Southern vitality

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Southern vitality
November 3, 2010
By Robin Davis
Columbus Dispatch

Some people view Southern cooking as just fried chicken and barbecue.

Dixie has another side, however.

Matt and Ted Lee of Charleston, S.C., have turned the stereotype upside down with their modern recipes, soft-spoken manners and impeccable homespun style.

With a nod to tradition, the brothers take the best of Southern cooking and give it a fresh look for every occasion - even the most traditional holiday of all: Thanksgiving.

The Lee Bros., as they are professionally known, take pride in their Southern roots.

When they went to Massachusetts for college (Matt at Harvard University and Ted at Amherst College), they were disheartened that they couldn't find the authentic ingredients of their youth.

After graduation they started The Lee Bros. Boiled Peanuts Catalogue, selling staples such as stone-ground grits and fig preserves in addition to the namesake peanuts.

When they were asked by Travel & Leisure magazine to write a story about finding great food in their home state, they launched their second careers as food writers.

They first published The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook, which won a prestigious James Beard Foundation Award. Three years later, in 2009, they produced Simple Fresh Southern: Knockout Dishes With Down-Home Flavor.

Having appeared on Today, in GQ magazine and in The New York Times, the brothers also serve as wine columnists for Martha Stewart Living magazine.

Matt, 41, and Ted, 39, will next head to Columbus to host a Nov.11 fundraising luncheon for the ProMusica Chamber Orchestra of Columbus (see the details at right).

Their other reason to come to town: Their mother, Liza Lee, took over two years ago as head of school at Columbus School for Girls in Bexley.

The visit will replace, for the first time, the family Thanksgiving in Charleston.

However far apart the family lived when the sons went to college, and after their parents moved to Dallas, everyone always returned to South Carolina for Thanksgiving.

This year, their mother and father plus Ted and his wife will celebrate in Columbus with in-laws - while Matt and his wife, with a baby, will remain in Charleston.

Yet their devotion to the holiday never wavers.

"We love, love Thanksgiving," Liza said. "Every year, we get to think what surprises are in store."

And therein lies the hallmark of the Lee Thanksgiving tradition: Nothing stays the same. The dishes change from year to year.

"Thanksgiving was an occasion. It was a potluck," Ted said. "Everyone brought something - everyone. It was so much about bringing your 'A' game."

Matt agreed.

"There was something very electric about that," he said. "And everybody brought something different."

The boys learned to cook at a young age from both parents, who split the cooking duties.

From the beginning, experimentation was the aim.

"We would read cookbooks and decide what we were going to make," Liza said of cooking with her husband.

She would pick a dish, he would pick another, and they would get started.

The process naturally led to altering the Thanksgiving menu.

"We've done about every turkey permutation you can try," Matt said.

Still, they do have their limits.

The year they made turkey mole, in which every ingredient was fried in lard, produced what he called "a revolt."

The dinner, he said, was never just about the food: "It was all about bringing people together."

The brothers and their mother are well-versed in the Southern traditions of Thanksgiving.

"Southern Thanksgiving to me," Liza said, "includes oysters, preferably a fresh heirloom turkey, rice, some kind of root vegetable, sweet potatoes as a side dish - but not with marshmallows."

Ted leans toward cornbread stuffing.

And sometimes the family throws in a country ham in addition to, but never in place of, a turkey.

"I did all sides last year," said Ted, turning to many recipes from the latest cookbook.

"Smoked cauliflower, skillet green beans (see the recipe on this page), carrot-and-turnip slaw with dill - so easy, but, in the middle of all these flavors that are savory and aromatic, it's nice to have something cold and crunchy and tonic."

For the Lees, tradition plus variety equals a Southern Thanksgiving alive with flavor.