBT community, including in participating in Gender PAC–sponsored celebrity cook-off, for the Center on Halsted and overseeing the donation of the center’s kitchen.

For his 50th birthday, tomorrow March 1, his former employer Oprah asked him was he wanted for a birthday gift. First thinking treadmill, she told him to aim higher, then he asked for a donation for Common Threads to help First Lady Michelle Obama's cause fighting childhood obesity in the US. Lady O gave him a gift in the amount of $250, 000 to help spread the message of his program. The announcement of her gift and check will be presented Monday night during a party at The South Beach Food & Wine Festival.

"I'd like to take this money to create healthy programs for children that mirror the first lady's program. What an amazing birthday present that I can share with so many friends," Smith said.

For those who know of Art Smith, you might be seeing less of him now. Smith recently lost 90 pounds practicing what he has been preaching about healthy eating.

Art and Jesus live in Chicago,with their three dogs, five cats and 15 fish.

Chef Art Smith

Common Threads