I have one of his cookbooks from the 70's. Everything you ever wanted to know about butter and meat, it's in there. His wife had a stroke in the 80's and now he's a vegan.

But OH GOD stay away from his sugarless, wheatless brownie recipe.

You will not shit for an entire pay period.

Jeff Smith was always annoying to me. Then he diddled a bunch of boys and it hammered it home that he was one of my least favorite chefs in TV cooking history. Kerr and Child were always great. I never saw this era of Kerr, which I think is his most fun because of the utter nonchalance at which he poisons his viewers with an excess of fat, alcohol and sugar, only unlike Deen, it was classy and fun and he didn't know any better.

The best thing about Jeff Smith was the Phil Hartman character on SNL.

Holy shit! I never knew that about Smith. Yeah, he's much less enjoyable to me, now.

Justin Wilson never did anything like that, did he?

Kerr is high Swinging Sixties London hotelier hetero-camp. He's a performer. He's great. Watch the "Gateau St. Honore", where he cooks a pudding cake thing in a tuxedo.

I love everything. I disagree that all his food is slop. By our standards, it's extremely excessive. Some of his recipes are straight out of camp 60s cookbooks, but his traditional Euro meat dishes are really amazing feast material. He really will teach you a whole lot about meat, where to cut, how to cut, all the crazy shit you can do with a fish. He's a product of his times but also a great teacher.