California Cooking and Southern Style: 100 Great Recipes, Inspired Menus, and Gorgeous Table Settings

＂This ode to combining Southern and Californian menus and hospitality calls to mind a Martha Stewart entertaining tome . . . a very personal ethos on the art of entertaining.＂
--Booklist

Entertaining Secrets from an Accomplished Hostess and Down-to-Earth Southern Belle!

Set on a ranch in the stunningly beautiful Southern California wine country, well-known writer and television personality Frances Schultz’s hospitality is no secret in Santa Barbara County and beyond. The cooking of chef and recipe creator Stephanie Valentine is acclaimed by all who’ve sampled it, including Martha Stewart and Julia Child. Frances invites us into her home, her heart, and a place at her beautiful table, and she shows us how she does it.

Whether you’re planning a simple picnic for two or a celebration dinner for twenty, California Cooking and Southern Style is the perfect cookbook and table-scape guide to have at your fingertips always. Using fresh, seasonal ingredients and tested by everyday home cooks, the recipes are tried, true, do-able, and delicious. The same goes for the beautiful and deceptively simple table settings.

A unique, at-a-glance listing of eighteen menus is followed by chapters featuring each menu with recipes, table settings, and entertaining tales and tips. With a hundred-plus recipes and photographs, California Cooking and Southern Style will make your mouth water, your eyes dance, your guests grateful, and your heart happy.

Frances Schultz is a contributing editor for House Beautiful magazine and regularly writes for Veranda and travel website Indagare. She has also written for the Wall Street Journal and Town & Country, and has been a guest on the Today Show. She is author and co-author of several books on decoration, design, and entertaining, including Atlanta at Home, Atlanta at Table, Ryan Gainey’s Well Set Table, Christopher Lowell’s The Hassle Free Host, Michelle Rago’s Signature Weddings, A House in the South, and the popularThe Bee Cottage Story.

Chef Stephanie Valentine is a graduate fellow of the Culinary Institute of America and talented protégée of acclaimed late chef and restaurateur Charlie Trotter, serving as his sous chef and then as chef de cuisine. Following a four-year turn as chef at the groundbreaking raw food restaurant Roxanne’s near San Francisco, she joined Rancho la Zaca as private chef in 2004. She contributed recipes for Charlie Trotter’s and Roxanne Klein’s bestselling Raw cookbook, and has written and tested all the recipes in this book.