May 7, 2008

Cooking, Yearwood-style

Trisha, sister Beth and mom Gwen send down-home cookbook climbing up the charts

By BETSY PRICE
The News Journal

After Trisha Yearwood and her sister, Beth, moved out of their parents' Georgia home, they weren't shy about calling mom frequently.

"Usually, their first words were, 'Mom, I've got a cooking question,'" Gwen Yearwood remembers.

Trisha called so often after she moved to Oklahoma, first to Tulsa and then Oklahoma City, where the country music star is married to fellow country legend Garth Brooks, that Gwen and Beth put all the family's favorite recipes into a notebook and mailed it to Trisha for her birthday.

"Georgia Recipes for an Oklahoma Kitchen" they wrote on the cover. It was full of the simple, down-home recipes that families never really write down, because they never really measure what they're tossing into a dish.

Today, those recipes are riding the New York Times best-seller list at No. 3 in the Yearwoods' "Georgia Cooking in an Oklahoma Kitchen: Recipes from My Family to Yours" (Clarkson Potter, $30), a fact that stunned Gwen when Trisha called to tell her a couple of weeks ago.

"I couldn't speak," Gwen remembers. Trisha and Garth actually were on a four-mile walk through wooded property when Trisha called, and Gwen assumed she didn't hear her correctly.

"I said, 'Say again,' " Gwen remembers. Trisha said it again.

"My knees actually got weak," she says.

But don't think having a best-seller with your mom might make finding a Mother's Day present just a wee bit tough.

"Trisha would say this is hokey, but this is true," Gwen says. "Every day is Mother's Day with my two daughters."

The mom and sisters don't worry too much about being together today on a certain day. They often send cards and flowers, but for this Mother's Day, Trisha asked her mom to come hang out with her and Garth and help build a Habitat for Humanity house in Biloxi, Miss., with former President Carter and his wife, Rosalyn.

"I'm really looking forward to that," Gwen says.

Memoir idea rejected

The cookbook came about after the publishers first asked Trisha to write a memoir.

No way, Trisha said.

"I'm not sure I'd ever want to do that, but if I did, it would be 20 years from now," she told them.

Trisha thought she might like to write a cookbook, though.

"I would want to make sure that people understood that I really cook. It's not just me putting my face on the cover," she told them. "And I want to do it with my mom and sister."

The publishers agreed, and then tried to line her up with a ghost writer. Trisha countered that she wanted to put her own pen to paper. Publishers liked what she wrote, and Team Yearwood team went forward.

"We sat down and worked on it for a year," Trisha said. In addition to the notebook, they had all kinds of scraps of paper with recipes and notes written on them. But a lot of recipes didn't have exact measurements, and the family had to stop and figure out exactly how much of an ingredient they used -- and a few other things.

"My mom's fried chicken is in the book, and the first time I wanted to make it, I called her and said, 'How long do you cook it?'"

"Until it sounds right," her mother said.

"And I thought, welllll ... OK," Trisha remembers with a laugh. "But she's right. Once you've fried chicken, you get it. It does make a lot of noise when you put it into the

grease, and when it's ready to turn over, it gets quiet. But in a cookbook, you have to give an indication of about five minutes."

It started with desserts

Gwen, who lives in Monticello, Ga., about 60 miles southeast of Atlanta, grew up on a farm as a pea sheller, corn shucker and dishwasher and cooked "easy things," she says.

"I was given the responsibility mostly of making desserts, because that's what I liked to do. I can remember baking chocolate layer cakes. But the basic cooking, the day-to-day things, I didn't do that. My mom did."

Her two girls learned to cook the same way, starting with cakes and cookies, she says.

"They didn't really need to cook until they got away from home and had to provide their own food."

Most of the recipes in the cookbook are simple, and don't use the fancy ingredients and complicated techniques that can be found in many high-end cookbooks.

"I don't think people really cook like that," Trisha says. "I love cookbooks. I own a ton. But I never cook out of them because they are too complicated. I think sometimes trying to add something to a recipe or make it more exotic or unique or meaningful takes the basic flavor out of the food."

She suspects that the simplicity of the food is one reason response has been so good.

"I've been joking about this, but it's true -- the most exotic spices in this book are salt and pepper," Trisha says.

Sunday morning memories

Gwen describes herself as a meat and vegetables person and says that the Roast Beef with Gravy recipe is probably her favorite.

"That's a Sunday morning memory," she says. "That was an easy thing to put into the oven and have it cook when you were at church. Then you'd walk in and smell it cooking and all you had to do was put it on the table with rice and gravy and salt and pepper."

Trisha says that Garth is a meat and potato guy, and his favorite recipes in the book are the roast beef, meatloaf and German Chocolate Cake, which Trisha makes every year for his birthday.

Her three stepdaughters -- 15-, 13- and 11-years-old -- love her mashed potatoes, she says.

"They would eat that with cardboard," Trisha says.

She tends to prefer the vegetables.

"There are more desserts in this cookbook than anything, but I'm probably more of a salt person," Trisha says. "I would pick the fried chicken over the cake any day."

Just don't expect her to be the kind of cook who plans a week's menus and buys everything she'll need in one visit to the grocery store.

Close to a family scrapbook

The book is packed with photos and the Yearwoods' memories of Jack, Gwen's husband and the girls' father. He died about two years ago.

Some of Gwen's friends have said the cookbook is almost more of a family scrapbook for the folks who know the family.

"If I ever did another one, it wouldn't be the same," Trisha says. "This one is so special, and it's the recipes that we grew up on."

Gwen thinks the best thing about the cookbook has been spending all the time she has with her daughters working on it, and now signing books at various appearances.

And she's learned a thing or two about handing out recipes.

She said she not only has she had to field her daughter's calls about recipes, but also as Trisha's star rose, lots of other folks call for Yearwood recipes to include in various fund-raising projects.

But Gwen doesn't worry any more about having to recall the recipes.

"I finally put mine on a computer," she says, "so all I have to do is find it and e-mail."

GERMAN CHOCOLATE CAKE WITH COCONUT FROSTING

Yearwood makes this birthday cake for her husband, country rock star Garth Brooks.

4 ounces sweet dark chocolate

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, at room temperature

1/4 cup warm milk

2 1/2 cups sifted cake flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

5 medium egg whites

2 cups sugar

5 medium egg yolks, at room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3/4 cup buttermilk, well shaken

COCONUT FROSTING

1 cup sugar

4 medium egg yolks

1 cup evaporated milk

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

10 ounces fresh or frozen and thawed grated coconut (Don't use canned or shredded; it won't work when spreading the frosting.)

1 1/2 cups finely ground pecans, walnuts or almonds

Prepare the chocolate by melting it in the top of a double boiler, stirring until it is smooth. Add 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) of the butter and stir until it is melted and blended. Add 1/4 cup of warm milk and stir until smooth. Set the chocolate aside to cool.

Preheat the oven to 350.

Line the bottom only of three 9-inch cake pans with circles of parchment paper, or grease each pan bottom only with solid shortening and dust lightly with flour. Stir together the sifted and measured flour, baking soda and salt.

Whip the egg whites until stiff using the wire beater of the mixer. Transfer the beaten whites to a separate bowl and set aside. In a mixer bowl, cream the remaining 1 1/2 sticks of butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the egg yolks, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the melted, cooled chocolate and the vanilla. Mix well. With the mixer on very low, stir in the flour mixture alternately with the buttermilk. Do this by adding about a third of the flour and slowly stirring it in completely. Then add about half the buttermilk and stir it in. Continue adding flour and buttermilk in this manner, ending with flour. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl and stir again. With a long-handled spoon or spatula, fold and stir the beaten egg whites into the batter until the batter is smooth with no visible clumps of whites. Divide the batter evenly between the prepared pans and bake for 30 to 40 minutes. Bake on the middle rack of the oven, allowing at least 1/4-inch clearance between the pans and the oven walls.

The cake will rise above the pan edges as it bakes but will not spill over and will settle back down as it continues to bake. The cake is done when it begins to pull away from the sides of the pans and springs back to a light touch. Cool layers in the pans for about 8 minutes.

Run a knife around the edges of each pan and turn the layers out onto wire racks that have been sprayed with cooking spray. Cool layers completely before frosting.

To make the frosting, combine the sugar, egg yolks, and evaporated milk in the top of a double boiler. (You can use a regular saucepan, but be sure to stir it constantly, as it scorches quite easily.) Stir with a wire whisk until the yolks are fully incorporated. Add the butter, place over simmering water and bring to a boil. Simmer for 12 to 15 minutes longer, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens. Add the vanilla, coconut, and nuts. Cool.

To assemble the cake, place one layer on a cake stand and spread with frosting. Frost each layer completely, top and sides, as it is added to the cake. Makes 12 servings.

GWEN'S FRIED CHICKEN WITH MILK GRAVY

Trisha Yearwood says the secret to her mom Gwen's tasty chicken is an overnight soak in a salt brine. The recipe is from her new cookbook "Georgia Cooking in an Oklahoma Kitchen" (Clarkson Potter, 2008.) Yearwood says when chicken fries it will "talk" to you. Chicken will sound louder as it beings to fry because of the water cooking out into the fat. It quiets down as it gets closer to being done.

8 serving pieces of chicken, light or dark meat

2 tablespoons salt

2 cups peanut oil

1 teaspoon black pepper

2 cups all-purpose flour

Put the chicken pieces in a large bowl and cover them with water. Sprinkle the salt in the water, cover the bowl, and refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight.

Pour oil into an electric frying pan or deep, heavy skillet to a depth of 1 inch. Heat the oil to 375 degrees. (Check the temperature by sprinkling flour over the oil. If the flour sizzles, the oil is hot enough.) Drain the water from the chicken, sprinkle each piece with pepper, and coat the pieces with flour. Carefully place the chicken in the hot oil. Place the cover on the pan and open the vent to allow a small amount of steam to escape. Cook for 15 minutes. Remove the cover and, using tongs, turn each piece of chicken. Replace the cover and cook for 15 minutes more, or until done. Use a sharp, thin-bladed knife to check for doneness by slicing a drumstick to the bone. Neither the meat nor the juices should be pink. Drain the chicken on paper towels and keep warm while you make the gravy.

Pour off all but 4 tablespoons of the oil from the pan in which the chicken was fired, leaving the bits of browned flour in the pan. Sprinkle in the 4 tablespoons flour. Stirring with a wire whisk, cook the flour and drippings until the flour is browned, about 1 minute. Slowly stir in the milk and cook until the gravy thickens, 5 to 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Pass the chicken and gravy separately. Makes 4 to 6 servings.

MILK GRAVY

4 tablespoons oil

4 tablespoons all-purpose flour

2 cups milk

Salt and pepper to taste


http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dl.../LIFE/805070301

It would have been nice if they had checked the actual town where they live-its neither Tulsa or Oklahoma City

I took it as they were just either giving those towns as reference points, as they were major ones, or they were trying to guard her privacy.

I would think the first is more likely. If you want to find G&T's home, it's not that hard. It's huge, and everybody and their Aunt Mildred goes up to their front gate to leave a letter or poster or flowers or something.[/color]

I hope one day she does decide on a memoir. It would be really cool. But it is way too soon!

Cool article...I've been busy so I'm just now getting around to seeing it. Thanks for posting it, Sandi.