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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEContact: Maura Connelly / 843-379-7025maura@patconroyliterarycenter.orgThe Conroy Center and the Anchorage 1770 Inn to Hosta Southern Living Inspired Event: Cook the BookWith James Beard Award-winning Chef and Cookbook Author Cynthia GraubartBEAUFORT, SC - Southern Living, the Pat Conroy Literary Center, and the Anchorage 1770Inn are excited to announce the first Cook The Book: Sharing Recipes, Wine & Words, aspecial event to be held Saturday, May 19, from 4:00%u20139:00 p.m. at the Anchorage 1770(1103 Bay St., Beaufort, SC). The inaugural Cook the Book will be presented by renownedsouthern chef Cynthia Graubart, and will focus on recipes from her recent cookbook SundaySuppers (2017). The event has three components: Cynthia will give a cooking demonstrationof three recipes from Sunday Suppers assisted by Anchorage chef Byron Landis, followed bya book and apron signing with wine and appetizers on the veranda, and culminating with afour-course dinner complete with hand-selected wine pairings in the dining room.This new venture was inspired by Pat Conroy%u2019s passion for cooking and his perennial searchfor a new recipe. Pat opens his 2004 cookbook with the words, %u201cThe subject of food isnearly a sacred one to me.%u201d His lifelong passion for cooking was first ignited in 1969 andonly became more intense as he grew older. Many of his readers are familiar with anotherquote from his cookbook, %u201ca recipe is a story that ends with a good meal.%u201dCynthia Graubart is an ideal chef to launch the new Cook the Book series, which celebratesfoodways, writing, and fellowship. When Pat first began cooking in earnest, he turned toCynthia%u2019s husband Cliff for guidance. It was 1969 and Pat%u2019s first wife had appointed himfamily chef. He ventured to the Old New York Bookshop in Atlanta, asking for Graubart%u2019shelp. According to Pat%u2019s recollections, Cliff, fearing the Conroy clan demise by starvation,handed Pat an edition of Auguste Escoffier%u2019s cookbook. And so Pat%u2019s culinary adventuresbegan, and he became the epicurean %u2018magician%u2019, the soup %u2018sorcerer%u2019, turning %u201cthe art ofstealing recipes into both a hobby and an art.%u201dCynthia%u2019s newest cookbook, Sunday Suppers extols the virtues of the Sunday supper. Shesays the Sunday %u2018supper%u2019 was different than the Sunday %u2018dinner%u2019, a little less formal, butalwaysjustascomfortingbecauseit%u2019salwaysaboutfamilytimespentatthediningtable.InDAYLO Honored with a SCLA Intellectual Freedom Award Founded in 2021, DAYLO, or Diversity Awareness Youth Literacy Organization, is a student-led book club and community literacy service group fostering empathy and understanding through the power of story, with a growing number of chapters across South Carolina, including five chapters in Beaufort County. DAYLO was recently awarded an honorable mention for the South Carolina Library Association%u2019s 2024 Intellectual Freedom Award. Presented at the SCLA%u2019s statewide conference in Columbia, the Intellectual Freedom Award recognizes those in the library services and advocacy community who have contributed to an awareness of intellectual freedom and censorship issues in South Carolina libraries%u2014on the local, state, or national level. The student leaders and advisors of DAYLO, and their mentors Claire Bennett and Jonathan Haupt, are honored to be commended by the SCLA with this honorable mention%u2014and all the more so in a year in which the Intellectual Freedom Award was presented to past South Carolina Association of School Librarians (SCASL) president Tamara Cox. In 2024, DAYLO was also recognized with a national commendation from the American Association of School Librarians at the recommendation of the SCASL and presented at the statewide SCASL conference. The South Carolina Education Association (SCEA) also awarded DAYLO their Richard W. Riley Award for Human & Civil Rights at their statewide awards dinner. DAYLO was first established at Beaufort High in 2021 by Holland Perryman, then a high school junior, inspired by literary and social justice community programs she experienced as an intern of the nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center. During the 2022-2023 school year, six DAYLO students from Beaufort High, Beaufort Academy, and Battery Creek High spoke out in public comments at Beaufort County School Board meetings in response to challenges against 97 books in district school libraries. In early 2024, five DAYLO students from Beaufort High, Beaufort Academy, USC Beaufort, and Charleston%u2019s Academic Magnet High School also spoke publicly against statewide restrictions impacting the freedom to read, as documented in a nationally broadcast segment for Nick News. The inspiring advocacy of DAYLO students has led to additional opportunities regionally and nationally, and has empowered the creation of new DAYLO chapters across South Carolina. DAYLO%u2019s student-led pro-literacy efforts have also been profiled nationally in the feature-length documentary film Banned Together, and in Education Week, Book Riot, Publishers Weekly, and School Library Journal, in addition to front-page news stories in the Charleston Post and Courier and The Island News. DAYLO students have spoken at the annual conferences of the American Library Association, South Carolina Association of School Librarians, South Carolina Council of the Teachers of English, and Palmetto State Literacy Association, as well as in virtual events hosted by the American Library Association, PEN America, the Children%u2019s Book Council, the Right to Read Network of the National Coalition Against Censorship, EveryLibrary%u2019s Library Advocacy and Funding Conference, and as keynote presenters at the 12th annual Dufford Diversity and Inclusion Week at Newberry College. In addition to being on-campus book clubs, current DAYLO student leaders and members enhance community literacy efforts through community read-alouds at the Port Royal Farmers Market on first Saturdays, by stocking dozens of little free libraries across our communities with inclusive books for all ages, by decorating and donating little library book boxes for local laundromats and a food pantry, by facilitating the annual Beaufort Human Library, and by collaborating with the Conroy Center to host local and visiting authors at public events like the Lowcountry Children%u2019s Book Fair, Lowcountry Book Club Convention, March Forth, and the Pat Conroy Literary Festival. To learn more about DAYLO%u2019s pro-literacy community service outreach and continued advocacy for the right to read freely, please follow DAYLO on Instagram at www.instagram.com/daylo_reads or Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/DAYLO.reads.50 January 2025 | BeaufortLifestyle.com