Over the past week, I’ve come across two of Lee Bailey’s cookbooks. These were great favourites of mine years ago, and I had “de-accessioned” them when I moved to the UK. If you don’t know Lee Bailey, he was Martha before she ever came on the scene. He could also be described as the male Ina Garten.
He wrote the most gorgeous lifestyle books, some about cooking, some about flowers – eighteen in all! Lee Bailey came about this naturally – he was a Southerner. But he also had a food and accessories boutique at Henri Bendel that later moved to Saks Fifth Avenue, and also designed home furnishings. He was also a columnist and contributing editor for Food and Wine magazine.
Bailey’s books had great titles like Southern Food and Plantation Houses which was a culinary and historical tour of Natchez, Mississippi, and was the main reason I took a detour on a road trip to Louisiana to visit the town. 
He did a similar format for New Orleans, a city that is renowned for its excellent cooking and beautiful architecture. As he was a native of Louisiana, it was probably a fun book to produce.
In Country Weekends, he took you through a weekend of eating at a friend’s country house, all with gorgeous images and delicious recipes. 
His City Food gave me a glimpse into what a sophisticated dinner party in New York could be like. 
One of the really fun books was Cooking for Friends and he numbered among his friends people like Liz Smith, Nora Ephron and Elaine Stritch.
While his books are no longer in print, they are widely available at Amazon and other on-line book sellers. Take a look at these books, they’re a treasure trove!
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