US News Talks to Top Chefs About Healthy Eating

Posted on AllTopChef.com

All Top Chef Interview with Art Smith

Top Chef Masters contestant, Art Smith, talks about his experience on the show.

Thank you Chef Art!

A highlight:

I tell you Lorena Garcia and I - the love has not stopped.  We are planning the ultimate pop-up in the ultimate location as we speak...

ATC:  Are you serious?!?!?

AS:  Just put your thinking cap on and think about what would be the highly visible location in the next few days...

ATC:  The Democratic National Convention????

AS:  I didn't hear you....

ATC:  It can't be a secret, please tell us a little more....

AS:  Lorena and I are like sisters...  You know she is Venezuelan like my husband Jesus.  We want to bring Common Threads to Venezuela...

So many of the other chefs are so...

ATC:  So serious?

AS:  So serious.  I mean I think it's important to be serious about your food, but if you aren't having fun, then you need to get into another business..And Lorena and I just laughed and had so much fun.

ATC:  Okay.. so you and Lorena... pop-up...

AS:  Yes, we are working on a very public pop-up and then we will be working on several others.  Please watch out on twitter.   We are very excited...

Click here for the full interview.


Posted on AllTopChef.com

ATC Love to Chef Art Smith

This time around, Chef Art Smith was half the man he was in his original season of Top Chef Masters - size-wise. He's still a great chef with a great big heart. Unfortunately, that wasn't enough to get him any further in this competition. He made a chicken dish with cashews that just wasn't Thai-inspired enough for his critics, who thought maybe he stayed a bit too much in his comfort zone.


Chef Smith did end up winning 10K for his charity, and that's certainly nothing to sneeze at. We know he'll continue cooking from the heart and will achieve great things in his career. Maybe Lady Gaga will even let him make her another birthday cake.

Posted on AllTopChef.com

Congratulations, Chef Art Smith!

This week's Elimination Challenge involved a culinary skill that none of the Masters had possessed to that point - cooking on a Japanese teppanyaki grill. Art's team, which included Chris and Thierry, chose to make non-Asian dishes and keep their distinct points of view. Art's corn cakes were probably the first ever cooked in that particular style, and coupled with his shrimp skewers, ended up as the critics' favorite dish.


Congrats, Chef Smith - you successfully survived last week's cake debacle and have lived to cook yet another week!

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Meet the Chefs - Art Smith

Executive Chef and Co-Owner, LYFE Kitchen and Southern Art Restaurants
Competing for: Common Thread

Returning to Top Chef Masters, Chef Art Smith is the executive chef and co-owner of five restaurants, including Table fifty-two, Art and Soul, LYFE Kitchen, Southern Art, and Joanne Tratorria. Once day-to-day chef to Oprah Winfrey, the two-time James Beard Award recipient has made regular television appearances on programs such as Iron Chef America, The Today Show, Nightline, Fox News, Extra, BBQ Pitmasters, Dr. Oz, Oprah, Top Chef, and Top Chef Masters. A contributing editor to O, the Oprah Magazine, Smith is also the author of three award-winning cookbooks: Back to the Table; Kitchen Life: Real Food for Real Families; and Back to the Family. In addition to food, philanthropy is one of Art’s passions. In 2007 he received the Humanitarian of the year award from the James Beard Foundation. After watching himself on Top Chef Masters Season 1 and being diagnosed with diabetes, Smith underwent a complete transformation and dropped 100 pounds. Smith now watches what he eats -- six small meals a day -- and has run multiple marathons.

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Just Announced - Top Chef Masters Season Four!

Bravo’s “Top Chef Masters” season four is smokin’ in Las Vegas with 12 new award-winning chefs hungry to compete for the title and win $100,000 for their charity, premiering Wednesday, July 25 at 10 p.m. ET/PT. In each episode the winners of every quickfire challenge will be awarded $5,000 while the victors of the elimination challenges will receive $10,000 for their designated charities. Celebrity chef Curtis Stone is back as series host alongside returning judges James Oseland and Ruth Reichl with new judges, food and travel journalist Krista Simmons and features editor of Gilt Taste, Francis Lam. In a dazzling season of high stakes, big egos and sizzling drama, top names in entertainment join the judges table including Boxing legend Sugar Ray Leonard, folk rock music duo Indigo Girls, famed Burlesque performer Dita Von Teese, popular American party band The B-52’s, Olympic Gold Medalist Brian Boitano, Las Vegas performer Holly Madison, among others.

This season's competitors have some repeats among them in the form of Thierry Rautureau, Art Smith, and Debbie Gold.

Chris Cosentino – Chef/ Partner Incanto Restaurant, San Francisco; Competing for Michael J Fox Foundation for Parkinsons Research
Clark Frasier – Owner of Arrows; Competing for Outright Lewiston/Auburn
Mark Gaier - Owner of Arrows; Competing for Equality Maine Foundation
Lorena Garcia - Owner of Lorena Garcia Cocina Restaurant; Competing for Alliance for a Healthier Generation, Inc
Debbie Gold – Executive Chef of Kansas City’s The American Restaurant; Competing for Children’s TLC
Kerry Heffernan – NYC Chef; Competing for City Harvest
Thierry Rautureau – Chef/owner: Rover’s and Luc; Competing for Food Lifeline
Missy Robbins – Executive Chef: A Voce Madison & A Voce Columbus; Competing for Grow to Learn NYC
Art Smith - Executive Chef and co-owner: LYFE Kitchen and Southern Art Restaurants; Competing for Common Threads
Sue Torres - Chef/Owner: Sueños; Competing for Cystic Fibrosis Foundation
Takashi Yagihashi – Owner: Takashi Restaurant and Slurping Turtle; Competing for the American Red Cross, benefitting the Japanese Tsunami Disaster Relief
Patricia Yeo – Om Restaurant & Lounge/ Moksa Pan Asian Izakaya; Competing for Heifer Project International

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TC News & Information 3.17.2010

Just in time for St. Patty's Day, Richard Blais has come up with a drink called a "Corned Beef Collins." Would you drink it?

Sam Talbot finally has his own Web site!

The Brothers Voltaggio visited Martha Stewart's "Morning Living" radio show last week. Hear what they had to say about tuna and pizza here.

Art Smith was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes during filming of Top Chef Masters. He discusses his weight loss strategy here.

TC News & Information 1.15.2010

Here's an article about the fall and rise of season 4 cheftestant Dale Levitski.

Top Chef Masters competitor Art Smith will be celebrating his 50th birthday at Soldier Field in Chicago during the 5th annual World Festival benefiting Common Threads on March 1st. Gail Simmons will be hosting, and participating Chicago-area chefs will include Top Chef season 4 winner Stephanie Izard and Top Chef Masters winner Rick Bayless, plus Graham Elliott Bowles. A live and silent auction will feature a dinner cooked by Season 5's Radhika Desai, and lunch for 2 with Top Chef Las Vegas guest judge Nigella Lawson.

According to Grub Street: On March 19th and 20th, chef Charlie Palmer will be hosting his fifth annual Pigs & Pinot event in Healdsburg featuring chefs Bryan Voltaggio and Kevin Gillespie from Top Chef, along with the Food Network's Tyler Florence and Roland Passot of La Folie. Weekend package tickets are on sale by phone only, at 800-889-7188.

StarChefs.com has named the Rising Star chefs of the LA and San Diego areas, and not surprisingly, Michael Voltaggio is one of them.

What's been going on with Robin Leventhal since Top Chef? She's been teaching, among other things. Read about it here.

Brittle-gate?

This week on Top Chef Masters, the five remaining chefs were required to cook a meal for a group of vegans. A vegan is someone who eschews the use of animal products altogether. Butter is an animal product, so is not allowed in a vegan diet.

Chef Art Smith was asked to pack his knives presumably because he made a dish with store-bought rice milk-based ice cream. But how did he make the almond brittle that accompanied his dessert? According to the recipe found on Bravotv.com, he used...


butter!

ALMOND BRITTLE (recipe courtesy of Bravotv.com)
2-1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 cup water
1/4 cup Agave syrup
1 Cup toasted almonds
1 tablespoon baking soda
Pinch of salt
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tablespoons vanilla extract
Semi sweet chocolate, melted, for garnish

Bring ingredients to a boil, cook to hard boil state, till syrup makes a hard ball and is amber. Stir in toasted almonds and the remainder of the ingredients. Pour on well oiled sheet pan, and carefully with forks pull till thin but being VERY CAREFUL not to burn yourself. Cool, till crispy. Once cool break into pieces. Drizzle with melted semi sweet chocolate and allow to dry.

---

He could just as easily have used margarine (as long as it was not a soy-based product; guest Zooey Deschanel specifically mentioned that she could not eat gluten or soy), and maybe he did. What do you think? Did Art Smith feed butter to a room full of vegans? Wouldn't that be far more egregious a crime than store-bought ice cream?

Exit Interviews - TCM Episode Eight

ATC Love to Chef Smith

Chef Smith, you are a true gentleman and we are sorry to see you leave.

Your decision to use the purchased rice-based ice cream was your downfall - but everyone loved your brittle. How DID you make the brittle without butter?


This post is only for positive words for Chef Smith. If you have anything negative to say about him or another chef, please click here.

TC Masters Winning Recipe - Episode 6

TC News & Information

More news about Padma Lakshmi's upcoming sitcom. She tells TV Guide, "It’s an ensemble cast—I’m not starring in it. I will have a recurring role in it, but I have too much to do on Top Chef as well as my jewelry company. I started that all with my own personal finances, and I’m very committed to making that a success, so it becomes an issue of how to divide one’s time."

Here's Creative Loafing's latest TCM Podcast.

Starpulse.com rates the remaining Top Chef Masters contestants.

Top Chef Masters contestant Tim Love is opening Love Shack So7 in the swankiest of locations. Chef Love’s newest namesake will feature some twists on his usual menu, including a lobster roll, fish burger, and a variety of appetizers served on butcher paper. Love also will be doing a Sunday brunch. On Aug. 2, Love Shack So7 will be hosting a BBQ event to celebrate lamb. The event, called For the Love of Lamb, will feature a special dirty lamb burger, lamb cooking demos, and a celebrity chef cook-off with Richard Blais and Ilan Hall from Bravo’s Top Chef, among others. (From Ft Worth Weekly)

TCM finalist Chef Art Smith dishes a bit on his celebrity clientele.

Congrats Chef Smith!

Chef Art Smith, probably best known for his work with Oprah, wowed the judges with his duo of chicken. Fried chicken is apparently his forte, and he's no slouch at cobbler, either. Top Chef fans in Washington, D.C. have to be pleased, because this Art & Soul chef is the closest they have to a homeboy in this competition.

Chef Smith's own charity, Common Threads, featured in an Elimination Challenge in Top Chef season 4, is now the recipient of $10,000 and in the running for lots more if Chef Smith wins the Championship Round. Tune in starting next week to see how it all plays out.

This post is only for positive words for Chef Smith. If you have anything negative to say about him or another chef, please click here.

TC News & Information

Poor Toby Young's was hit by a car the other day and now has a head-full of nasty stitches. Info and pic links are here.

TC Masters competitor Lachlan MacKinnon Patterson is a fan of the Denver Broncos.

Did anyone get a chance to participate in TC Masters' Art Smith's Free Lunch last week?

Ann Arbor District Library did an interview with Season 4 winner Stephanie Izard. You can listen to the podcast here.

Check out the conversation between Padma Lakshmi and Ben Stein.

Bio - Art Smith

Well known for being Oprah Winfrey's long time personal chef, Art Smith is the co-owner of the successful restaurant TABLE fifty-two in Chicago, as well as Art and Soul restaurant in Washington DC. He has published three award winning cookbooks and has a fourth on the way – all of which concentrate on home cooking and family life. Smith and Jesus Salgueiro are the founders of the non-profit charity “Common Threads” which focuses on teaching children about different cultures through food and art. In 2007 he received the Humanitarian of the year award from the James Beard Foundation.