For a  photo of Moreton Neal, please click here.

Remembering Bill Neal Featured on UNC-TV Literary Series!
Moreton Neal Shares Her Memoir of Chapel Hill Chef Bill Neal's
Culinary Heritage
On North Carolina Bookwatch, Sunday, August 21, at 5 PM

A gifted chef, restaurateur, and writer working at a time when Americans were beginning to take a new interest in their culinary heritage, Bill Neal (1950-1991) helped raise Southern food to national prominence. Having rescued spattered and faded recipe cards from the Chapel Hill restaurant they founded together, Bill's former wife and business partner, Moreton Neal, has compiled a book that embodies the diversity and range of his cooking and illustrates the aesthetic that he applied to making memorable meals.

On Sunday, August 21, at 5 PM, UNC-TV's local literary series North Carolina Bookwatch features Moreton Neal and a discussion with series host DG Martin about her part-cookbook, part-memoir, Remembering Bill Neal.

Inside Remembering Bill Neal there are more than 150 recipes-most of them never published before-from all stages of Bill Neal's career: classic French dishes from La Résidence, Southern traditional cooking from Crook's Corner, and fast and easy recipes from home.

"[Bill's own] books did not include the actual recipes he used at home and the La Résidence, or "French years," were left out," says Neal. "Every time I'd look at these recipes, memories would flood and scenes would come and I just began to write down the stories that went with the recipes."

Neal shares how the late Chapel Hill chef's recipes both instruct and entertain, showing the lasting importance of Bill Neal's influence in the American regional cooking movement as well as being a muse and a mentor to a generation of Southern home and professional cooks.

"I think Bill's real contribution was exploring the history of Southern food and writing a book about Southern food at a time when Southern food was not considered terribly interesting," admits Neal. "Nobody had really done it."

Don't miss DG Martin's all-new interview with Moreton Neal on North Carolina Bookwatch, Sunday, August 21, at 5 PM, only on UNC-TV!

During this season of North Carolina Bookwatch, guests also include: Shannon Ravenel (New Stories from the South, 2005), Emily Herring Wilson (No One Gardens Alone), Randall Kenan (Walking On Water), Ann B. Ross (Miss Julia's School Of Beauty), Lawrence Earley (Looking for Longleaf), Peter Perret (A Well-Tempered Mind), Timothy Tyson (Blood Done Sign My Name), Quinn Dalton (Bulletproof Girl), Henry Petroski (Pushing the Limits: New Adventures in Engineering), Bill Morris (Saltwater Cowboys), Amy Tiemann (Mojo Mom), Robert F. Irwin (Robert F. Irwin 40 Years), Tommy Hays (The Pleasure Was Mine), Mary Kay Andrews (Hissy Fit), Jerry Shinn (Loonis! Celebrating a Lyrical Life), Michael Parker (If You Want Me to Stay), Lawrence Naumoff (A Southern Tragedy, in Crimson and Yellow), Martha Witt (Broken As Things Are) and Gerhard Weinberg (Visions of Victory: The Hopes of Eight World War II Leader).

Funding for North Carolina Bookwatch is provided by UNC-TV members and by Quail Ridge Books and Music, Raleigh's independent, full service bookstore, bringing readers and writers together since 1984.

North Carolina Bookwatch is part of UNC-TV's ongoing commitment to produce programs for and about North Carolina. UNC-TV is the statewide 11-station broadcast network of the University of North Carolina. For more information, please visit www.unctv.org/ncbookwatch.

For more information about North Carolina Bookwatch and UNC-TV's other local productions, please visit our website at www.unctv.org.

-UNC-TV-