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" You can&amp;#039;t have too many cooks in the kitchen at the Yearwood house. Spend an afternoon with country music star Trisha, her sister, Beth, and their mom, Gwen, and you quickly see that delicious food and a lot of love and laughter are the recipe for good living, Yearwood-style. Trisha Yearwood&amp;#039;s childhood home in Monticello, GA, may be small, but every inch of it holds a favorite memory. &amp;quot;My dad basically built this house,&amp;quot; says Trisha, giving me a tour. We&amp;#039;re standing on the front porch of the one-story ranch, where a row of rocking chairs sits invitingly. &amp;quot;I have great memories of hammering the nails into the floor with him when I was 6 years old,&amp;quot; says Trisha. We walk inside and she points out a side table. &amp;quot;This is really funny: So this is not an expensive piece of furniture, but it was the first thing my parents had as a new young couple,&amp;quot; Trisha explains. &amp;quot;So my mom comes in one day \u2014 I was a kid and I had a metal car and I&amp;#039;d made all these dents in the table. And my mom was mortified: &amp;#039;My table!&amp;#039; But now she loves to say, &amp;#039;When Trisha was 2, she took her little car and beat the crap out of this table.&amp;#039;&amp;quot; It was in this house that the country superstar, now 44, grew up with her older sister, Beth, now a stay-at-home mother of three, mom Gwen, a former teacher, and father Jack, a farmer who died in 2005. These days, Trisha&amp;#039;s home base is Tulsa, OK, where she lives with her husband, Garth Brooks (they&amp;#039;ve been married for almost three years), and his three daughters from his first marriage (Taylor, 16, August, 14, and Allie, 12). But Trisha still makes plenty of trips back to Georgia. Her mom&amp;#039;s house has been the site of countless barbecues, fish fries, and birthday celebrations \u2014 in fact, so many treasured memories revolve around food that last year the Yearwood women decided to write a cookbook in order to record family anecdotes and have all their favorite recipes in one place. The result, Georgia Cooking in an Oklahoma Kitchen, came out this past spring and astonished all of its authors by shooting to the top of the New York Times best-seller list. It&amp;#039;s not hard to see why: Not only is the book filled with such tempting Southern fare as barbecued pork ribs and pecan-pie muffins, but it also contains family photos, chatty asides, and an introduction from Garth. On this sunny afternoon, all three Yearwood women are together at home. Inside Gwen&amp;#039;s cozy but efficient all-white kitchen, which has a grandchild&amp;#039;s crayon drawing on the fridge, there is a feast of homemade fried chicken and cornbread, and the coffee&amp;#039;s on. Trisha, her mom, and her sister load their plates and head for the living room and one of its five easy chairs arrayed in a companionable circle. (One has a pillow that reads, &amp;quot;Home Is Where the Heart Is.&amp;quot;) &amp;quot;This room felt so much bigger when we were kids,&amp;quot; says Trisha, as her sister nods. Trisha may be one of the biggest-selling female artists in country music history (her last album was 2007&amp;#039;s Heaven, Heartache, and the Power of Love), but at home, things remain comfortingly down to earth. As Trisha sits down and rests her plate of chicken on her knees, Gwen reaches over to a side table, takes out a padded lap caddy, and slips it underneath her daughter&amp;#039;s dish. Trisha rolls her eyes. &amp;quot;All of a sudden I&amp;#039;m 12 again,&amp;quot; she says. (Which, of course, is half the fun of staying at Mom&amp;#039;s.) Then the three of them settle in and, with much laughter, begin to talk about their two favorite subjects: family and food. What was the most challenging aspect of putting this cookbook together? Gwen: Deciding what to leave out, probably. Beth: And things we didn&amp;#039;t have a written recipe for! Like with some of Mama&amp;#039;s recipes, Trisha and I would ask Mama for measurements, and she&amp;#039;d say, &amp;quot;Oh, I just sprinkle in the salt.&amp;quot; Gwen: I&amp;#039;d just take the box of salt and shake it over the stew or the biscuits or whatever. So I actually took a pie pan and shook the box like I would if I were making the recipe, and then measured the salt in the pie pan. [Laughs] Trisha: And we&amp;#039;re all pretty much perfectionists. Mom, remember our conversation about how to identify the size of the pan? I&amp;#039;m like, &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s 9x12,&amp;quot; and you&amp;#039;re like, &amp;quot;No, technically the large number should go first. It&amp;#039;s 12x9.&amp;quot; And I&amp;#039;m like, &amp;quot;Yes, but nobody says &amp;#039;12x9&amp;#039;!&amp;quot; I was the final word on that one. How about the actual writing? What was hard and what was fun? Trisha: I enjoyed the process. The original idea was to hire a writer to interview us and then to write it in our words, but then I said, &amp;quot;You know, I would love a shot at writing it. I was an A student and I liked creative writing. If it stinks and you don&amp;#039;t like it, then we&amp;#039;ll hire someone to come in and do it.&amp;quot; I thought it would be fantastic if the book could have our real perspectives. And then the editors liked it!  How did you feel when you first heard that your cookbook had made the best-seller list? Gwen: My knees were actually weak. You know how you know where you were when certain things happen? I know exactly where I was. Patricia [that&amp;#039;s Trisha in Momspeak] was on a walk near her home in Oklahoma, and she called to tell me, and I didn&amp;#039;t think I heard her clearly. I said, &amp;quot;What did you say?&amp;quot;  Beth:Then when Mama called me, I said, &amp;quot;Could you say that number again?&amp;quot;  Gwen: We expected there to be interest in regional Southern cooking, or from country music fans. But we never dreamed it would be like this.  What are your fondest food memories from when you were growing up? Beth: Food is always an occasion in our family, even when it&amp;#039;s not formal. It might be that we&amp;#039;re making ice cream and we have our friends come out to share it, or we&amp;#039;re having a fish fry. Certainly after Trisha and I went to college, it was always about Daddy making something special when we came home \u2014 he&amp;#039;d cook steaks or grill chicken. Gwen, you used to make wedding cakes for extra income, right? Gwen:I had been a teacher, but I decided to stay home with my girls. My major in college was home economics, so I started making cakes for a little extra spending money. The biggest one was for Trisha&amp;#039;s wedding. That was some pressure! Trisha called me and said, &amp;quot;Mama, I want you to make my cake.&amp;quot; I hadn&amp;#039;t made one in 20 years at that point, and I said, &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t have pans. I don&amp;#039;t have anything.&amp;quot; She said, &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ll get you whatever you need \u2014 you make me a list.&amp;quot; So she had it all in Oklahoma, and I went out there and we got it done. Thank goodness it turned out nicely. Ahead of time, I baked three or four stunt cakes \u2014 we call them stunt cakes \u2014 to let everybody taste it. There are so many traditions in the book, like Sunday morning, when Gwen would put a roast in the oven so it was ready after church.  Beth: I walked in here yesterday and Mama had made a roast! You walk in and there&amp;#039;s just that smell. There it is. Gwen: I was picking up Patricia at the airport yesterday, and we were looking for a place to eat. I said I had cooked a roast for supper, and she said, &amp;quot;We can be at your place in an hour, can&amp;#039;t we?&amp;quot; [Laughs] Beth wasn&amp;#039;t sure she was going to get any.  Beth: I said, &amp;quot;Don&amp;#039;t eat it until I get there!&amp;quot; And in the book, you all talk about how everyone has their own favorite birthday cake. Gwen: They both want a caramel cake for their birthday, which shows how much I love those girls. Because you couldn&amp;#039;t hold a gun to my head to make it for you! [Everyone laughs] That icing is difficult, and it never turns out the same way twice. Beth: She hates to make that cake. It&amp;#039;s probably the hardest thing in the book to make. I remember doing it once and the icing just sort of rolling off the sides of the cake. Trisha: I started doing the birthday-cake thing for Garth \u2014 he&amp;#039;s a German-chocolate-cake guy \u2014 and that sort of evolved and I became the birthday-cake lady for everybody [in our family]! They all expect it now. In the book, you write that Garth once mournfully observed that it was a shame his birthday was only once a year, because that was the only time he got that cake. Trisha:It was definitely a hint. It was a pitiful, &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s only four more months until my birthday and I get that cake....&amp;quot; So the next day I made him one. Pretty pathetic, really. [Laughs]  One of the most touching stories in the book was when Trisha was really sick and far from home, and Gwen, you overnighted her some frozen chicken soup. Gwen: Who knew you could find dry ice here in Monticello? It was still frozen when she got it.  Trisha: When you&amp;#039;re sick, nobody takes care of you like your mom. And I hadn&amp;#039;t been living in Oklahoma that long, and I was hundreds of miles away from home, so that just kind of compounded the whole thing. I was so surprised when it showed up. You can&amp;#039;t go out and buy that kind of gift. I was crying and eating, crying and eating.  What sort of feedback have you gotten from your readers? Gwen: At a book signing, someone said, &amp;quot;These chicken and dumplings, these are so my grandmother&amp;#039;s dumplings, and I thought I would never have them again.&amp;quot; I loved that I could do that.  Trisha: Living in Tulsa now, I was really overwhelmed when we did the book signing there \u2014 we had such a huge turnout. We had as big a turnout there as we did here! Even the local grocery store is carrying it! So every time we&amp;#039;re in there shopping, Garth buys two copies. They keep restocking, but I guess he thinks they aren&amp;#039;t selling. [Everyone laughs] Every time he comes home from the grocery store, he&amp;#039;s got two cookbooks.  Trisha, what was it like to put out your first cookbook versus putting out an album? Trisha: It was similar. You really don&amp;#039;t have a clue how it&amp;#039;s going to be received. When I made my first album, there was no indication that anybody other than my parents were going to buy it. It&amp;#039;s been really great because I love to cook, and it&amp;#039;s important to me that people knew that I really cooked. When people compliment my cooking, it&amp;#039;s like somebody telling me that they like my music. And it&amp;#039;s great to be known for something else. [Looks down] Oops, I lost some cornbread down my shirt. Trisha and Beth, is there a memory for you that conjures up home? Trisha: When we would have a snowstorm or a thunderstorm and we&amp;#039;d lose power. Out here, we were one of the last people to get it turned back on, which for most people is a nightmare, but for us it was candles and playing cards and hanging out, and we cooked over the fire. I remember Daddy made hash browns over that fire once when we were in high school, and it was the best meal ever. And the other thing was that the table was the place where everybody got together at the end of our day. And inevitably, you would sit around talking until you got hungry again. And I think that planted it with our girls now. Their lives are so much busier than mine was at their age. But preparing a meal and sitting down together as a family keeps the family together, even if it&amp;#039;s just for that one time a day. Beth: I try to do that too. It does help if the kids help prepare. I&amp;#039;ve noticed that if my son cuts up vegetables and things, he&amp;#039;ll eat stuff that he helps make.  Is there any dish of your mother&amp;#039;s that you are afraid to attempt? Trisha: I didn&amp;#039;t really cook that much growing up because my mom cooked every day. It was a full meal on the table every night. Beth and I got the ice for the glasses and set the table \u2014 that was our job. But missing my mom&amp;#039;s food, missing her cooking \u2014 the first time I made something that was her recipe and it tasted like hers, I think it was potato salad, it was like, Oh, my gosh, the power. It was awesome to realize I could actually do that myself. And I&amp;#039;ve made her cheese straws, but I haven&amp;#039;t quite.... Gwen: You&amp;#039;re not ready yet. [Everyone laughs. Then Gwen and Beth are called back into the kitchen to take some photos. Trisha stays.] Your most radical recipe is the one where you bake the turkey for an hour at 500\u00B0F, shut off the oven, and then leave it in there for another six hours. I&amp;#039;m going to try it, but I&amp;#039;m nervous, I will tell you.  Trisha: I know, I know. Most people just go, &amp;quot;There&amp;#039;s no way.&amp;quot; All my friends go, &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;re going to get salmonella if you leave your turkey in the oven.&amp;quot; But when you turn your oven off, it&amp;#039;s still cooking. I&amp;#039;m just telling you, it works, it&amp;#039;s so easy, and it&amp;#039;s so good. Garth made me do a stunt turkey because he couldn&amp;#039;t believe it. So make one when you don&amp;#039;t have 13 people coming over, and then you&amp;#039;re confident for the big day. The hardest part is getting all the vegetables in the bird when you&amp;#039;re getting ready to cook it. It really is like packing a trunk of a car, so Garth does it. There are differences between sexes, and men really do pack a car better than women. So I say to him, &amp;quot;Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to take these vegetables, put them in that bird, and tie it up.&amp;quot; And he does. I don&amp;#039;t know how he does it. It&amp;#039;s a man thing.  Tradition is clearly important in your family. What sort of new traditions have you made in Oklahoma with Garth and your daughters?  Trisha: In Oklahoma, with the girls, we just want to find the excuse to get together and hang out, and that usually revolves around food. We didn&amp;#039;t have big Fourth of July parties here in Georgia, but we do that now. It just happened accidentally because one year my family was out visiting in Oklahoma, and it happened to be Fourth of July weekend, so we cooked some ribs and said, &amp;quot;We should do this every year.&amp;quot; So it&amp;#039;s kind of a new tradition. What has been your worst kitchen disaster? Trisha: Making a German-chocolate cake for Garth. The cake is very tender, and it can fall apart if you&amp;#039;re not careful. And I did something wrong, and the layers just fell to pieces. And when you make something from scratch, you don&amp;#039;t want to make it again, you know? And I was, I&amp;#039;m sure, in tears. And he was like, &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s going to taste great. You&amp;#039;re not taking it to a bake sale. So can you piece it together and frost it?&amp;quot; It was the ugliest cake! It looked like a volcano that exploded. But it tasted fine. I do have a photograph, which is not in the cookbook. [Laughs] You also mentioned that you&amp;#039;re sometimes reluctant to try new recipes. Is that getting any easier for you? Trisha:I&amp;#039;m getting better, and Garth is actually a really big part of that because he&amp;#039;ll be the guy who will say, &amp;quot;Let&amp;#039;s try this. Let&amp;#039;s try that.&amp;quot; Like, &amp;quot;Let&amp;#039;s make lasagna, but let&amp;#039;s try adding pepperoni, and chunk up the ground beef so it&amp;#039;s in really big pieces, and do the same thing with sausage.&amp;quot; He wants this real &amp;quot;he-man&amp;quot; lasagna, so we&amp;#039;re working on that. We&amp;#039;re still experimenting.  Sounds delicious. Have you thought about your own cooking show? Trisha: The truth is, when all this came about at first, I heard, &amp;quot;If this takes off, you can do your own cooking show, your own line of dishes \u2014 the possibilities are limitless.&amp;quot; And I&amp;#039;m like, &amp;quot;I do not want to do it. I don&amp;#039;t know how to tell people to make something.&amp;quot; But then we did a cooking promotion where the winners were flown to Nashville. At first I was uncomfortable, so I had the audience ask me questions while I cooked, and then I did some acoustic songs. It was almost like The Oprah Winfrey Show, plus food, plus music, and I thought, Well, that was really fun. So then I thought, Well, if they maybe shoot it in Tulsa, and I could have my life and find a way to do it that was creative and different that felt comfortable to me, it might work.  Your mom and sister could come on as guests. Trisha: You know, the first few book signings we did were with the three of us, and then the plan was that I would do some on my own. But after I did the first signing with them, I saw that people had just as many questions for my mom and Beth and were as excited to meet them as they were to meet me. [She smiles in the direction of the kitchen] I said, &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t want to do it without them. We&amp;#039;re a team.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.redbookmag.com/food-recipes/interviews/a3923/trisha-yearwood-interview/>