Sep 28, 2007  |  By: KATHERINE VOLIN  | COMMENTS     

When Dan Smith and Steve McDonagh first began working as caterers in Chicago, they knew exactly where to find great parties: among their gay friends.

“We were focused on what we understand,” McDonagh says. “We always felt that catering is a little daunting. It’s a little awkward having strangers in your home. So we thought we’d take that fear out of it by having a gay-friendly staff. So we were just focusing on who we were. We found a niche that people were willing to fill and our business took off immediately.”

Other catering companies realized the great marketing opportunity they had missed and expanded their services to include gay and lesbian offshoots, McDonagh says.

“We kind of went into it for the love and then everyone else said, ‘Oooh, there’s money there,’” he says.

The two have managed to find the money, or at least success. Their catering business eventually led to a Chicago restaurant, HB, and now a cookbook. The pair also won the 2005 edition of the Food Network’s reality show competition “The Next Food Network Star,” which resulted in their own show on the network, “Party Line with the Hearty Boys.” The show includes recipes and entertainment tips.

The cookbook, “Talk with Your Mouth Full: The Hearty Boys Cookbook,” focuses on entertaining with food. Even though a lot of the recipes call for expensive ingredients, the pair, both of whom started off as out-of-work actors in the food industry, maintain that cooking and entertainment aren’t just for the wealthy.

“One of the challenges we had during the ‘Next Food Network Star’ was to create a menu using I think I want to say $20, and I was able to create an entire menu with 20 bucks, so it’s a matter of choosing what kind of party you want to have,” Smith says. “You go for the less expensive things, but try to have a twist on them. You can do a great quesadilla with a great mango salsa.”

Smith also recommends shopping at bodegas or smaller supermarkets where produce is frequently less expensive than at large chains.

“So shop wisely and choose wisely,” Smith says.

McDonagh’s advice is to “add breadcrumbs to everything,” he says with a laugh as he relates a story of his mother adding breadcrumbs to hamburger meat in order to stretch the meat further. He thought she was only doing it to give the food a lighter caloric value until he tried telling this to college friends during a cookout. They quickly corrected him.

IN ADDITION TO A PRESS tour for the new book, the two men, who are romantic and business partners, are working on a new project called HBTV, an on-camera version of a class experience that shows people how to cook.

“We call it cooking karoke,” McDonagh says. “It’s not about Emeril, it’s more about ‘Have a cocktail and here’s a knife and let’s all laugh at you in front of a camera.’  It’s the first of this kind in the country. It’s never been done.”

The two made the decision to continue their culinary TV career instead of running the restaurant they had opened. They sold HB earlier this year so they could be more in charge of their own schedules and enjoy more time with their two-year-old son, Nate.

Parenthood hasn’t meant social death for the pair, who say they still have parties that they schedule to start at 7 p.m., half an hour before Nate goes to bed because their friends like to see him.

“He is an amazing sleeper, so at 7:30 he’s ready to go to bed and we put him down,” McDonagh says. “We always wanted one of those children that you didn’t have to be quiet around.”

To help train their son to sleep through parties, the two always made noise while he was sleeping when he was younger. The trick seems to have worked.

“We’ve had big parties in our house as well and he still goes to bed at 7:30,” Smith says.

Nate’s amiability does not extend to food.

“The flip side of that is he is a horrible eater. Oh, he’s a nightmare,” McDonagh says.

Smith agrees.

“He eats rice,” Smith says. “Plain rice and it kills me.”

It gets worse.

“He won’t even eat a hotdog and if we put ketchup on the plate to try to get him to eat it, he just licks the ketchup off his finger. It’s really ironic,” McDonagh says.