Best of Nashville
Arts & Entertainment
Best Local Cookbook
Around the Opry Table, Kay West
The best cookbooks aren't just instruction manuals: They sum up a whole way of life using food as a prism or organizing principle. Between Johnny Cash's mother's recipe for Scripture Cake—written entirely in code derived from Bible citations—and Dierks Bentley's for paella, the history of country music's shift from rural roots to big-city commerce is encapsulated in Kay West's lovingly assembled, anecdotal Grand Ole Opry cookbook. The recipes are unpretentious and practical, remnants of a time when food was both currency and a gift, and West, a longtime Scene contributor on everything from food to baseball, relishes the memories they bring back. We've come a long way since Uncle Dave Macon asked Roy Acuff to lug an emergency stash of ham along with them on the road. But thankfully, not too far. —JIM RIDLEY
