Waste not....

Jeff Smith, once of Frugal Gourmet fame before his career was terminated by a sex scandal, has died.

I really don't have an opinion on whatever traspired or didn't transpire between Smith and the young men who came forward to sue him. The case was settled some years ago, the man's career pretty much ended, and that's about it. But I used to greatly enjoy watching his shows -- even the later ones, when it was clear that he wasn't really doing anything while that assistant guy, Craig Wollam, bustled about doing the actual cooking. I always liked Smith's ideas on food as a connector between us and the past, food as living history, and food as a possible means of making connections between people who have little else in common.

I own copies of nearly all of his cookbooks, and some of his recipes are still standards of mine; plus, if you couldn't stand him on TV, he really was a much better writer than a TV host anyway. There is some wonderful wisdom in his cookbooks, especially the Christmas one, that I do admit that I find a bit hard to square with the image of Smith that exists now. Well, anyway...I'll still read the cookbooks and make his recipes.