Dolly Parton Is Writing a Cookbook!!!!!
Dolly Parton Is Writing a Cookbook!!!!!
The rare 5 exclamation point headline.
Howdy cookbook fans!
I hope everyone is having a lovely Friday! A very special hello to any of you who found your way here from APR’s Marketplace. I was thrilled to be included in their story on the sustained appeal of print cookbooks in an age when recipes for just about everything can be found online. You can read and/or listen to the story here.
Anyway, newsletter is running late today because honestly there wasn’t very much news…until I stumbled upon a single line in an interview that was a big enough story to carry the newsletter all on its own. More on that shortly.
SPN HQ update! I made Amy Thielan’s gin sage chicken the New York Times called “the best chicken [they’ve] ever had” and it was VERY GOOD. It’s in her upcoming cookbook Company, which I am very excited for. Also, I made the wild rice pilaf from Tanya Holland’s California Soul. Also very good. (They’d actually be pretty good together.)
Oh also! Thank you to everyone who reached out to ask if we were okay during the ice storm this week. We were fine, we didn’t lose power. We did lose a few giant tree branches but it’s gonna be okay. If you are looking for a good place to donate some dollars, my rec is Good Work Austin, who help restaurants and other food businesses organize and donate meals during catastrophes like this storm (and the subsequent/ongoing power outages). They also help those same restaurants establish better employment policies, health care, paid sick leave, that kind of thing. They’re good people! Give ‘em money!
Okay on to the news.
AWARDS SEASON The RUSA Book & Media Awards were announced at the end of January at the American Library Association’s annual meeting. These included a list of 2022’s “Essential Cookbooks,” a list of 12 cookbooks recommended for public libraries. See the list here.
Dolly Parton, America’s Favorite, Is Writing a Cookbook
Okay this is literally all I have on this: Dolly Parton is working on a cookbook with her sister Rachel, the country star told Forbes. (Not me, the website.) “I’m writing a cookbook with my sister Rachel.” That’s all she said. That’s all I’ve got.
Parton is no stranger to the cookbook game: in 2006, she published Dolly's Dixie Fixin's: Love, Laughter and Lots of Good Food with Viking Studio. The beloved country star previously contributed recipes to 1989’s Dollywood Presents: Tennessee Mountain Home Cooking (copies of which go for $250 used!!) and 1986’s Cooking With the Country Stars. She has been on the record for a long, long time talking about what a good home cook she is (as evidenced in her many recent plugs for her partnership with Duncan-Hines). This thing is gonna print money.
A huge supporter (understatement?) of literacy efforts, Parton has written a ton of books, from picture books to a collaboration with bestselling novelist James Patterson. While she has an upcoming title mentioned in Publishers Marketplace—a picture book—there’s nothing in there about the cookbook.
As ever, updates as I get them.
KICKSTARTIN’ Australian chef/photographer Dennis Tierney is raising funds to publish The Stranded Chef, a collection of food and travel photography with recipes. The book looks gorgeous. AU$89 gets you a copy!
Just the other day, I was looking up country star Miranda Lambert’s upcoming book, Y’all Eat Yet?, and I was surprised to see she recorded an audiobook version of it! You don’t get that a lot, cookbook audiobooks. Anyway, Katherine A Powers, who reviews audiobooks, wrote a whole column about “why some books should not be made into audiobooks,” cookbooks among them…and then names a couple that do in fact work. [WaPo]
The history of Pakrajeshwar, the first Indian cookbook and first cookbook written in Bengali, published 1831. [Scroll.in]
50 years later, the story of Abby Fisher’s What Mrs. Fisher Knows About Old Southern Cooking, the second (known) cookbook written by a Black woman in the US in 1881. [Face2Face]
Do you have family recipes that originated in the great state of Maryland? If so, the Great Maryland Recipe Hunt would like to hear from you! More on the project here.
How to use Live Text to digitize your favorite recipes. [TidBITS]
18 cookbooks that British Vogue thinks everyone should own. [Vogue UK]
Remember When Our Moms Used the Same Island Cookbooks: a look at Hawaii’s Favorite Island Cookery series. [Honolulu Magazine]
Inside 1960’s The I Hate to Cookbook by Peg Bracken. [Eater]
Cookbook Reviews
Joe’s Family Food by Joe Wicks [Glam Adelaide]
The Woks of Life by Bill, Judy, Sarah and Kaitlin Leung [AJC]
Parsi by Farokh Talati [Big Hospitality]
Parsi by Farokh Talati [Glam Adelaide]
The 13th edition of The Betty Crocker Cookbook [Reading Eagle]
Okay pals that’s all for today! Have a good weekend! Make the gin chicken! See you next week!
The Woks of Life book is good, based on early returns. Gave it to my mom for her birthday, but before mailing it to her we cooked one recipe. Instructions were super clear, flavors were super bold and well-balanced. I have a lot of Chinese-adjacent books (only like a third of them by Fuchsia) but might buy my own copy.