Blue Bicycle Books welcomes renowned food writers Matt and Ted Lee, signing copies of The Lee Bros. Simple Fresh Southern, Sun., Mar. 7, 2 – 4 pm.

The local boys-made-good will close out the weekend of the Charleston Food and Wine Festival with a sidewalk peanut boil on King Street.

We first met Matt and Ted when they were fresh out of college, working for VH1 in New York and coming home regularly to run their mail-order business out of an office in the Confederate Home.

Fifteen years later they are still selling boiled peanuts, Duke’s Mayonnaise, and Piggly Wiggly t-shirts to exiled Southerners everywhere. They are also now frequent contributors to the New York Times dining section and have won two James Beard awards for The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook (Norton, 2007, hb., $35, 589 pp.).

Their second book explores recipes that indulge in the flavors of the Deep South through healthy and everyday ingredients. More than 100 accessible recipes add their own twist of sophistication: cherry tomato and soybean salad, easy ambrosia, caesar salad with catfish “croutons,” to name a few. Simple Fresh Southern (Clarkson Potter, 2009, hb., $35, 255 pp) also offers instructions on a variety of techniques, ranging from smoking to cheesemaking. (And it has a blurb from Amy Sedaris!)

Can’t make it? Buy a signed copy right here.

[Signed copies available March 8]

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