BOOK SIGNING

WHEN: 7 p.m. Thursday

WHERE: The Regulator Bookshop, 720 Ninth St., Durham

ALSO: Watts Street Grocery will make a few of the recipes from the cookbook.

"Simple Fresh Southern" cookbook

By The Lee Bros.

BY DAWN BAUMGARTNER VAUGHAN

dvaughan@heraldsun.com; 419-6563

DURHAM -- The name of the new Lee Bros. cookbook is "Simple Fresh Southern." Those are three words that many cooks don't tend to put together. But Southern food is changing.

"It's a natural outgrowth of the way people's lives change," said Matt Lee, like eating habits and work and free time. "Also because the ingredients are changing. We're excited about new veggies and spices -- leafy greens, kales, smoked paprika available in our local Piggly Wiggly," he said.

Matt Lee and brother Ted are the duo behind the award-winning "Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook" as well as numerous food articles. They split time between their hometown of Charleston, S.C., and homes in New York, where they met their wives. Matt Lee spoke with The Herald-Sun from upper Harlem last week, and teleconferenced in his brother Ted in Brooklyn. They were preparing for this book tour, including a visit to "The Today Show" on Tuesday. They've appeared on the NBC staple twice before.

"In theory we are big-time celebrities. In reality you have to push to get out there," Matt Lee said. For "Simple Fresh Southern," they'll be staying with friends most of the tour. He said they're dedicated to cooking all the time, not just when they present a new cookbook. They want their cookbooks to be classics, and relevant forever, Lee said.

On Thursday they will visit the Regulator Bookshop in Durham, with the restaurant Watts Street Grocery preparing some of their featured recipes. The Lees might be dining at Watts Street after the signing, too. Ted Lee said the last time they were in Durham, the restaurant had just opened, so they're looking forward to trying it this time.

The Lee brothers know that so-called Southern food is different in Durham and Atlanta and Charleston and in all areas of the South.

"I think that Southern food is changing in a sense that both people inside and outside the South are realizing how regional it is," Ted Lee said. "It's not avant guard, what the Lee brothers do -- but taking ingredients we know and we love and finding new ways for them."

Like searing okra in a skillet instead of stewing it. Or serving roasted grapes next to a protein. Or taking an old Southern recipe for a shrimp and deviled egg casserole and simplifying it to a shrimp egg salad.

Matt Lee said he's excited by the potential of okra to be less cooked than expected. Tasting a fresh pod off the plant is tender and delicious, he said, almost like honeysuckle. He has his own garden in Charleston and is harvesting artichokes. He said that growing up in Charleston, they, like every kid there, had an advantage on the horticultural front and fruits and vegetables front.

"As a kid growing up downtown you know where every mulberry tree is and loquat tree is," Ted Lee said. They'd ride their bikes to the houses with mulberries and loquats. Even now, he knows where loquat branches hang over the sidewalk, dropping fruit onto the street near his office in Charleston.

Matt Lee said that cooking is an act of love you do for your family and friends. "You get a basic sense of satisfaction in this day and age doing something yourself, crafting a dinner from four ingredients," he said.

Lee said he loves encountering people who say they hate cooking but will stand next to him in the kitchen, start with just washing a head of lettuce and then get caught up in it. Young or old -- everyone can do it, he said. They just need a steady guide. As teenagers, the Lees learned to cook at home, using their kitchen as a chemistry set.

Ted Lee said they encourage people to try new recipes because the reward is so great. Matt Lee said they'll give timid cooks really simple tricks, like making the skillet green beans featured in "Simple Fresh Southern," or have them use Maldon salt, which has a flaky texture.

Sometimes being comfortable in the kitchen means being comfortable with tools, liking being confident using a knife. Ted Lee loves his microplane grater.

"It's such a great way to get citrus zest. Every time I reach for it gives me a thrill," he said.

The brothers have different cooking personalities. Matt Lee goes with his intuition. "I'll go to the grocery store first and see what intrigues me and build from there," he said.

Ted Lee is a recipe follower. "I like a program to go from," he said. "I'm a lot messier and tend to create a ton of havoc in the kitchen."

The brothers' second cookbook has less recipes this time around -- about 110 -- but more accompanying photographs. Photographer Ben Fink shot the cookbook in January at a friend's beach house in Sullivan's Island, S.C., a house where the Lee brothers have cooked.

Matt Lee said they are already collecting new ideas for their next cookbook. "There's no end to what you can create, even with the basic ingredients," he said.