Smith, Bill 1949-

PERSONAL: Born in 1949.

CAREER: Chef and author. Cofounder, Cat’s Cradle (restaurant), NC, 1970s; established La Residence (restaurant), with Moreton Neal, NC; chef, Crook’s Corner Cafe and Bar, Chapel Hill, NC, 1992—.

WRITINGS

Seasoned in the South: Recipes from Crook’s Corner and from Home, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill (Chapel Hill, NC), 2005.

SIDELIGHTS: In Seasoned in the South: Recipes from Crook’s Corner and from Home, chef Bill Smith explains the ins and outs of the spectacular North Carolinian cuisine that he has produced at the Chapel Hill restaurant since 1992. “A chef for more than two decades,” declared a contributor to the Crook’s Corner Web site, “Smith has cooked his signature dishes for most everyone who lives, works, farms and visits the good life we have in Chapel Hill, NC.”

Perhaps because Chapel Hill is a college town, its busy season starting with the opening of classes at the University of North Carolina, Smith’s cookbook begins with fall-themed dishes. No matter the season, however, his recipes offer Continental fare with a southern twist, and vice versa. For example, in one of only a “few instances where liquor benefits a liver,” declared a Publishers Weekly critic, “duck and chicken organs are flavored with a jigger of Wild Turkey” bourbon whiskey instead of the traditional cognac. The chef’s works also reinvent southern cuisine, blending local ingredients and traditions with techniques borrowed from classic French cooking. The result, said Mark Knoblauch, writing in a Booklist review of the cookbook, is “a new version of southern cooking that owes a great deal to classic French cuisine.” “Recipes,” concluded Library Journal reviewer Rosemarie Lewis, range “from appetizers and entrees to side dishes and desserts and provide nouvelle flair to familiar Southern favorites.”

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES

PERIODICALS

Booklist, October 1, 2005, Mark Knoblauch, review of Seasoned in the South: Recipes from Crook’s Corner and from Home, p. 13.

Library Journal, September 15, 2005, Rosemarie Lewis, review of Seasoned in the South, p. 86.

Publishers Weekly, August 8, 2005, review of Seasoned in the South, p. 230.

ONLINE

Crook’s Corner Web site, http://www.crookscorner.com/ (December 17, 2006), biography of Bill Smith.