On Tuesday, Mar. 19, from 6 to 8 p.m. in the CinéLab, Matt and Ted Lee will be signing their new tome,The Lee Bros. Charleston Kitchen. The $75 admission includes a copy of the book ($115 for couples who only want one copy), sold by Avid, but also entitles you to music, performances by Canopy and snacks from the cookbook’s pages, prepared by The National. Reservations are required and can be made by calling 706-549-3450 or emailing reservations@thenationalrestaurant.com. You can RSVP on Facebook, too, but I assume that’s more for promotional than official purposes.
The Lees have made a career out of presenting Southern favorites in a healthy, fresh, unpretentious manner, as accessible to dowagers of the South as to tattooed reimaginers of the region’s cuisine. Their first cookbook, The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook, won the 2007 award from the James Beard Foundation for cookbook of the year and was followed by The Lee Bros. Simple Fresh Southern. It’s an impressive pace for anyone to maintain, and the new book focuses more deeply on Charlestonian standards, tweaked a little. Unfortunately, that means a lot of fresh seafood, making some of the recipes difficult for us land-locked Athenians to re-create, but the lengthy cocktail section is appealing (finally, something to do with muscadines!), and the presence of items like shrimp popovers will make you hungry. You can watch a trailer for the book here.
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