Alex Hitz, author of My Beverly Hills Kitchen: Classic Southern Cooking with a French Twist, has a down-to-earth food philosophy firmly grounded in his mother’s Atlanta kitchen as well as his childhood family home in France. As a teenager, he landed his first job in an Atlanta restaurant, The Patio by the River, which he later co-owned with one of his mentors, Mary Boyle Hataway. Alex trained at Le Cordon Bleu, Paris, and Peter Kump’s New York Cooking School, which became the Institute of Culinary Education. As exclusive food columnist at House Beautiful, Alex shared his step-by-step recipes, tips, and no-nonsense approach to cooking and entertaining in his monthly column, “Alex’s Kitchen.”