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.

I thoroughly enjoyed this post on Gourmet's Choptalk blog about the 10th annual Southern Foodways Alliance Symposium: "Way Down South in Mississippi."

In this "bizarre alternate universe," writes Francis Lam, "a ham maker can be accorded the respect due a head of state. There, the parsing of barbecue's savage and cannibalistic undertones is an intriguing line of conversation. There, 'frying chicken' can be presented as a slang term for sex. . . and it somehow makes sense."

Normally, he writes, the Southern Foodways Alliance is "a collection of Southern food lovers, scholars, writers, anthropologists, cooks, farmers, artists, artisans, and philosophers." But "during the half-week that is the Symposium, it's more like a roving gang of whiskey-fueled catfish eaters terrorizing the poor town of Oxford, Mississippi."

Lam writes about a presentation on the story Hercules, perhaps the first American celebrity chef -- and a slave. He writes about eating peanuts in Coca-Cola, the fried catfish at Taylor Grocery, meeting Roy Blount Jr., and "much revelry, fried food, and whiskey." Sounds like a heck of a party.

Gourmet magazine contributing editor John T. Edge (who is also director of the Southern Foodways Alliance) blogged this week in Gourmet's "ChopTalk" about Alabama's own Wickles Pickles. "Wickles, made by the Sims family in Dadeville, Alabama, are, despite their coined-by-a-lapsed-sorority-girl moniker, arrestingly great. A little sweet. A little hot. With a whiff of cider vinegar. And top notes of dill and garlic."

Wickles were recently voted the Best Hot Pickles by Rachael Ray's magazine and they're leading the voting for best overall pickle at Rachaelraymag.com. Back in 2003, Southern Living wrote about the 78-year-old secret family recipe, "they are packed in a sugary cider vinegar with spicy peppers and garlic for just the right balance - a little heat with a little sweet."

I've never actually had Wickles myself, but they sound great. Does anyone know who might carry them in Birmingham? Otherwise, I'm going to have to order some from their web site.

Check out this blog post from Gourmet magazine about Southern cheesemakers. John T. Edge notes that typically, when Southerns have talked about cheese, "we have been more likely to talk pimento cheese ... But that was then. This is now."

He praises the cheese from two Southern operations: Sweetgrass Dairy, in Georgia (goat cheese pictured, left), and John Folse's Bittersweet Plantation, in Gonzales, Louisiana.

Closer to home, I found two notable cheesemakers in Alabama: Sweet Home Farm, in Baldwin County, has been singled out on Emeril's blog, on Cheesebyhand.com, and in the Stockman Grass Farmer magazine.

A Southern cheesemaker success story is Fromagerie Belle Chevre in Elkmont, Ala. The business and their award-winning goat cheeses have been written up in publications ranging from Food & Wine and Gourmet through Vogue and Business Week. Their cheeses can be found at upscale stores such as Whole Foods and Dean & Deluca, or through their web site.

It's much easier to find good cheese in Birmingham than it used to be. A number of restaurants now offer cheese plates, and V. Richard's, Tria Market and Whole Foods all have wonderful cheese counters. The selection at Whole Foods is larger, but if you go to V. Richard's or Tria you can sample the cheese you're interested in before you buy.  

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."

I just discovered a fantastic section on southernfoodways.com about Greeks in Birmingham. If you've lived in Birmingham long, you'll know that the Greek immigrants to Birmingham have been a major part of the city's restaurant scene since the early 1900s. It's a few years old, but there are transcripts of interviews with Gus Kourtoulakis of Pete's Famous Hot Dogs, Jimmy Koikos of The Bright Star, George Sarris of The Fish Market, John Calamas (who owned the now-closed Yanni's and before that a small restaurant on Valleydale), George Sissa of Niki's Downtown, Pete and Betty Hontzas of Niki's West, Theo Hontzas of The Smoke House, and more. Check it out at http://www.southernfoodways.com/oral_history/greek/index.shtml.