Award-winning author of cookbooks to visit area

http://genaknox.com/

The Aiken Center for the Arts will present the second installment of a complementary event to the annual "Taste of Wine & Art" this month, and award-winning author Gena Knox will come to Aiken with her newest cookbook, "Southern My Way," for a presentation on Wednesday, Oct. 19 at 11 a.m.

The presentation will take place in the brown pavilion at the ACA.

Knox was raised in small-town Reynolds, Ga., where she grew up watching her mom and dad grow seasonal vegetables and cook supper every night with true Southern tradition.

"This book is a reflection of my childhood and recipes that I grew up on," Knox said fondly via a phone interview this week from her home in Athens, Ga.

Now with two publications under her belt, Knox said this is really the first book she has written that focuses on true Southern food.

"It's really fun for me to educate people on the South and how much the South has to offer through local farmers and food artisans and these incredible and hard-working people we have in the South," she said.

The book, which holds hundreds of recipes in more than half a dozen categories, serves as a showcase for her love of traditional Southern food but with a different approach, said Barry Doss, ACA board member and past president.

"As you spend time reading this book, you see it is just chock-full of all these normal, what you would consider old, Southern dishes done in a really inventive and fresh manner of presentation and preparation," Doss said.

"Through the years, we've all become a little more health conscious and have tried to adjust the recipes to make things a little fresher and lighter," Knox said. "I think there are great ways you can still enjoy Southern food but in a healthier manner."

During her presentation, Knox will use PowerPoint slides showing photographs and get more in depth with certain highlighted food artisans and farmers that she showcases in her book, which earned her the 2011 Southern Cookbook of the Year Award from the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, as well as a 2011 Eric Hoffer Award for Excellence in Independent Publishing. Knox published "Southern My Way," herself.

"She is such a delightful lady and is so committed to what I would refer to as healthy eating," Doss said. "What she's done is taken all of these traditional Southern dishes, collected them and modified them to be healthier, taking out the more heavy, saturated ingredients and replacing them with just a better way to go about achieving the same end result, as far as the food being prepared," he said.

When she isn't traveling and promoting her new book, Knox owns a grilling product company called "Fire & Flavor," which operates out of Athens, and serves as the spokesperson for Georgia Peaches.

Tickets for "A Taste of Wine & Art" are $10 for ACA members and $12 for non-members.

On the day of the event, there will be a book signing and the book, which regularly sells for $34.95, will be offered at a special discounted price of $30.

For more information or to make reservations, call 641-9094.