John Shields is an American chef, food writer, and host of the
PBS television shows ''Chesapeake Bay Cooking with John Shields'' and ''Coastal Cooking with John Shields''.
Life
He is a native of
Baltimore
Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore was d ...
, Maryland.
Shields studied at the
Peabody Conservatory of Music; he moved to
Provincetown / Cape Cod with aspirations of becoming a rock star, and played piano in local bars. One day an injured friend asked John to work his shift in the kitchen of a popular Cape Cod inn. This led to many years as a restaurant chef & owner, author, and host of two national public television series. In the 1980s, Shields moved to Northern California, where he joined the New American Food revolution. He was executive chef at A La Carte, a French restaurant in Berkeley. Shields opened his first restaurant, Gertie's Chesapeake Bay Café, in 1983 in Berkeley's
Gourmet Ghetto. In the late 1990s he returned to Baltimore, and opened Gertrude's at the
Baltimore Museum of Art. Serving locally sourced food, Gertrude's received positive press in ''
Food & Wine
''Food & Wine'' is an American monthly magazine published by Dotdash Meredith. It was founded in 1978 by Ariane and Michael Batterberry. It features recipes, cooking tips, travel information, restaurant reviews, chefs, wine pairings and season ...
'', ''
Travel & Leisure
''Travel + Leisure'' is a travel magazine based in New York City, New York. Published 12 times a year, it has 4.8 million readers, according to its corporate media kit. It is published by Dotdash Meredith, a subsidiary of IAC, with trademark rig ...
'', the ''
Washington Post'', ''Edible DC'', the ''
Baltimore Sun
''The Baltimore Sun'' is the largest general-circulation daily newspaper based in the U.S. state of Maryland and provides coverage of local and regional news, events, issues, people, and industries.
Founded in 1837, it is currently owned by Tr ...
'', and has been a multi-year winner of ''
Baltimore Magazine
''Baltimore'' magazine is a monthly magazine published in Baltimore, Maryland by Rosebud Entertainment L.L.C., a company owned by Steve Geppi and led by its President Michael Teitelbaum. It is the oldest, continuously published city magazine in ...
''’s “Best of Baltimore,”.
Shields specializes in regional American coastal cuisine, and in particular the cuisine of his native
Chesapeake Bay region. He is a proponent of
slow food and
local food, and is active in related organizations such as the
Chesapeake Sustainable Business Alliance Chesapeake often refers to:
*Chesapeake people, a Native American tribe also known as the Chesepian
* The Chesapeake, a.k.a. Chesapeake Bay
*Delmarva Peninsula, also known as the Chesapeake Peninsula
Chesapeake may also refer to:
Populated plac ...
,
Slow Food, and the
Chef's Collaborative.
Shields is openly gay and works with his husband, John Gilligan, at Gertrude's.
Television
* Chesapeake Bay Cooking with John Shields, PBS
Coastal Cooking with John Shields, PBSFood Network
Books
*The Chesapeake Bay Cookbook (Addison-Wesley, 1990)
*The Chesapeake Bay Crab Cookbook (Addison-Wesley, 1992)
*Chesapeake Bay Cooking with John Shields (Broadway Books, 1998)
*Chesapeake Bay Cooking with John Shields, 25th anniversary edition (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015)
*The New Chesapeake Kitchen (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018)
References
External links
Official siteTravel & LeisureEdible DC, Summer 2016
American television chefs
American male chefs
American food writers
Living people
Writers from Baltimore
1951 births
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