Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas recently presented an award of excellence in her downtown Chicago office to out chef Art Smith, the executive chef and co-owner of Chicago’s Table 52 and Washington, D.C.,’s Art and Soul restaurant., for being an author, television personality, humanitarian and chef extraordinaire. Smith has received the culinary profession’s highest awards and has cooked for celebrities. In 1997, Smith became the personal chef of Oprah Winfrey, a position that lasted 10 years.
He now coordinates and cooks headline-grabbing special events that Oprah hosts around the world. In 2003 he co-founded Common Threads, a nonprofit organization which uses food to teach low-income kids the value of healthy eating. “You have to teach children to make choices,” he said. In 2007 he was honored by the prestigious James Beard Foundation as Humanitarian of the Year. Photo by Teresa Potosiak