Art Smith's Healthy Comfort

June 3, 2013
Several years ago, when Smith "tipped the scales at 325 pounds," he signed on with a health coach who got him "walking, biking, and eating right." In this self-help-cookbook hybrid, the slimmed-down celebrity chef and restaurateur describes these successful recent shifts in his personal diet. Smith (Back to the Table) notes, "The most important word in my new, updated and powerful vocabulary is whole," and he reminds himself to eat "foods as close to their whole and most natural states" as possible, offering ideas and recipes here for dishes that are delicious and nutritious. Breakfast might mean steel-cut oats with Greek yogurt and blueberries, for example, or soft-poached eggs with a root vegetable hash. Lunch could be a bowl of yellow tomato gazpacho, three-bean turkey chili, or miso corn chowder. Salads and seafood feature prominently among his choices as well. Smith includes brief sections on everyday habits, too, giving common-sense advice on selecting cooking oils and healthy carbohydrates. And though name-dropping in the narrative (Oprah Winfrey is a client, President Obama is a Chicago neighbor) occasionally gets annoying, it does not detract from his overall goal: providing a practical framework for good, healthful eating.