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by Bill Smith with a preface by Lee Smith is published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, a division of Workman Publishing, Inc.
$19.95 in Hardback, available at Crook's Corner and where books are sold
ABOUT THE BOOK:
For more than a decade now, Bill Smith has presided over the kitchen at Crook's Corner, bringing his instinctive and creative approach to cooking to an ever-growing, always enthusiastic crowd who have come to associate dining at Crook's with good company, great food, and a belief that every meal is a reason for celebration.
Bill Smith's recipes are marvelously uncomplicated: Tomato and Watermelon Salad, Fried Green Tomatoes with Corn and Mustard Butter Sauce, Cold Stuffed Pork Loin with an Artichoke Spread, Scallops with Spinach and Hominy, Really Good Banana Pudding, and Honeysuckle Sorbet. Structured around the seasons and inspired by the abundant local produce, these recipes not only reinvent classics of Southern culinary tradition, but offer up imaginative interpretations of bistro fare.
Seasoned in the South captures the flavors of the freshest seasonal foods and the spirit of one of the South's liveliest and most innovative kitchens.
Purchase a signed copy of Bill Smith's Seasoned in the South. Orders are mailed on Mondays and Thursdays via USPS.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Bill Smith came to Crook's — from the Bill and Moreton Neal-established La
Residence restaurant — by way of the Cat's Cradle, which he co-founded in the 1970's. His musical, literary and culinary interests may explain why he's been called "Chapel Hill's most quintessential resident." A chef for more than two decades, Smith has cooked his signature dishes for most everyone who lives, works, farms and visits the good life we have in Chapel Hill, NC. His book Seasoned in the South: Recipes from Crook's Corner and from Home was published in the fall of 2005.
A writer as well as an intuitive chef, his essays (commenting on such pleasures as "Cuisine de Gran Mere and Covered-dish Suppers," "Why Collards May Have Saved the South and are a New Year's Tradition," "Foraging for Flowers to make Honeysuckle Sorbet") have been featured in newspapers, radio, and television.
In Bill's cookbook, every recipe (reliable) and story (mostly true) has only one season. Bill Smith takes us through a year of favorite dishes and shows us the genius of simplicity -- in instruction and inspiration for such delicious dishes like "Fresh Tomato Pasta" and "Fish in Paper." He also offers complicated, creative economies such as "How to use a Whole Duck."
For Crook's Corner, Bill Smith prepares the Bill Neal classics: Shrimp and Grits, Mount Airy Chocolate Souffle Cake, Hoppin' John and Jalapeno Hushpuppies. These recipes are not in his cookbook, but he did include his favorite Bill Neal recipe, a version of Persimmon Pudding not before published.
In Chapel Hill, the year begins in the fall and so does Seasoned in the South. Persimmon's fall from the trees, reminding us of our favorite pudding, Fried Oysters, Aunt Hi's Oyster Stew, Mashed Rutabagas. Winter brings House-Cured Corned Hams that take 12 days, Sweetbreads, Pot Pies. Spring brings Mint Syrups, the beginning of Goat Cheese and Cows Milk Crotins, Soft Shelled Crabs, Salads, and Honeysuckle Sorbet. And at at the height of the summer: Wild Mushroom Pasta, Figs and Ham Bellevue, Tomato and Watermelon Salad, limitless Salads Composees and more inventive ice creams and sorbets.
IN HIS OWN WORDS :
"When I do get to my parent's home in New Bern, the holiday is a real event. Sometimes we have up to 40 people. Everyone stays late and talks. It's really loud. If we bring guests, they just sit, stunned. They can't get a word in." The Smith family get togethers include, thanks to Bill's twist of his Dad's tradition, "Corned Ham (short-cured ham an Eastern North Carolina specialty), Collard Greens with Cornmeal Dumplings." — Reader's Digest
"I've had to tap into my childhood and stir it up: ... the big midday meal, everyday ... the things I remember from Church picnics." — Christian Science Monitor
"Southerners who come to Crook's like to be reminded of their childhood. My cooking harkens back to things I ate when I was growing up, but not in a museum-like way," says Bill Smith. "This is not a theme park." .... Cooks like Smith have learned to keep the best of Southern cooking: farm-based freshness, seasonality and variety ... Smith, who says he eats a bowl of collards and a bowl of black-eyed peas every day, grows positively rhapsodic when it comes to Eastern North Carolina corned ham. (His father used to send him hams from New Bern before Smith learned the curing technique himself.) — News & Observer.
PRAISE FOR BILL SMITH:
An Article by Samia Serageldin in The Chapel Hill News
An Article by Grayson Currin in The Independent Weekly
FOOD AND WINE magazine says Seasoned in the South is a MUST-HAVE BOOK 2005: "You wouldn't necessarily expect a cookbook to tell a good story, but Bill Smith does." It's also the #1 BOOKSENSE PICK for December 2005.
It was a NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK for 2005.
Algonquin Books is releasing an expanded edition that includes seasonal menus and more recipes in 2006.
"With a narrative as rich as the stocks he cooks, Bill Smith shares truly magical southern dishes & unveils an exciting new chapter in our region's cuisine."
--William Ferris
"I don't remember another cookbook that made me cry, laugh aloud, and drool. Herein you'll find the good food from Crook's, good writing, and good sense."
--John Martin Taylor
"I have been waiting for Bill Smith to write a cookbook since first eating his food over 15 years ago. Seasoned in the South puts together the traditional and classic southern fare with his own unique style."
--Sara Foster, author of The Foster's Market Cookbook
"Bill Smith's South is not fixed in some moonlight and magnolias past. At Crook's Corner, kindly grandmothers, Vietnamese immigrants, and scraggly rock and rollers hold sway; saffron and salt pork coexist; and the door swings wide to welcome all."
--John T. Edge, author of Fried Chicken: An American Story
"I love what Bill Smith does,"
--
Dean McCord, eGullet.com
"He always seems to remember, uncannily, his guests' favorite foods..."
--
Metro Magazine
"Crook's Corner . . . has spawned yet another chef's book by [Bill] Neal's extremely talented successor, Bill Smith. SIS is Smith's collection of wonderful, inventive recipes--most of them extremely Southern, but with a contemporary twist. . . . This is a superb yet simple work, a tribute to Smith's talent and dedication and a fitting legacy to Neal."
-- PAGES magazine
FIRST EDITION ERRATA :
E R R A T A
Page 72: add “¼ cup heavy cream” to the ingredients list
Page 143, line 4: “3 cups of the jelly” should be “1 cup of the jam”
Page 183: “serves 10 plus” should be “serves 5 plus”
Page 183, line 1 of 2nd para: “6½ cups” should be “3 cups”
Page 183, line 4 of 2nd para: “remaining 1½ cups” should be “remaining cup”
Page 184, line 1: “an 8 x 10 x 3 casserole dish” should be “a 9-inch glass pie pan”
We apologize for these errors. They will be corrected in the next printing.
SEASONED IN THE SOUTH: RECIPES FROM CROOK'S CORNER AND FROM HOME
by Bill Smith
A L G O N Q U I N B O O K S O F C H A P E L H I L L
www.algonquin.com