Remembering Bill Neal: Favorite Recipes From A Life In Cooking

Craig Claiborne once wrote about Bill Neal (1950-1991) calling him "a genius at the stove." Now, Bill's former wife and business partner has collected more than 150 recipes--mostly unpublished along with several classic recipes from his three acclaimed cookbooks. Moreton Neal's introduction and headnotes and Bill's cutting-edge blend of Southern cuisine with French technique and his quick recipes from home make this a memoir of a culinary legend as well as a cookbook.

A gifted chef, restaurateur, and writer working at a time when Americans were beginning to take a new interest in their culinary heritage, Bill Neal (1950-1991) helped raise Southern food to national prominence.

Having rescued spattered and faded recipe cards from the Chapel Hill restaurant they founded together, Bill's former wife and business partner, Moreton Neal, has compiled a book that embodies the diversity and range of his cooking and illustrate the aesthetic that he applied to making meals. "Remembering Bill Neal" features more than 150 recipes--most of them never published before--from all stages of Bill's career: classic French dishes from La Residence, Southern traditional cooking from Crook's Corner, and fast and easy recipes from home. Moreton's introductory passages and headnotes introduce Bill to readers and put his recipes in the context of his career and his legacy as a chef.

Part cookbook, part memoir, this volume both instructs and entertains, showing the lasting importance of Bill Neal's influence in the American regional cooking movement as well as being a muse and a mentor to a generation of Southern home and professional cooks.