By Tim Klass
Associated Press Writer
July 3, 1998
SEATTLE (AP) -- Now that the heat is off, will "Frugal Gourmet" television cook Jeff Smith return to the kitchen?
No one could say on Thursday, a day after Smith agreed to pay an undisclosed amount of money to seven men who accused him of sexually abusing them when they were teen-agers.
The lawsuits had been set to go to trial Monday. Damages could have run into the millions.
Smith referred calls to Edward S. Winskill, his Tacoma lawyer. Winskill said he didn't know whether his client planned to resume his culinary career, which has been on hold since the lawsuits were filed early last year.
Smith's producer, Nat Katzman, executive producer of A La Carte Communications in San Francisco, said he'd like to put together a new series but it could not air before the fall of 2000.
"I think he's very popular," Katzman said.
The settlement apparently did not include an apology or admission of wrongdoing.
The terms also covered claims against Smith's wife, Patricia Dailey Smith; Frugal Gourmet Inc.; Frugal Gourmet Productions Inc., and Chaplain' s Pantry Inc.
Most of the money will come from Smith, 59, an ordained Methodist minister and father of two grown sons. Some will be covered by insurance, and his future earnings could be affected, said the plaintiffs' lawyer, F. Mike Shaffer.
Neither Shaffer nor Winskill would disclose the dollar amount.
Smith's dozen cookbooks have sold a reported 12 million copies, and his popular TV series once was viewed by an estimated 15 million people a week on 300 public TV stations.
The limelight faded after the first lawsuit was filed on Jan. 23, 1997.
Smith's literary agent, Bill Adler of New York, said a year ago that Smith was nearly done with The Frugal Gourmet Cooks Pasta and was under contract for a book titled The Frugal Gourmet Cooks Light.
Adler's spokeswoman said neither book has been submitted.
Smith's cookbook sales have dropped dramatically over the past year, said representatives of Powell's Books for Cooks and Gardeners in Portland, Ore., and University Book Store in Seattle.
Two Frugal Gourmet books remain in print, said Jacqueline Duval, a publicist for his publisher, William Morrow & Co. Inc. She would not divulge sales.
As the last rerun rights expire, the show is seen on a half-dozen or so stations, said Stu Kantor, a Public Broadcasting System spokesman. He wouldn't say whether PBS would be interested in resuming the series.
Linwood Lloyd, chief operating officer at WETA in Alexandria, Va., said the "Frugal Gourmet" had never been a critical part of the program schedule during his six years at the station.
"There are a tremendous number of quite solid cooking shows in the marketplace, so it would take a pretty spectacular show, quite frankly, to get our attention," Lloyd said.
Copyright 1998 The Associated Press