I AM Modern Magazine Food writer/contributor Rebekah Pizana caught up with Chef Art Smith during this year’s Food Network New York City Food and Wine Festival on October 11, 2012, where he and fellow host Whoopi Goldberg shook up the town with some of the country’s best fried chicken chefs at Shake & Bake.

Talkative, friendly and outspoken, a seemingly always-smiling Art Smith is chef/owner of one of Washington, D.C.’s most prestigious restaurants. He is one of the first chefs on Capitol Hill to “put fried chicken in fine dining” at southern-style Art and Soul Restaurant in the Affinia-owned Liaison Hotel.

As former personal chef for Oprah Winfrey, Smith’s resume is impressive–having cooked for some big names as diverse as former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, the Dalai Lama and President Barack Obama–and is a partner with Lady Gaga’s father for southern-Italian restaurant (yes, that’s southern as in America’s south and Italian as in Italy) Joanne Trattoria in New York City’s upper west side. Smith proudly owns his public personality and is anything but quiet about his LGBT stance. He and husband Jesus Salguerio (a professional artist and vice president of Smith’s charity Common Threads) married at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. in 2010.

“It was one of the most public, big, fat, gay weddings in America,” Smith said proudly. “Jesus and I feel like we need to stand up for the gay marriage bill and help facilitate it in other states.”


Smith’s own buttermilk fried chicken and waffles with Pecorino cheese, crispy Salumi, Burton's Farm Maple Syrup (a variation which is available for brunch at D.C.’s Art and Soul) went up against menu items like fried yard bird and chicken liver donuts (Chef Marcus Samuelsson), a chocolate potato chip cookietopped “Liquid Klondike” (Chef Thiago Silva), a mini “chickwich slider,” and chicken & waffles with coarse ground corn grits with pimento cheese from Hill Country Chicken’s Elizabeth Karmel. The evening presented a mix of healthy, traditional and eclectic fried chicken dishes. For three hours straight, it was every bit indulgent.



HOW ARE THINGS IN D.C.? ANY PLANS?
I’m doing a facelift of Art and Soul in the next year. We’ve proven here on the Hill – where the whole world comes – that they [the world] love fried chicken. I also have my after-school cooking program, Common Threads (www.commonthreads. org) here in D.C. It is America’s foremost after-school cooking program where we serve over 7,000 kids. Common Threads won a James Beard award, and it’s been featured on every major television show. It teaches children how to cook, to live healthy and to work together regardless of gender or culture. When they come in the kitchen, they have one thing they want to do – and that’s cook together. Right now it’s in four states and headquartered in Chicago.

I’ve never been in the closet like most gay men. I have a lot of closets, but they are all open now. Fried chicken is hot. For something so comforting, it is dead center on the plate and the most political charged food of our time. I’ve decided to look at the whole situation the American way, which is “be better.” I’m launching my own fried chicken chain. It doesn’t have a name yet, but it’s going to be sensitive to LGBT communities. As you know, most LGBT communities border big cities, and they clean up neighborhoods. You can expect to see one very soon, and eventually I hope to have locations in NYC, D.C., Atlanta, West Hollywood and Miami.

You know, the great Julia Child – who taught America how to cook – was a huge fan of In ‘n Out burgers. She said it was because burgers tasted better at the drivethrough. There’s something about going to one of those late-night Chinese places. It tastes better late at night because it’s comforting. You have some of the most memorable experiences with comfort food. It’s the attitude, not just the food. “Food without ‘tude’,” I like to say, and “fried chicken takes no sides.” I want to open a pop-up fried chicken place sometime next spring. I’m hoping to have vegan choices on the menu and some healthier choices. I believe you’ve got to have protein (see Smith’s recipes in Dr. Dean Ornish’s 2008 The Spectrum), and chicken is an alternative to the hamburger, and it’s very affordable.

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REBEKAH PIZANA
Rebekah Pizana is a professional food writer, pastry chef and licensed business owner. Her pastry work  through Gourmet Amore has been published in Brides Maryland and Brides Washington, D.C., and by the online wedding magazine, StyleMePretty.com.