YOU'RE COOKIN' IT COUNTRY: My Favorite Recipes and Memories

Set down in heavily vernacular style—"Daddy's favorite dish was possum. I would get so mad, because I didn't care for possum that well. I loved rabbit. In fact, I had a rabbit the last night I seen Patsy Cline. Squirrel's one of my favorites, too"—Lynn's memories rival her recipes for rustic style. The 150 dishes in this folksy scrapbook lean heavily on ingredients like flour and fat, including breakfast foods like Cat Head Biscuits (made with shortening), Country Sausage Gravy (made by stirring flour and milk into sausage drippings), Hominy Grits (a yummy blend of grits, cheddar cheese, eggs, butter and spices) and traditional Appalachian concoctions like Scotch Eggs, which calls for "bulk pork sausage." Main dishes include backcountry favorites like Country Fried Venison and Kentucky Frog Legs, while desserts run from Gooey Cake and Lemon Whippersnappers to varieties of fudge. Lynn's brief, homespun remarks about husband Doo's family and her Nashville contemporaries (among them Johnny and June Carter Cash and Crystal Gayle) may be a bigger attraction, although they aren't too substantial: e.g., "Tammy Wynette loved to eat, too. Me and Tammy cooked for each other a bunch." Still, country music fans who appreciate the author's music and don't count cholesterol or calories will find this a treat. Photos. (Sept. 8)