Dolly Parton Talks About Her New Cookbook

When Dolly Parton walks into the kitchen of her youngest sister, Rachel Parton George, she’ll usually sing out: “Hey good lookin’, what ya obtained cookin’?” The road from a 1951 Hank Williams music has grow to be one thing of a Parton household joke — and it additionally impressed the title of the sisters’ newest collaboration, “Good Lookin’ Cookin,'” a recipe e book launched this month.

The e book options 80 dishes and drinks organized into month-to-month menus. Readers will discover Southern classics — fried trout, corn fritters, and purple-and-white-cabbage coleslaw — interspersed with tales from the sisters’ childhoods in Tennessee and of their years touring and performing collectively. Journey + Leisure spoke to them about meals, household, and discovering the right recipes.

T+L: Are you able to share a meals reminiscence from rising up?

Dolly Parton: A lot of our life was centered across the church, and Mama cooked an enormous Sunday dinner after. We’d have fried hen, mashed potatoes, biscuits, banana pudding — all that stuff. 

Rachel Parton George: I can nonetheless keep in mind how sizzling and flaky the biscuits had been within the morning, together with the scent of bacon and occasional. These recollections nonetheless fill me with such a way of residence.

What impressed you to create this e book?

DP: I had written a few books already about my songwriting. Rachel is admittedly the good cook dinner in our household, and she will make meals look good and style good — that’s the place the title got here from. She had wished to put in writing one and stated, “Wouldn’t it’s nice if we did full menus, out of your drinks and appetizers during?” 

RPG: Dolly and I make a fantastic mixture. I like to put in writing the recipes and sensible data, and Dolly likes to inform tales — and he or she does that so effectively.

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Is there a recipe you’ll be able to’t appear to get proper?

RPG: Mama’s cathead biscuits! (They’re referred to as that as a result of they’re so massive.) She would incorporate the lard, milk, and flour in such a means, and it was so wonderful to observe her work the dough. I’ve tried to duplicate that 1,000,000 instances, however they’re nonetheless totally different from Mama’s. 

DP: I feel that lacking ingredient you’ll be able to by no means fairly get is love. The factor we lengthy for is that individual, and the love they put in that dish.

What’s a spot that’s at all times stayed with you?

RPG: One in every of my favourite locations I’ve ever visited was Lake Tahoe. We skied actually badly, however had lots of enjoyable performing there within the late 70s.

DP: We’ve traveled all around the world, however I at all times sit up for visiting my kinfolk in East Tennessee.

What’s your go-to room service order?

RPG: A membership sandwich.

DP: Oh, simply the truth that they’ve room service! 

“Good Lookin’ Cookin’: A 12 months of Meals” is on the market on Sept. 17 from Ten Pace Press.

A model of this story first appeared within the October 2024 concern of Journey + Leisure below the headline “Collectively, At all times.”