Chef Frank Stitt visits Nashville today for a cooking demo and book signing

The legendary Frank Stitt is coming to Nashville for a cooking demo and book signing at Williams-Sonoma in the Mall at Green Hills.

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Be sure to pick up a copy of his new book "Bottega Favorita, A Southern Chef's Love Affair with Italian Food" ($40), his new cookbook of Southern-tinged Italian dishes, two cuisines he feels share the commonality of bringing out the best of the most simple ingredients.

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The demo and book signing is at 1 p.m. Feb. 27 at Williams-Sonoma (the Mall at Green Hills, 2126 Abbott Martin Road). Call 292-5066.

White Lily baking flour leaves Tennessee

FOR generations of Southern bakers, the secret to weightless biscuits has been one simple ingredient passed from grandmother to mother to child: White Lily all-purpose flour.

Biscuit dives and high-end Southern restaurants like Watershed in Atlanta and Blackberry Farm outside Knoxville use it. Blue-ribbon winners at state fair baking contests depend on it. On food lovers’ Web sites, transplanted Southerners share tips on where to find it, and some of them returning from trips back home have been known to attract attention when airport security officers detect a suspicious white dust on their luggage.
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But at the end of June, the mill, with its shiny wood floors, turquoise and red grinders and jiggling armoire-size sifters, will shut its doors. The J. M. Smucker Company, which bought the brand a year ago, has already begun producing White Lily at two plants in the Midwest, causing ripples of anxiety that Southern biscuits will never be the same.

Maribeth Badertscher, a spokeswoman for the company, said the new White Lily was the result of thorough product testing and promised that customers “won’t know the difference.” But in a blind test for The New York Times, two bakers could immediately tell the old from the new.

Read the complete story in the New York Times/ Dining.