Background
Bailey was born on November 15, 1926, in Bunkie, Louisiana, the son of Lloyd L. Bailey and Ada Joyce White.
cook designer Photographer author
Bailey was born on November 15, 1926, in Bunkie, Louisiana, the son of Lloyd L. Bailey and Ada Joyce White.
Bailey was educated at the Parsons School of Design, graduating in 1950, after serving in the army from 1945-1946.
For 6 years Lee Bailey taught at Tulane, then went on to teach at Parsons. From 1974 to 1987 he owned and operated the Lee Bailey Store in New York City, in addition to a design store, and a boutique in Southampton, New York. In between 1983 and 1993, he published 12 books on lifestyle, entertaining, and cooking. He contributed articles to The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Australian Vogue, and House and Garden. For Food and Wine Magazine, he was an editor and contributing author.
Bailey was a home furnishings designer and boutique owner whose numerous illustrated cookbooks won him a wide audience. His approach to writing 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.
(From soothing Applesauce Spice Cake with Brown Sugar Fros...)
1988(All of Lee Bailey's fabulous recipes from such bestsellin...)
1996(Corn lovers will share Lee Bailey's enthusiasm and deligh...)
1993(A collection of fresh and up-to-date delights from Americ...)
1992In 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, 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."
