The Lee brothers, winners of every national and international cook book accolade in 2007, are coming to the Lunch With Author series on Thursday, February 28, 2008 and the Lowcountry may never be the same. Matt and Ted have regaled talk show audiences and food channel followers with their “hilarious commentary on recipes, customs, and eccentricities of the South they celebrate with such passion,” according to Pat Conroy.
Last May at food world’s ‘Oscars’, The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook: Stories and Recipes for Southerners and Would-Be-Southerners, won the Cookbook of the Year and Best Cookbook: Food of the Americas awards at the 2007 James Beard Foundation awards ceremony. Other awards received are: Julia Child Award for First Book; the ICAP (International Association of Culinary Professionals) award for Best American Cookbook; Publishers Weekly included it in their top 100 Books of 2006; The Food Network named it to their list of 25 All-Time Favorite Cookbooks; and Gourmet called it one of ten books published this year “destined to become classics.”
Matt and Ted grew up in Charleston, South Carolina. When they left to attend colleges in the Northeast, they so missed the foods of their hometown that they founded The Lee Bros. Boiled Peanuts Catalogue, a mail-order catalogue selling boiled peanuts, stone-ground grits, fig preserves and other Southern foods to expatriate Southerners around the country. The scheme hit a nerve somewhere, and so they set up shop full-time back in Charleston, shipping grits, greens and peanuts from an old hotel room.
When an editor of a travel magazine asked them to write a story about road-tripping their home state in search of great food, they embarked on a second career as food and travel journalists. They currently write food stories for Travel + Leisure, Food & Wine, GQ, The New York Times Dining Section, Sunday Magazine and Book Review sections, and are the wine columnists for Martha Stewart Living.
The Lee brothers will share their down-home stories at the Lunch With Author series sponsored by the University of South Carolina Beaufort on Thursday, February 28, 2008 at the Country Club of Hilton Head on Hilton Head Plantation. Lunch is served at noon and the all-inclusive price is $40. Reservations are necessary and can be made at 843-521-4147 or kingsley@uscb.edu.
