Chris Shepherd's TV show

Chris Shepherd hosts new TV show spotlighting local hot spots, hidden gems, and personalities

Chris Shepherd filmed at Candente with owner Michael Sambrooks.

Photo by Eric Sandler

Chef Chris Shepherd has always guided people to his favorite restaurants around town. When he owned Underbelly, every diner would leave with a list of restaurant recommendations with the gentle suggestion that they not return to Shepherd’s place until they’d visited at least one of the establishments that influenced it.

Beginning in September, the James Beard Award winner and co-founder of the Southern Smoke Foundation will have a much larger platform to share his favorite places. Shepherd has partnered with local TV station KPRC 2 to produce Eat Like a Local, a TV show that will, in the station’s words “spotlight the Greater Houston area’s diverse food culture, culinary hotspots, and hidden gems that make our city unique.” The name is similar to Cook Like a Local, his Beard Award-nominated cookbook that shared recipes for many of Underbelly’s signature dishes.

Scheduled to debut September 16 at 10 am, the show will take viewers behind the scenes with chefs, farmers, and other people who make Houston’s food scene one of the best in America.

Rather than a cooking show, Shepherd will interview the people that inspire him and visit the places that are important to him — everywhere from barbecue joints and Tex-Mex restaurants to crawfish farms and oyster reefs.

“I want to know the stories of people and the why [behind] their dishes and what made them think of doing it this way,” Shepherd tells CultureMap. “Could be anywhere from a Tex-Mex restaurant to a traditional central Mexican restaurant to barbecue to crawfish to burgers. Just venturing out into our city.”

Shepherd has been filming steadily throughout Houston. It’s taken him to some of his favorites like Candente and Saigon Pagolac but also to new spots.

“The more conversations you have about food, the better you are with it. You get to see and try new things,” he says. “My biggest fun part is going to shoot new places that I haven’t been to. Just learning why. I think that’s a very important question to ask is why.”

In the year since Shepherd parted ways with Underbelly Hospitality, the local restaurant group behind restaurants such as luxurious steakhouse Georgia James and Texas comfort food restaurant Wild Oats, he’s served as an ambassador for the Southern Smoke Foundation, done some consulting for clients in California, and started writing about wine for CultureMap. Hosting Eat Like a Local will add to his growing portfolio.

KPRC 2 has posted a few preview stories on its website. Watch the trailer for Eat Like a Local below:

chefs Chris Shepherd celebrities tv

income analysis

This is the salary needed for a single-income family in Texas in 2026

Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash

The income needed for a single-income household to raise a child in Texas is lower than it was last year.

With childrearing costs in the Lone Star State adding up to tens of thousands of dollars per year, many Texas families are navigating a difficult decision: should both parents work or should one parent stay home to raise the child?

For Texas families that choose the latter, the working parent needs to make nearly $73,000 per year to support their child and the stay-at-home parent, a new income analysis has revealed.

The newly released SmartAsset report used MIT's Living Wage Calculator to estimate the annual living wages needed across all 50 states for a three-person household with two working adults and one child, and a family with one working adult, a stay-at-home parent, and one child. Costs included food, housing, childcare, healthcare, transportation, incremental income taxes, and "other necessities."

A Texas household with one working parent needs to make $72,925 to support their stay-at-home counterpart and their child, the study found. That's $1,809 less than what was needed in 2025.

Meanwhile, the combined income needed for a household with one child and both parents working full-time is $85,030.

Texas ranked No. 42 in SmartAsset's ranking of states with the highest minimum income needed to support a family with one working parent, one stay-at-home parent, and one child. That also situates Texas as the 9th most affordable state for single-income families. But there are risks associated with only having one breadwinner in the family.

"A single income family with small children potentially saves in child care costs over a household with two working parents," the report's author wrote. "The main disadvantages are the lost salary and retirement contributions, Social Security earnings history and employer health benefits."

There aren't any specific tax benefits to having a parent stay at home to raise their child full time, but SmartAsset says single-income families can claim a tax credit under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

"[S]ingle-income families may claim the Child Tax Credit — up to $2,200 per qualifying child for 2026 ($1,700 refundable) — on the same terms as any other family," the report said.

SmartAsset's latest report only looks at costs on a statewide basis, but the cost to raise a child will also vary greatly depending on the city you live in. Raising a child in Houston might pose a challenge for some families, where the cost for childcare alone adds up to $10,265 and overall costs can surpass $22,000.

For households with two children, there might be additional strains on what a family might consider a "comfortable living." A March 2026 SmartAsset study determined a Houston-based family with two working parents need to make a combined income of $204,672 to have a financially stable life while raising two children.

The top 10 states with the lowest minimum income needed for single-income families are:

Arkansas ($68,869)
Mississippi ($70,054)
Kentucky ($70,179)
West Virginia ($70,283)
North Dakota ($71,219)
Oklahoma ($71,365)
Louisiana ($71,406)
Missouri ($72,862)
Texas ($72,925)
Tennessee ($72,946)

smartasset reports texas family income