Siblings Matt and Ted grew up and learned to cook in Charleston, South Carolina, in a townhouse on the city’s fabled Rainbow Row. They attended colleges in the Northeast and so missed the foods of their hometown they founded The Lee Bros. Boiled Peanuts Catalogue, a mail-order source for southern pantry staples in 1994. When a magazine editor asked them to write a story about traveling around South Carolina, they embarked on a second career as food journalists and cookbook authors.

Since 2000, they have written hundreds of food, wine and travel features for magazines and newspapers and their three cookbooks have, combined, won two James Beard Awards and four IACP Cookbook Awards. They were on-air commentators for seven seasons of The Cooking Channel’s hit series Unique Eats, and hosts of Southern Uncovered with The Lee Bros. on Ovation

More recently, Matt and Ted created Cookbook Boot Camp, a two-day seminar that shows aspiring cookbook authors how to complete and sell their cookbook proposals to national publishers. Their most recent book, Hotbox: Inside Catering, the Food World’s Riskiest Business, was named one of 2019’s best books by Amazon and The New York Times Book Review called it “The Kitchen Confidential of big-ticket catering.” They are currently working to transform Hotbox into a documentary series for TV.

Matt, his wife Gia, and their three sons live in Charleston, SC. Ted lives with his wife, the artist E.V. Day, in Brooklyn, NY.