Matt Lee - The Lee Bros. Simple Fresh Southern

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We are most grateful to Rica Allannic, Ashley Phillips, Jane Treuhaft, Stephanie Huntwork, Kate Tyler, Jill Browning, and everyone at Clarkson Potter who worked so diligently on Simple Fresh Southern, and to Pam Krauss, for bringing this cookbook to life.

And we offer our utmost and sincere thanks to the following, whose kind assistance was essential to the creation of these recipes and images: Quentin Bacon, Greta Barton, Allan Benton, Patrick Brantley, Jennifer Bryan, Mary Calhoun, Erin Clary, Donna and Robert Cox, Virginia Deerin, Wylie Dufresne, James Dunlinson, Nathalie Dupree, John T. Edge, Ben Fink, Cathy Forrester, Dorothea Benton Frank, Nichole Green, Janet Gregg, Bing and Kaki Guckenberger, James Haurey, Kate Hays, Janet Hopkins and Sarah Phillips, Josephine and Tom Hutcheson, Deepak and Annie Jain, Mary Johnson, Maggie and Hunter Kennedy, Jamie Kimm, Whitney Lawson, Erik Lopez, Wayne Magwood, David McCormick, Mindy Merrell and R. B. Quinn, Sarah Gray Miller and Tony Stamolis, Will Milner, Lawrence Mitchell, Alma Montague, Angie Mosier, Chris and Eve Pawelski, John Pelosi, Anne and Mason Pope, Lucinda Scala Quinn, David and Carol Rawle, Cheryl Rogowski, Bryan Simmons and Ralph Vetters, David Sullivan, Sam and Jan Van Norte, Valerie Van Norte, The Vegetable Bin, Capers White, Jonathan White, Ellen Wiley, Jaime Wolf, Barbara Zimmerman.

And to our loyal supporters, who have made substantial and generous contributions to our lives in recent years, and set this book in motion.

And to E. V. Day, Gia Papini Lee, Willy and Liza Lee, Caroline Lee, Elizabeth Maxwell, John Maxwell and Dora Keogh, and Mary and Kenneth Gellhaus.

In our first cookbook we made the claim that southerners brought a special mojo to crafting their desserts, but we should issue a correction: southerners have a gift for composing both fun desserts and drinks. And the beverages dont have to be sweet like dessertor alcoholic, for that matterto be interesting. Outside the standard iced tea, beer, and wine there is plenty of territory to conquer, so here we present a small sampling of the drink ideas were loving now, from a ginger-spiced lemonade to a souped-up rum and coke to a chocolate milkshake that is decidedly not for kids.

Fasten your seat belts. For many of you this is going to be the first time youve seen the words Purple and Jesus next to each other, and you wine enthusiasts may never have contemplated letting a wine cooler pass your lips, but if you give us a few minutes of your time, we promise that our recipeseven the silliest sounding onesdeliver finely articulated flavors, well-calibrated textures, and an extra jolt of vivacity that comes from using fresh fruits and vegetables (yes, see the ). Our plentiful variations multiply the possibilities and occasionally offer a few ways to detoxify or fortify these drinks.

Southerners who pride themselves on good hospitality know that nothing jazzes up an everyday occasion, or burnishes a reputation, like an original and delicious beverage.

RECIPES

serves 6 TIME: 15 minutes

W ine coolers are potentially one of the best ideas goingthe combination of wine and fruit is pure geniusand yet the reality of a commercial wine cooler is pathetic. You must remember those: theyre a candy-colored, sweetened gateway booze for seventh-graders. Whatevers in them, it sure aint wine. Eager to reclaim wine coolers for adult consumption, we concocted this strawberry formula made with fresh berries buzzed in a blender, and encouraged by our success, went on to create the honeydew and tangerine variations that follow. Like a good sangria, these recipes marry the flavors of the wine and the fruit in a way thats balanced, luscious, and off-dry, but still interesting, with the flavor of real fruit and a nice kick. Theyre super-colorful too. For larger parties and barbecues, we prepare all three variations, whose pink-green-orange colors look coloring-book cute. Enjoy, but definitely keep an eye on the kids. (See .)

1 pound fresh strawberries (not frozen), rinsed and hulled

2 ounces vodka

Generous pinch of kosher salt (essential, not optional)

Two 750 ml bottles off-dry white wine, such as an American-grown Riesling, chilled

Keep 6 strawberries for garnish. Combine the rest of the strawberries, the vodka, the salt, and 1 cups of the wine in a blender, and puree on the highest setting for about 1 minute, until smooth and frothy. Strain the mixture through a coarse-mesh strainer or colander into a quart-size pitcher to remove any large bits of pulp. Agitate and press the mash in the strainer with a wooden spoon to release as much liquid as possible. (Chef gets first dibs on the strawberry pulp foam, which is best eaten directly from the strainer.) Serve immediately, or if time permits, cover the pitcher with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2 hours.

To serve, fill 6 large wineglasses with ice cubes and pour in the strawberry mixture until each glass is only half full. Top each glass with a couple splashes of cold wine, stir with a clean index finger, and garnish with a split strawberry on the rim of the glass.

VARIATIONS

honeydew wine coolers Substitute 1 pound cubed honeydew melon (about 3 cups) for the strawberries.

tangerine wine coolers In this blender-less variation, we use 2 cups of hand- or machine-squeezed fresh tangerine juice blended with cup water in place of the strawberries. Mix this directly in the pitcher with the vodka, the salt, and the 1 cups wine, and skip the straining step. If you have access to a blender and dont mind cleaning it, then pulse the mixture for a minute to aerate the brew and thicken the cooler before pouring it into the ice-filled glasses, and topping them off with the cold white wine.

red strawberry wine coolers Instead of topping up the glasses with the white wine in the final step, top them with a couple splashes of a chilled dry red wine to intensify the color, reduce the sweetness, and bring out a more complex, sangria-like flavor.

serves 4 TIME: 5 minutes

O ur apple cocktail marries two of the Western Hemispheres finest spirits, applejack and rum, in a drink that is fundamentally dry and elegant but has a nice sweet-and-sour kick. The apple impression comes through in a subtle waya shot of pure juice reinforced by the faint apple flavor of the applejack, which is simply a brandy distilled from apples, akin to Normandys calvados or Brittanys lambig.

Applejack is Americas oldest native-grown spirit, much more significant to the cultural life of the early republic than we might imagine, considering its barely perceptible standing today in a crowded field of vodkas, gins, and whiskeys.

None other than George Washington himself was responsible for turning the state of Virginia on to applejack in the latter half of the eighteenth century, and in the 1830s Abraham Lincoln served applejackamong other beveragesin his Springfield, Illinois, tavern. Today Laird and Company, of Scobeyville, New Jersey, is the sole American firm producing apple brandy, and most retailers and many bars stock a bottle of Lairds Applejack (though you may have trouble convincing the proprietor to locate it). Using a French apple brandy in this recipe is unpatriotic but will result in a more pronounced apple flavor, since these days Laird and Company dilutes their applejack somewhat with neutral spirits.