Houston – It’s a Southern Smoke takeover!
We invited our friend and James Beard award-winning chef Chris Shepherd to Houston Life. We caught up with him just days before the season two premiere of KPRC 2′s Eat Like a Local.
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Shepherd started the Southern Smoke Foundation as a way to raise funds for the MS Society following his friend and former sommelier Antonio Gianola’s diagnosis. Since 2015, the foundation has grown to help food and beverage workers nationwide by distributing more than 12.4 million dollars in necessary costs following a crisis, addressing mental health, and extending aid to families.
“From farmers to fry cooks, servers to sommeliers, Southern Smoke takes care of our own by putting dollars directly into the pockets of food and beverage workers when it’s needed most.”
SSF has recently partnered with the University of Houston to provide free mental health services to food and beverage workers in Texas and their families. It works by pairing hospitality employees or their children with PHD clinical psychology students at UH for telemedicine appointments, with the ultimate goal of creating a customized, long-term mental health plan, completely free of charge. The program was inspired in part by the 2018 suicide of celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain. In all, SSF has provided access to more than 5,500 no-cost counseling sessions.
When a disaster happens you may turn to your savings or insurance to bail you out but what do you do when those aren’t available to you? For one local restaurant server, the answer was the Southern Smoke Foundation. She joined us with her story and a message of hope for others who find themselves in crisis. A teary-eyed Shepherd emerged following her story. He says he rarely gets to meet the people his foundation helps and it made him emotional.
Lauren Kelly was in the kitchen with two-time James Beard Award-winning chef and owner of Milk Bar Christina Tosi.
We’ve been talking about the Southern Smoke Foundation but coming up next month is their annual Southern Smoke Festival where over 70 chefs local and nationwide will make their way to Discovery Green to cook a lot of good food for a good cause. Proceeds will stay with the foundation to go out to food and beverage workers in need. We found Mel Camp with Fluff Bake Bar owner Rebecca Masson. Masson will trade her oven for an ice cream cart to cool down festivalgoers.
You can join the mission too! Tickets are on sale for the Southern Smoke Festival happening Oct 5 at Discovery Green.
To close our SSF Houston Life takeover we want to thank and recognize Shepherd for the impact he’s made on our community; but what is he really like? Here’s the answer from some of the people who know him best.
Don’t forget to catch season two of Eat Like a Local on KPRC 2 at 10 a.m.