Supported by
‘Julia Reed’s South’: Entertaining, in Luxurious Down-Home Style
When Julia Reed, the author of several Southern cooking and entertaining books, was growing up in the Mississippi Delta, there wasn’t much to do or many places to go. Entertaining at home was a necessity, and as much a part of Ms. Reed’s childhood as oak trees dripping with Spanish moss and ice-cold sweet tea.
Later, as a young journalist in Washington, she tried her hand at what she calls more “pretentious” menus, but found herself returning to her Southern culinary roots and her mother’s timeless advice: “Why don’t you just serve something that tastes good?”
Ms. Reed’s latest book, “Julia Reed’s South: Spirited Entertaining and High-Style Fun All Year Long” (Rizzoli, May 2016), celebrates that very ethos. Many of the recipes could easily be found in a tattered spiralbound community cookbook (bourbon balls, mock cheese soufflé), others in a current issue of a glossy food magazine (asparagus with brown butter vinaigrette, deconstructed street corn).
Their similarity, Ms. Reed posits, is that they all taste good, and that they are not difficult to make. Entertaining, after all, should be fun for the host as well as the guests.
It is not a cookbook for ingredient purists — recipes call for packaged items like Pepperidge Farm Very Thin white bread and Uncle Ben’s Original Converted Rice — and she extols the virtues of serving Popeye’s fried chicken at dinner parties with Champagne. But in the age of D.I.Y. everything, hers is a refreshing if not entirely artisanal approach.
There’s a down-home luxuriousness about her recipes that Southern cooks have arguably perfected. Take the mock cheese soufflé, a glorious, cheesy puff of a dish made from packaged white bread, shredded Cheddar and beaten eggs. It’s not exactly a traditional soufflé (it’s more like a bread pudding). But whatever it is, you want more, and why haven’t you been making this for Christmas brunch?
Then there are her chess pie squares. These heavenly little bars are a picnic-ready version of the traditional Southern custard pie. They are like lemon bars without the lip-puckering citrus: a blanket of egg-rich custard generously laced with vanilla, atop a crumbly shortbread crust.
Like much of the rest of Ms. Reed’s book, they are unapologetic in their simplicity and Southern-ness, equally at home on a picnic blanket or a monogrammed silver platter.
Recipe: Chess Pie Squares
A recipe last Wednesday for chess pie squares, adapted from the new cookbook “Julia Reed’s South: Spirited Entertaining and High-Style Fun for All Year Long,” misstated the metric equivalent for the six ounces of butter used in both the shortbread crust and the filling. It is 170 grams, not 57.
How we handle corrections
More on Food and Dining
Keep tabs on dining trends, restaurant reviews and recipes.
Flamboyant displays of fake flowers at restaurants have turned into a maximalist design movement, with one man as a chief trendsetter.
Perloo, a supremely comforting one-pot rice dish, is a Lowcountry staple with roots in West Africa.
Some of the greatest meals pair exalted wines with foods considered humble. Exploring beyond the conventional can be joyous, like the timeless appeal of Champagne and fried chicken.
For many Jamaicans, spice bun is a staple of Lent. But there’s nothing restrictive about this baked good, so named for its bold seasonings.
For Ecuadoreans, fanesca, a labor-intensive lenten soup served just during the lead-up to Easter, is a staple of Holy Week festivities.
Sign up for our “The Veggie” newsletter to get vegetarian recipes for weeknight cooking, packed lunches and dinner parties.
Eating in New York City
Once the pre-eminent food court in Flushing, Queens, for regional Chinese cuisines, the Golden Mall has reopened after a four-year renovation. A new one in Manhattan is on the horizon.
At Noksu, dinner is served below the street, a few yards from the subway turnstiles. But the room and the food seem unmoored from any particular place.
You thought Old World opulence was over? A prolific chef gives it a new and very personal spin at Café Carmellini, Pete Wells writes.
Eyal Shani’s Port Sa’id challenges the conventional wisdom that you can’t get good food in a restaurant with a turntable.
Advertisement