Jeff Smith (TV Personality) - Career

Career

Soon after launching the show in Tacoma, he received a cooking show on a local PBS member station (KCTS) in Seattle. With an appearance on the Phil Donahue show in 1983 and a move to Chicago, his career took off.

Smith wrote many books about food and cooking, including The Frugal Gourmet (1984), The Frugal Gourmet Cooks With Wine (1986), The Frugal Gourmet Cooks American (1987), The Frugal Gourmet Cooks Three Ancient Cuisines: China, Greece, and Rome (1989),The Frugal Gourmet on Our Immigrant Ancestors: Recipes You Should Have Gotten from Your Grandmother (1990) and The Frugal Gourmet's Culinary Handbook: An Updated Version of an American Classic on Food and Cooking (1991), and many more that he wrote with his assistant Craig Wollam.

According to The Seattle Times obituary, Smith was known in the industry as a "food genius". Kathy Casey, the Times's food columnist, said that "he knew more about food and culture than anybody I know in the food world." She also mentioned that Smith had been a generous philanthropist, donating both money and time to charitable causes and helping individuals get started in the food industry, even after his retirement. However, he was not without his critics. Chicago food and wine columnist William Rice wrote, "I've tried to cook his stuff, and let's say it was hit or miss. Some things worked and others didn't." A 1992 Harper's Magazine article by Barbara Grizzuti Harrison entitled "P.C. on the Grill" ridiculed him as condescending, ill-informed, and for "cloth consumption in piety." Smith reportedly wept on the air when discussing this article, which he called "so profoundly hurtful I didn't know what to do."

The theme music for The Frugal Gourmet was a portion of the famous Water Music by George Frideric Handel, specifically the Bourrée movement of the Suite in F major (HWV 348).