Product Description

Crook's Corner is a landmark in North Carolina and beyond. Bon Appetit called it "a legend." Travel and Leisure described it as "country cookin' gone cool." A reviewer for the Washington Post said, "I have yet to eat an average meal at Crook's Corner—the food is consistently outstanding, sort of nouvelle down home." And Delta Sky rated it "the best place to eat in Chapel Hill, in North Carolina and possibly on earth."

It's that good, and it has sustained its reputation since 1982, when legendary Southern chef Bill Neal, author of three popular cookbooks, opened the restaurant with partner Gene Hamer.

For more than a decade now, Bill Smith has presided over the kitchen, bringing his creative cuisine 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 reason for celebration.

Bill Smith's recipes are marvelously uncomplicated: Tomato and Watermelon Salad, Fried Green Tomatoes with Sweet Corn and Lemon Beurre Blanc, Pork Roast with Artichoke Stuffing, 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 reinvent classics of the Southern culinary tradition and 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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #352601 in Books
• Published on: 2005-10-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 192 pages

From Publishers Weekly
The Southern delicacies of Crook's Corner restaurant are well known to the students and residents of Chapel Hill, N.C. Now Smith, the chef there for 15 years, has assembled a quirky and compact selection of his favorite dishes for the rest of the world to ponder. Perhaps because Chapel Hill is a college town, the book is broken into four seasons starting with fall (though it's puzzling to find Scalloped Potatoes in autumn, Mashed Potatoes in spring and not a single spud in winter). Smith previously worked at another North Carolina spot, La Residence, and there exists an undercurrent of fine French cuisine that gives his recipes some sophistication. The cultural mix is readily apparent and exciting in his Two- (or Three-) Bird Pâté: in one of the few instances where liquor benefits a liver, duck and chicken organs are flavored with a jigger of Wild Turkey. The French influence is subtler in Turtle Soup, based on a dish from Babette's Feast and requiring two pounds of ground turtle meat. Of course, such pomp and circumstance can carry one only so far. Smith's summer ends with a blissfully redneck Really Good Banana Pudding, laden with half-and-half and vanilla wafers. (Oct. 7)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Smith's Crook's Corner restaurant in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, has won raves from critics and the public alike. Smith champions a new version of southern cooking that owes a great deal to classic French cuisine. For example, Smith concocts a rich, savory chicken-liver pate, but he substitutes the customary cognac with some bourbon whiskey. Fried oysters pair with a cumin-spiked version of aioli, a garlic-scented mayonnaise. Fried green tomatoes are topped with lemon beurre blanc. Pork cutlets fry in cheese and breadcrumbs before being crowned with Madeira sauce. More specific use of indigenous southern ingredients shows up in honeysuckle and mayhaw sorbets. Smith's version of fried chicken follows the usual regimen of buttermilk soaking and peppered-flour coating, but he prefers it served cold. Both catfish and soft-shelled crabs contribute to the seafood offerings. An elaborate, elegant version of turtle soup calls for a profusion of spices and herbs to season hard-to-find turtle meat. In an audacious move, Smith stipulates decidedly Yankee maple syrup for his spectacular cashew cake with maple frosting. Mark Knoblauch
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
“Makes you want to get up, right now, and cook something. . . . [One of] the 10 Best New Southern Cookbooks.” — The Charlotte Observer (The Charlotte Observer )

Makes you want to get up, right now, and cook something. . . . [One of] the 10 Best New Southern Cookbooks. The Charlotte Observer (The Charlotte Observer )

Customer Reviews

This is a keeper!
For those who don't know, Crook's Corner is a well-known eatery in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. It has received much national attention and praise for the fabulous food and its chef of more than ten years, Bill Smith.

If you've read my cookbook reviews you know that cooking is not one of my talents or interests. Consequently I enjoy cookbooks that are simple, use ingredients that everyone tends to have in their kitchen and make me look really, really good (like I actually know what I'm doing and I do it well.) Oh, and the food must taste wonderful when it's served.

Bill Smith's Seasoned in the South: Recipes From Crook's Corner And From Home is not only all that, it is truly country cooking for everyone! And the very best thing is that if you don't like to cook or just don't want to, you'll have a wonderful and mouth-watering time reading it like a novel. Smith has included bits and pieces of personal stories about himself, friends, family members and even former President Jimmy Carter. This cookbook is lip-smacking scrumptious and you'll be saying, "Ah, that's how it's done!"

My favorite recipes: Baked Winter Squash Soup (I can't wait for autumn!); it makes me think of crisp fall days with leaves gently falling from the trees. Pork Roast with Sauerkraut; I have everything but the pork roast in my kitchen and it reminds me of Saturday night supper. Ah memories! Now meat loaf is one of my specialties. But Smith's meat loaf with mushroom gravy is a winner! Sorry Mr. Smith, I still like mine better, but this one is fantastic! My Mashed Potatoes are grand and I can picture my grandmother at the sink chatting and mashing them by hand. The Quick Jambalaya is easy and mighty tasty. The pineapple upside-down cake is a must make and the Persimmon Pudding From Crook's Corner sounds scrumptious. I haven't made this one yet, but I will! Thank you, Bill Smith, Armchair Interviews says your cookbook is a keeper, and I will continue to use it.

Favorite Recipes (so far)
Sauteed Leeks with (Savoy) Cabbage was wonderful at the Thanksgiving table. We added a little spinach too. A few other tastes I've fallen for completely and often: Wild Mushroom Pasta and Mashed Rutabagas. The Persimmon Pudding. Fresh Tomato Pasta -- love the addition of a little butter to this quick dish. Fried Green Tomatoes ... great alongside a big breakfast of good bacon and eggs. The rest of the fall recipes I haven't tried (though will go-to masa for Fried Oysters this weekend and Aunt Hi's Osyter Stew very soon.) ...Looking forward to the Winter chapter and am most interested in the house-cured ham.

A culinary reputation fulfilled....
An intriguing selection of marvelously simple recipes -- organized by season -- from famed Chapel Hill restaurant "Crook's Corner" and creative chef Bill Smith. The varied influences of Southern, fusion, Latin and French country-esque styles are apparent in a range of dishes from Fried Green Tomatoes with Sweet Corn and Lemon Beurre Blanc, Figs with Ham and Sauce Bellevue to Soup Dakar, a mulligatawny-like chicken soup. The Green Tabasco Chicken is deceptively simple and tasty. Next spring I plan on trying the Honeysuckle Sorbet....