The Lee Brothers - Matt and Ted - will visit The Alabama Booksmith in Homewood tomorrow (Thursday, December 13) at 5 p.m. and sign copies of their book, The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook: Stories and Recipes for Southerners and Would-be Southerners. The cookbook won the James Beard Award, and the brothers are featured in this month's Southern Living magazine. Southern author Pat Conroy (and a cookbook author himself) says, "The Lee Bros. have written the classic Southern cookbook. They write with flair, brilliance, and hilarious commentary on the recipes, customs, and eccentricities of the South they celebrate with such passion. Their recipes are so good that I believe cookbook writers like the Lee Bros. may turn Southern cooking into an actual cuisine."

After the signing event at the Alabama Booksmith, they're making guest appearances at Highlands Bar and Grill, Bottega, and Hot and Hot Fish Club, which will feature recipes from the book on the evening's menu.

As a special treat, the Booksmith will be serving The Lee Brothers' World Famous Boiled Peanuts during the signing. For more information, call 870-4242.

Paula Deen, nationally recognized author and television personality famous for her Southern cooking, visited Anthony Marini at his Local restaurant and cocktail bar in Vestavia Hills earlier this month. As part of a series for her magazine Cooking with Paula Deen, Deen and Marini prepared a repertoire of Apalachicola oyster dishes. “The fried oysters with his hickory wood smoked mayonnaise were to die for," Deen said. (And we second that opinion, by the way.)

“Paula and her husband are just as nice as anyone would imagine," Marini said. "It is clear that her on-air personality is not fake." After the photo shoot Paula and her husband Michael Gruver, Phyllis Hoffman, president of Hoffman Media and Cindy Cooper, Editorial Director of Cooking with Paula Deen, enjoyed a eight-course menu prepared by Marini. Never turning any of the restaurant patrons down, she signed autographs and talked to several people after her meal, staying well after midnight. (Shown in photo, from left, are Clif Holt of Little Savannah restaurant, Paula Deen, Anthony Marini (standing), Phyllis Hoffman of Hoffman Media.)

The menu included:

• Heirloom Tomato with Sugar Baby Watermelon Juice and Laura Chenel Goat Cheese
  
• Cornmeal Fried Apalachicola Oysters with Hickory Wood Smoked Mayonnaise
• Anthony’s Salad (included in the revised version of "100 Dishes to Eat in Alabama Before You Die")
  
• Lamb Tartar with Pimento Relish
• North Coast Sea Scallops with Lobster Mushrooms, Seabeans and Crawfish-Cauliflower Hash
  
• Beef and Pork Barbeque ~ Niman Ranch Hanger, Pork Rillettes and Red Wine Braised Pork Belly with Truffled Butterbean Mash and Turnip Slaw
• Bombay Gin Infused with Alabama Okra, Mustard Seed and White Pepper Shaken with Tomato and Orange Juice
  
• Deconstructed "Carrot Cake” with Cream Cheese Ice Cream
• Chocolate Bread Pudding with Basil Ice Cream and Orange Confit
  

The Birmingham News reports that the hardback book "is a celebration of the people and the town that helped it become the fixture that it is today. ... In 248 pages, the book tells the history of The Bright Star and the city of Bessemer through family recollections, guest and employee stories and dozens of photographs. In addition to the historic content, the book features 12 of the Bright Star's famous recipes."

Edge, the article says, "is a man on a mission, a mission to preserve and celebrate two of America's greatest cultural gems: the food and the food lore of the South." He has been called "the Faulkner of Southern food" and nominated for four James Beard awards.

In the interview, Edge talks about what he calls "honest food," how the roots of Southern food have been lost in translation as corporations try to package it, Kool-Aid pickles, how he finds the places he puts in his book, and how integration ties up with food.

"Except for sex, eating is the most intimate activity we regularly engage in with others," Edge tells Salon's Adam Roberts. "The fight of the citizens of the South to exclude blacks from churches and schools -- well, the subtext of that was: "If we let you sit down next to us at the restaurant, the next thing we know you'll be diddling our wives."

While updating our links page, I came across an interesting piece at eGullet on "How to Dine: Getting the Most from Restaurants." It reflects a lot of what we've learned about how to enjoy eating out, such as the joys of having a few places where you're a "regular," the importance of being nice to the wait staff, expressing true interest and delight in the food, and never being afraid to ask questions. (It's far better to ask up front what "steak tartare" is than to order it and then try to send it back when you discover it's raw meat.)

This is a how-to by Steven A. Shaw, executive director and co-founder of the eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters, a James Beard Award-winning food critic, and a contributor to Elle, Saveur, and many other magazines and journals. His book, Turning the Tables: Restaurants from the Inside Out, is available on Amazon.com.

A few quotes from the eGullet piece: "A special relationship with a restaurant is one of life's great pleasures, and such a relationship can be far easier and quicker to establish than many people think." "Good restaurant karma lies at the confluence of many small, unremarkable actions" (like saying please and thank you). "There's no way to become a food or wine expert overnight, or even in a year. But you don't need expertise. All you need is enough confidence to ask questions." "What a restaurant's staff can't do is read your mind. That's why, if something goes wrong in a restaurant, it's important to speak up."