Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 9, 1995 TAG: 9508090037
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CAROLE SUGARMAN THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Long
She smiles, the photographer snaps, she tilts her head, the photographer snaps. With Smith leading, they seem like longtime dance partners, moving to the same beat.
Were it not for the food on the table and the restaurant guests trickling in, this could be a fashion shoot. Or maybe it really is.
``Being a model is about fantasy,'' Smith likes to say. ``And so is entertaining.''
Smith has practiced both arts of illusion. An astonishing knockout at 45, she was the first African American to appear on the cover of Mademoiselle magazine and the second model to appear on five Essence covers.
For eight years, she's been a restaurateur, co-owner of B. Smith's restaurant in Manhattan's theater district and, since October, of B. Smith's at Washington's Union Station.
And now with ``B. Smith's Entertaining and Cooking for Friends'' (Artisan, $30), she's an author.
``Fantastic,'' is how she describes the process of writing the book, which started out as an autobiography but ended up an upscale, glossy cookbook.
Artisan, a division of Workman Publishing, calls it ``the first entertaining book written by a high-profile African American.'' Publishers Weekly called it ``an African-American answer to Martha Stewart.'' And Smith calls it a compilation of tradition, romance and ``why-not?'' entertaining.
As for the Martha Stewart comparison, Smith thinks ``it's great. I do think it's true.''
True, Smith has some Stewart-ish leanings - replacing all the regular light bulbs with pink ones for a Valentine's Day dinner; setting a formal dinner table a week in advance and sitting in every chair to gauge each guest's vantage point; asking guests to dress according to a theme (she was once invited to a party where everyone dressed as their favorite building in Manhattan).
But Smith is not the corporation that Stewart has become, and so her ideas are less involved and innovative, and her approach is more common-sense.
One thing is certain, however. Smith is helping to carve out a new and largely ignored market niche - cookbooks for middle- and upper-class blacks who like to entertain.
Why has it taken publishers so long? ``Madison Avenue has been so rigid,'' she says, sitting at a table in the enclosed terrace at B. Smith's in Union Station. ``For African Americans and for women, many things have lagged behind.''
While she thinks the book has particular appeal to blacks (``I am who I am,'' she says), she also believes there's something in it for everyone.
In the book, Smith describes five parties - a cocktail gathering, a Valentine's Day dinner for two, a beach picnic, a formal dinner and a Kwanzaa/Christmas buffet - plus 60 pages of recipes gathered from her New York restaurant, home and travel.
The food ranges from the homey (smothered pork chops, chitterlings, macaroni and cheese) to the trendy (roasted plum-tomato soup with chevre croutons, salmon tartare, mocha torte with creme anglaise and raspberry coulis).
Like Smith, the book is lovely to look at, although there are no startlingly new ideas. Nonetheless, the recipes are appealing, accessible and not overly complicated - well within the reach of anybody who likes to entertain. As she put it, ``I'm not a chef; I'm a cook.''
In some ways, the book reads more like a lifestyle magazine, a window into the beautiful-people parties given by Smith and her husband, Dan Gasby, a television producer, in Manhattan and at their Sag Harbor, L.I., beach house.
On a recent Monday morning, after a busy weekend at the beach house (her 9-year-old stepdaughter's birthday party), Smith is trying to rev up at her Washington restaurant, which she visits about once a week.
With her gold ballet shoes, silky leopard-print skirt, beige sweater, chain belt and hoop earrings almost as wide as her chunky bracelets, she is both informal and totally put together - a naturally stunning look that gives the illusion of little effort.
This is her entertaining style, too - the appearance of ease, plus small touches that convey something more complex. ``I can see almost anything and make something of it,'' she says, pointing to the creamer on the table and showing how she could put a simple flower in it to dress it up.
Later, over lunch, she will seem disappointed with the presentation of the food, saying it doesn't look as ``delicate'' as at the New York B. Smith's.
Aside from having ``a vision thing,'' Smith is one of those people who are perpetually ``on.'' Even she describes herself as having a ``personality like the Energizer bunny.''
Her resume charges off in all directions too. In addition to being a model and a restaurateur, she's been a cabaret singer, theater producer, actress and television spokesperson - currently for Oil of Olay. At the same time, she's involved in fund-raising and community and national causes, serving on the boards of the New York Women's Foundation, the Feminist Press and others.
Smith grew up in Everson, Pa. (pop: 2,000), a working-class town outside Pittsburgh. Her mother liked to entertain, and there were always lots of relatives over for Sunday dinners and holidays, which meant freshly baked fruit pies, vegetables from the garden, homemade bread and a turkey or a ham.
They were formal gatherings with pretty things, and as a young girl Smith would polish the silver, set out the china and help her mother and grandmother with the cooking. These parties turned out to be the training ground for Smith, who picked up her mother's style and attention to detail.
In high school, she became interested in home economics, often preparing dinner for her family. ``My big thing was making smothered liver and rice, and pineapple upside-down cake,'' she says. (The cake recipe is in the book.)
Meanwhile, she went to modeling school on weekends. Her father figured she'd ``meet a nice boy, get married and stay there,'' says Smith, but her appetite was already whetted for New York. The family had taken trips there.
After three tries, she was chosen in 1969 for the Ebony Fashion Fair, a fashion road show to 77 cities. She was 19, 5-foot-8 and, at her thinnest, 115 pounds. Still, she couldn't stop cooking, offering a hand at the homes of people she met on the way.
Afterward, when she joined the Wilhelmina modeling agency and lived in Paris, Vienna and Milan, she'd eat at restaurants and then try to duplicate the dishes at home. Back in New York, she'd entertain her fellow models, since ``no models know how to cook,'' she says.
It may look as though no models know how to eat, either. Yet Smith maintains that she's ``not naturally thin, never have been and never will be,'' and that she's glad she doesn't have to worry so much about her weight anymore.
Since those early days, she's gained about 20 pounds, which puts her in the category of being ``slender'' rather than ``skinny.'' But she says she must still work at staying thin, jogging four mornings a week in Central Park and going to a spa twice a year.
Despite her hectic schedule, she still manages to entertain once or twice a month. Her latest bash was the beach-house birthday party, at which she served hot dogs and hamburgers, a green salad, a pasta salad (the leftovers, when combined impromptu with prosciutto, cream, garlic and chicken stock made a great hot pasta dish for the adults later on) and store-bought ice cream cake (she's a ``real believer'' in purchasing a few ready-made items). She had planned on serving grilled marinated chicken but then figured, ``Why make myself crazy on a hot afternoon?''
For entertainment, Smith hired someone she describes as a ``dancer-performer-artist.'' For a tablecloth, she used an oversized lavender paper napkin with a fish motif on it, and there were multicolor paper cups and plates. ``I use a lot of colors. It's energy,'' she says.
Energy is also one of the ingredients to a great party - what Smith likes to call ``keeping the buzz.'' How do you keep it? ``Invite an eclectic group of people,'' she says. ``I like to put together people from different backgrounds.''
What are the ingredients for a flop? ``The host and hostess are so rigid. They get tense about everything being perfect,'' she says. ``If you don't have a good time, your guests won't either.''
|By CAROLE SUGARMAN| | THE WASHINGTON POST|
WASHINGTON - Former model Barbara Smith picks up an industrial-size bag of makeup and excuses herself from the table, returning with a fresh flash of lipstick and eye shadow. She worries that her nails aren't polished. Should she wear her blazer or not?
She smiles, the photographer snaps, she tilts her head, the photographer snaps. With Smith leading, they seem like longtime dance partners, moving to the same beat.
Were it not for the food on the table and the restaurant guests trickling in, this could be a fashion shoot. Or maybe it really is.
``Being a model is about fantasy,'' Smith likes to say. ``And so is entertaining.''
Smith has practiced both arts of illusion. An astonishing knockout at 45, she was the first African American to appear on the cover of Mademoiselle magazine and the second model to appear on five Essence covers.
For eight years, she's been a restaurateur, co-owner of B. Smith's restaurant in Manhattan's theater district and, since October, of B. Smith's at Washington's Union Station.
And now with ``B. Smith's Entertaining and Cooking for Friends'' (Artisan, $30), she's an author.
``Fantastic,'' is how she describes the process of writing the book, which started out as an autobiography but ended up an upscale, glossy cookbook.
Artisan, a division of Workman Publishing, calls it ``the first entertaining book written by a high-profile African American.'' Publishers Weekly called it ``an African-American answer to Martha Stewart.'' And Smith calls it a compilation of tradition, romance and ``why-not?'' entertaining.
As for the Martha Stewart comparison, Smith thinks ``it's great. I do think it's true.''
True, Smith has some Stewart-ish leanings - replacing all the regular light bulbs with pink ones for a Valentine's Day dinner; setting a formal dinner table a week in advance and sitting in every chair to gauge each guest's vantage point; asking guests to dress according to a theme (she was once invited to a party where everyone dressed as their favorite building in Manhattan).
But Smith is not the corporation that Stewart has become, and so her ideas are less involved and innovative, and her approach is more common-sense.
One thing is certain, however. Smith is helping to carve out a new and largely ignored market niche - cookbooks for middle- and upper-class blacks who like to entertain.
Why has it taken publishers so long? ``Madison Avenue has been so rigid,'' she says, sitting at a table in the enclosed terrace at B. Smith's in Union Station. ``For African Americans and for women, many things have lagged behind.''
While she thinks the book has particular appeal to blacks (``I am who I am,'' she says), she also believes there's something in it for everyone.
In the book, Smith describes five parties - a cocktail gathering, a Valentine's Day dinner for two, a beach picnic, a formal dinner and a Kwanzaa/Christmas buffet - plus 60 pages of recipes gathered from her New York restaurant, home and travel.
The food ranges from the homey (smothered pork chops, chitterlings, macaroni and cheese) to the trendy (roasted plum-tomato soup with chevre croutons, salmon tartare, mocha torte with creme anglaise and raspberry coulis).
Like Smith, the book is lovely to look at, although there are no startlingly new ideas. Nonetheless, the recipes are appealing, accessible and not overly complicated - well within the reach of anybody who likes to entertain. As she put it, ``I'm not a chef; I'm a cook.''
In some ways, the book reads more like a lifestyle magazine, a window into the beautiful-people parties given by Smith and her husband, Dan Gasby, a television producer, in Manhattan and at their Sag Harbor, L.I., beach house.
On a recent Monday morning, after a busy weekend at the beach house (her 9-year-old stepdaughter's birthday party), Smith is trying to rev up at her Washington restaurant, which she visits about once a week.
With her gold ballet shoes, silky leopard-print skirt, beige sweater, chain belt and hoop earrings almost as wide as her chunky bracelets, she is both informal and totally put together - a naturally stunning look that gives the illusion of little effort.
This is her entertaining style, too - the appearance of ease, plus small touches that convey something more complex. ``I can see almost anything and make something of it,'' she says, pointing to the creamer on the table and showing how she could put a simple flower in it to dress it up.
Later, over lunch, she will seem disappointed with the presentation of the food, saying it doesn't look as ``delicate'' as at the New York B. Smith's.
Aside from having ``a vision thing,'' Smith is one of those people who are perpetually ``on.'' Even she describes herself as having a ``personality like the Energizer bunny.''
Her resume charges off in all directions too. In addition to being a model and a restaurateur, she's been a cabaret singer, theater producer, actress and television spokesperson - currently for Oil of Olay. At the same time, she's involved in fund-raising and community and national causes, serving on the boards of the New York Women's Foundation, the Feminist Press and others.
Smith grew up in Everson, Pa. (pop: 2,000), a working-class town outside Pittsburgh. Her mother liked to entertain, and there were always lots of relatives over for Sunday dinners and holidays, which meant freshly baked fruit pies, vegetables from the garden, homemade bread and a turkey or a ham.
They were formal gatherings with pretty things, and as a young girl Smith would polish the silver, set out the china and help her mother and grandmother with the cooking. These parties turned out to be the training ground for Smith, who picked up her mother's style and attention to detail.
In high school, she became interested in home economics, often preparing dinner for her family. ``My big thing was making smothered liver and rice, and pineapple upside-down cake,'' she says. (The cake recipe is in the book.)
Meanwhile, she went to modeling school on weekends. Her father figured she'd ``meet a nice boy, get married and stay there,'' says Smith, but her appetite was already whetted for New York. The family had taken trips there.
After three tries, she was chosen in 1969 for the Ebony Fashion Fair, a fashion road show to 77 cities. She was 19, 5-foot-8 and, at her thinnest, 115 pounds. Still, she couldn't stop cooking, offering a hand at the homes of people she met on the way.
Afterward, when she joined the Wilhelmina modeling agency and lived in Paris, Vienna and Milan, she'd eat at restaurants and then try to duplicate the dishes at home. Back in New York, she'd entertain her fellow models, since ``no models know how to cook,'' she says.
It may look as though no models know how to eat, either. Yet Smith maintains that she's ``not naturally thin, never have been and never will be,'' and that she's glad she doesn't have to worry so much about her weight anymore.
Since those early days, she's gained about 20 pounds, which puts her in the category of being ``slender'' rather than ``skinny.'' But she says she must still work at staying thin, jogging four mornings a week in Central Park and going to a spa twice a year.
Despite her hectic schedule, she still manages to entertain once or twice a month. Her latest bash was the beach-house birthday party, at which she served hot dogs and hamburgers, a green salad, a pasta salad (the leftovers, when combined impromptu with prosciutto, cream, garlic and chicken stock made a great hot pasta dish for the adults later on) and store-bought ice cream cake (she's a ``real believer'' in purchasing a few ready-made items). She had planned on serving grilled marinated chicken but then figured, ``Why make myself crazy on a hot afternoon?''
For entertainment, Smith hired someone she describes as a ``dancer-performer-artist.'' For a tablecloth, she used an oversized lavender paper napkin with a fish motif on it, and there were multicolor paper cups and plates. ``I use a lot of colors. It's energy,'' she says.
Energy is also one of the ingredients to a great party - what Smith likes to call ``keeping the buzz.'' How do you keep it? ``Invite an eclectic group of people,'' she says. ``I like to put together people from different backgrounds.''
What are the ingredients for a flop? ``The host and hostess are so rigid. They get tense about everything being perfect,'' she says. ``If you don't have a good time, your guests won't either.''
by CNB