Why does your page look like this?

 

Email this story
Print this story
Write the editor

 

 

In This Section

---

So Small, and Right on the Street Jim McGuire’s photos preserve the Ryman days of the Opry

 

 

In This Issue

---

Honing Her Skillet For Penelope Pfuntner, running a breakfast spot is no short order

So Small, and Right on the Street Jim McGuire’s photos preserve the Ryman days of the Opry

Camera-Ready Spoon’s latest achieves a messy perfection

Lady Sings the Blues (And Country) Blues singer Tracy Nelson returns with a collection of country classics

Russian Roulette Pianist Olga Kern alternates between grace and bombast at the Schermerhorn

The Name Game

A Breath of Fresh Air It’s time to ban smoking for good in Metro Parks

 

 

By This Author

---

Honing Her Skillet For Penelope Pfuntner, running a breakfast spot is no short order

Out of the Wilderness If Wildwood keeps things up, it just might blossom into—gasp!—a chain

All You Can Eat Mark your calendars for a flurry of restaurant debuts

Frist Impressions Burdened by its own beauty, the Frist Center Café struggles to meet high expectations

Yellow Fever California Pizza Kitchen brings its sunny concept to Nashville—this is Nashville, right?

New Neighbors Whitfield’s revamps to satisfy Belle Meade’s grown-up appetites

The Land of ’Za Slicing and dicing the pie-d landscape of East Nashville

 

 

The Author

---

Carrington Fox

Carrington Fox is the food critic for the Nashville Scene.

 

.

Oh, to be on duty at Nashville Fire Department Station 9 when Kay West began work on Around the Opry Table: A Feast of Recipes and Stories From the Grand Ole Opry (Center Street, 304 pp., $24.99). Her anthology of recipes from the Opry family required not only days in the library stacks, but also endless hours in her own test kitchen whipping up the down-home recipes of everyone from Texas Ruby to Martina McBride. Someone had to eat all those batches of Alan Jackson’s pimiento cheese and Mona Dickens’ (a.k.a. Mrs. Little Jimmy Dickens) chicken casserole, and Station 9 met the challenge.

A primer on country music and Southern food, Around the Opry Table narrates the evolution of the world’s longest-running radio show, from its humble beginnings as a marketing program for an insurance company to its modern-day status as an international icon. As a longtime food critic and contributor to the Scene, as well as a People correspondent covering country music celebrities, West brings unique insight to the overlap of food and music in Music City. She strings together recipes, food-related anecdotes and lyrics to high-calorie anthems such as Hank Williams’ “Jambalaya” to create a hybrid of family album and cookbook.

Around the Opry Table reads like a culinary roll call of country music’s finest. There’s Marty Robbins’ Favorite Carrot Cake, Minnie Pearl’s Roquefort dressing and Alison Krauss’ Pretty Good for a Yankee Chicken Pot Pie. (Not surprisingly, many of the recipes come from the wives and mothers of the stars.) This growing-up-at-the-table tale starts with Uncle Dave Mason prevailing upon a young Roy Acuff to carry a ham across the country for him in case there was no ham in Hollywood, and it ends with the global menu of panzanella and paella at Dierks Bentley’s Opry induction party.

With short chapters on more than 50 acts and features on Opry staples, including Goo Goo Clusters, Martha White and Cracker Barrel Old Country Stores, Around the Opry Table offers a privileged glimpse into the backstage lives and larders of some of country music’s most beloved personalities. West will sign Around the Opry Table at David-Kidd Booksellers Oct. 30 at 6 p.m. There’s sure to be a plate of Bill Anderson’s sugar cookies at the event.