BAILEY, Lee 1926-2003

PERSONAL:

Born November 15, 1926, in Bunkie, LA; died 2003; son of Lloyd L. and Ada Joyce (White) Bailey. Education: Studied at Parsons School of Design.

CAREER:

Home furnishings designer and consultant, cook, author, and photographer. Taught at Tulane University in New Orleans for six years; boutique owner in Southampton, NY, beginning 1970; owner of a design business in New York, NY, beginning 1970; Lee Bailey Shop (boutique), New York, NY, owner, 1974-87.

AWARDS, HONORS:

R. T. French Tastemaker Award, cookbook of the year, c. 1984, for Lee Bailey's Country Weekends.

WRITINGS:

FOOD AND ENTERTAINMENT BOOKS; AUTHOR AND PHOTOGRAPHER

Lee Bailey's Country Weekends, Clarkson N. Potter (New York, NY), 1983.

Lee Bailey's City Food, Clarkson N. Potter (New York, NY), 1984.

Lee Bailey's Country Flowers, Clarkson N. Potter (New York, NY), 1986.

Lee Bailey's Good Parties, Clarkson N. Potter (New York, NY), 1987.

Lee Bailey's Country Desserts, Clarkson N. Potter (New York, NY), 1988.

Lee Bailey's Soup Meals, Clarkson N. Potter (New York, NY), 1989.

Lee Bailey's Southern Food and Plantation Houses, Clarkson N. Potter (New York, NY), 1990.

Lee Bailey's California Wine Country Cooking, Clarkson N. Potter (New York, NY), 1991.

Lee Bailey's Tomatoes, Clarkson N. Potter (New York, NY), 1992.

Lee Bailey's Cooking for Friends, Clarkson N. Potter (New York, NY), 1992, reprinted with photographs by Tom Eckerle, Gramercy Books (New York, NY), 1998.

Lee Bailey's Corn, Clarkson N. Potter (New York, NY), 1993.

Lee Bailey's New Orleans: Good Food and Glorious Houses, Clarkson N. Potter (New York, NY), 1993.

OTHER

Lee Bailey's Long Weekends: Recipes for Good Food and Easy Living, photographs by Langdon Clay, Clarkson N. Potter (New York, NY), 1994.

Lee Bailey's Berries, photographs by Tom Eckerle, Clarkson N. Potter (New York, NY), 1994.

Lee Bailey's Onions, photographs by Tom Eckerle, Clarkson N. Potter (New York, NY), 1995.

Lee Bailey's Dinners at Home, photographs by Tom Eckerle, Clarkson N. Potter (New York, NY), 1995.

Lee Bailey's Great Meals for Family and Friends: 125 Great Recipes on an Easy-to-Use Easel, Cader Books (New York, NY), 1996.

Lee Bailey's Portable Food, photographs by Tom Eckerle, Clarkson N. Potter (New York, NY), 1996.

Lee Bailey's the Way I Cook, photographs by Tom Eckerle, Clarkson N. Potter (New York, NY), 1996.

Columnist for Food and Wine and USA Weekend. Contributor to other periodicals, including Gourmet, Mirabella, Vogue, House and Garden, New York, New York Times, and Los Angeles Times. Contributing editor, Food and Wine.

SIDELIGHTS:

Lee Bailey was a home furnishings designer and boutique owner whose numerous illustrated cookbooks won him a wide audience. His approach to writing, according to reviewer Richard Flaste in the New York Times Book Review, was to select a small area of culinary specialty "and then rationalize it as the focus for a whole book." Starting with a book on country weekends, which, like all his books, includes his name in the title, Bailey went on to produce books on city food, country desserts, soups as main meals, tomatoes, corn, and, in the early 1990s, glossy and colorful coffee-table volumes (such as Lee Bailey's Southern Food and Plantation Houses and Lee Bailey's New Orleans: Good Food and Glorious Houses) that combine, pictorially and textually, innovative southern menus with impressive architectural settings.

In his book Lee Bailey's Good Parties, the author stressed the virtue of informality in entertaining. "The point of entertaining is to have a good time," he told William Rice, who reviewed the book for the Chicago Tribune. "Think of the party like a recipe. Visualize the elements and how they will go together, how best to make the group that's coming comfortable." In the Washington Post, Jura Koncius quoted Bailey as saying, "I hate the term 'table decorating.' I get a sneaky suspicion that there is too much going on at the table and not enough in the kitchen." In his role as a cook ("A good one, not a great one" he related to Chicago Tribune writer Margaret Sheridan), Bailey favored easy-to-make recipes. According to Sheridan, he considered many European dessert recipes to be "tedious and overworked." His own preference was for almost anything with berries, "especially raspberries… custard, shortbread, applesauce cake. Familiar things." Bailey's goal was to demystify cooking and entertaining. The strength of his books, suggested Rice, is to make culinary accomplishment "seem real, attractive, and obtainable."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, November 15, 1996, Mark Knoblauch, review of Lee Bailey's the Way I Cook, p. 559.

Chicago Tribune, January 7, 1987, review by William Rice; April 28, 1988, review by Margaret Sheridan.

Christian Science Monitor, December 7, 1995, John Edward Young, review of Lee Bailey's Dinners at Home, p. 14; June 19, 1997, Evan F. Mallett, review of Lee Bailey's the Way I Cook, p. 14.

Library Journal, November 15, 1996, Judith C. Sutton, review of Lee Bailey's the Way I Cook, p. 84.

Los Angeles Times, December 6, 1986.

New York Times Book Review, June 11, 1989, Richard Flaste, review of Lee Bailey's Soup Meals, p. 18; June 10, 1990, Richard Flaste, review of Lee Bailey's Southern Food and Plantation Houses, p. 12.

Publishers Weekly, October 21, 1996, review of Lee Bailey's the Way I Cook, p. 81.

Washington Post, May 12, 1988, article by Jura Koncius.

OBITUARIES

PERIODICALS

New York Times, October 17, 2003, obituary by Eric Pace, p. C12.

New York Times Magazine, December 28, 2003, obituary by Julia Reed.*