Katie Lee - The Comfort Table

West Virginia native Katie Lee shares pieces of her heritage and home in her new cookbook.

By Clint McElroy

Of her second book The Comfort Table: Recipes For Everyday Occasions, Milton, W.Va., native Katie Lee said, "I want to empower people to feel like they can cook. I believe, 100 percent, that anybody can cook." That is an assertion I will put to the test. More on that later.

When you read The Comfort Table: Recipes For Everyday Occasions, it feels like more than just a cookbook. "I like to think of my recipes as family heirlooms," Lee said. "Some of them were passed on to me, and hopefully people will read them in my books, make them and pass them on to the next person."

These are heirlooms with strong ties to our area. The inspiration for her books came to Lee from her grandmother, Dora Harshbarger. Lee dedicates The Comfort Table: Recipes For Everyday Occasions to her grandma and to her mother, Kim Becker.

"My grandmother always said it's not just about the food; it's about the way you make people feel in your home," Lee said.

Her first book, The Comfort Table, is dedicated to the memory of her grandfather, who "loved food more than anybody I've ever known. Family is very important to me," she said.

So how did the Cabell Midland High School graduate metamorphose into a successful author, TV personality and celebrity cook introducing the hoi polloi of New York City to such culinary delights as meatloaf sliders and homemade potato chips?

After earning her degree from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, Lee worked in New York as a correspondent and restaurant critic for the television show George Hirsch: Living It Up! on PBS. She met music superstar Billy Joel when she was 22 years old and they were married a year later, on Oct. 2, 2004, at his home in Oyster Bay Long Island, N.Y.

During that time, Lee wrote for New York's Gotham Magazine and its sister publication Hamptons. She was a correspondent for Extra and made appearances on Martha, NBC's Today Show and Paula's Party, hosted by popular cook Paula Deen.

"Katie Lee is one skinny Southern girl who can cook her butt off," Deen said on Katie Lee's Web site, www.katielee.com. "She made me rethink my mistrust of skinny cooks."

In 2006, Lee hosted the first season of Bravo's hugely popular Top Chef competition show and became friends with celebrity chefs such as Deen, Mario Batali and Rachael Ray. She was even a judge on Iron Chef.

The little ol' country girl from Milton was breathing the rarified air of New York City, and she was introducing its citizens to some unfamiliar dishes. Manhattanites weren't sure what to think about such fare.

"I love my biscuits and gravy," she said. "I love my fried chicken and pot roast – good comfort foods. They thought food like this was really different."

Over the last few years, she has seen that attitude reverse itself.

"Whenever I have a dinner party and I serve a meat loaf, everyone relaxes," Lee said. "You can have a fancy dinner party with your best china and silver and still serve meat loaf and mashed potatoes. That's the kind of food people want to eat."

And she said the rest of the Big Apple seems to be catching on, with the most popular, trendy restaurants in the city now serving comfort food.

"I go to these places and say, ‘Hey! I could have this back home!'"

"Home" is a word Lee uses a lot when you talk to her. Like when she talks about her inspiration for her books.

"When I was a kid, I almost took it for granted that my grandmother was such a good cook," she said. "Then you move away from home and you say to yourself, ‘I miss that.'"

Or when she talks about entertaining.

"I want people to come to my home and be relaxed and have a good time," Lee said. "They can laugh or be loud and inappropriate because it's not like in a restaurant where you have to keep your voice down."

That was the inspiration for the titles of her books. Put the words "comfort" and "table" together and you get "comfortable."

"The comfort table," she said. "That's what it's all about."

Lee's West Virginia home has influenced the writing of all of her books. In her introduction to The Comfort Table: Recipes For Everyday Occasions, Lee writes, "My grandmother sent me her recipe box; my great aunt shared a couple of her recipes with me, and so did a few friends. During the writing process, I found myself not only on a culinary adventure, but also on an emotional journey through the foods of my past."

When her marriage to Joel ended after almost five years together, recipe sharing was part of Lee's healing process.

On Rachael Ray's talk show, Lee said, "People I didn't even know reached out to me on Facebook and Twitter and sent me their favorite ‘breakup recipes.' All those chocolate recipes came in very handy at three o'clock in the morning."

Online social networking is a big part of her life and has proven to be very rewarding as well.

"I am on Facebook and Twitter a lot," she said, "and I love it when people write me and say, ‘I made your recipe and it was great,' and that person is someone I went to high school with or something. It makes me very happy to know they are making my dishes and sharing them with their families."

Face-to-face feedback is important, too, and proved to have a great impact on her second book. During her first book tour to promote The Comfort Table, many people told Lee that they loved to cook but had no idea how to put a menu together. They didn't know what went with what. So, in her second book The Comfort Table: Recipes For Everyday Occasions, she wanted to provide recipes that would help all people.

"It has entire menus, with an appetizer, entrée, side dishes, dessert and wine suggestion," she said.

It even comes with a suggested playlist of music that goes along with the vibe she is trying to create.

"Everything coming together in one place – that's how I live. The book is really reflective of my personality and lifestyle."

For instance, The Comfort Table: Recipes For Everyday Occasions has a menu for a Mother's Day Brunch that includes smoked salmon canapés with Dijon crème fraîche, minted pea soup, an asparagus and spinach frittata, blueberry sour cream coffee cake with a lemon glaze and a pomegranate elderflower champagne cocktail. It has a wine suggestion of Sancerre Fruity Chardonnay. The music playlist includes Tea For Two by Sarah Vaughn, Don't Know Why by Norah Jones and the classic Just the Way You Are – but not the version you'd think.

"When I was growing up, Mom was my hero," Lee said. "She had the answers to all my questions, knew just the right thing to say when I was sad and always encouraged me to be my best. I wanted to be just like her."

It would seem she has succeeded when it comes to entertaining. It's the philosophy of making guests feel welcome in your home that runs through Lee's books. And she wants to use the books to pass that on to her readers. She said she wants to present recipes that are easy to prepare, with ingredients that are readily available, not items you have to go to a number of different stores to obtain.

"I don't want people to have to go online to order some spice they never heard of," she said. "My recipes are very accessible, so somebody who has been cooking for years can use them – or someone who's never picked up a pot or pan in their life."

So I decided to put that statement to the test. I am in no way, shape or form a cook of any kind. I am one of those who can't boil water without burning it, so if anyone is going to put this book to the test, it's me. I chose to prepare Katie Lee's recipe for buffalo chicken quesadillas from The Comfort Table: Recipes For Everyday Occasions. It seemed very "guy-friendly" to me. Any tips or encouragement from the author to the would-be chef?

"Read the recipe from start to finish first so you know where you're going," she told me. "Plus, put a cookie sheet in a 200-degree oven, and, as you finish the quesadillas, put them on the sheet."

When I had them all prepared,
I was to remove them from the oven, cut them up and serve them. As for the encouragement part?

"I believe in you 100 percent," she said.

The quesadillas were a smashing success. They were delicious. I didn't burn the house down. And my wife Carol loved them. The directions were clear and easy to follow, and I had all of the ingredients at hand. Admittedly they didn't look quite as good as the batch Lee herself made for the Super Bowl episode of CBS's Early Show; but while my efforts weren't that impressive, I was pleased. (Although, in all fairness, I must disclose my displeasure that there was nothing in Lee's book warning me about having to clean up the kitchen afterwards.)

If things work out the way she plans, you can look for more of Lee on the Early Show – and more of her books on your shelves as well. She is currently working on a novel set in Mexico.

As for her dream of opening up a hamburger place in New York City? Still a possibility. "I love my burgers," she said, beaming.

You might go ahead and make your reservations now. Those Comfort Tables will fill up quickly.

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