Dolly Parton and Rachel Parton George Discuss Solid Iron, Rooster and Dumplings, and Pleasure

Tinfoil Swans Podcast

On this episode

Dolly Parton is an American icon for all the precise causes. She’s all the time been unabashedly herself, using that authenticity, work ethic, humor, expertise, and beauty to make enduring artwork — and use her hard-earned platform and money to help causes pricey to her coronary heart. She and her sister, Rachel Parton George, lately co-authored the cookbook Good Lookin’ Cookin’ and the 2 joined us on Tinfoil Swans for a rollicking chat about being pleased with the place you are from, consuming bear and squirrel meat, feeling insecure in eating places, taking good care of cast-iron, and the enjoyment of chosen household.

Meet our friends

Tennessee-born Dolly Parton is a legendary singer, songwriter, actress, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and writer. She has been nominated for 50 Grammy Awards and has received 11 instances, bought greater than 100 million data worldwide, been inducted into the Nation Music Corridor of Fame and Rock and Roll Corridor of Fame, and has had songs on the nation music charts in seven consecutive many years. Because the Eighties, Parton’s nonprofit Dollywood Basis has donated hundreds of thousands of {dollars} to help childhood literacy packages, restoration for victims of the Gatlinburg fires, and most lately, aid efforts within the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.

Rachel Parton George is the youngest of the 12 Parton siblings. She had a starring function within the TV sitcom 9 to five, carried out onstage internationally alongside her relations, and cast a songwriting profession of her personal. She has lengthy been an avid collector of recipes and cookbooks, and as co-author of Good Lookin’ Cookin’, she makes her debut on the cabinets.

Meet our host

Kat Kinsman is the chief options editor at Meals & Wine, writer of Hello, Anxiousness: Life With a Dangerous Case of Nerves, host of Meals & Wine’s podcast, and founding father of Cooks With Points. Beforehand, she was the senior meals & drinks editor at Additional Crispy, editor-in-chief and editor at massive at Tasting Desk, and the founding editor of CNN Eatocracy. She received a 2024 IACP Award for Narrative Meals Writing With Recipes and a 2020 IACP Award for Private Essay/Memoir, and has had work included within the 2020 and 2016 editions of The Greatest American Meals Writing. She was nominated for a James Beard Broadcast Award in 2013, received a 2011 EPPY Award for Greatest Meals Web site with 1 million distinctive month-to-month guests, and was a finalist in 2012 and 2013. She is a sought-after worldwide keynote speaker and moderator on meals tradition and psychological well being within the hospitality trade, and is the previous vice chair of the James Beard Journalism Committee.

Highlights from the episode

On delight and ingenuity

“I’ve all the time been pleased with who I’m, the place I am from, and what I ate. To me, it is enjoyable to inform individuals, ‘My dad and my brothers used to exit into the woods, they usually’d convey residence rabbit, and squirrels, and all kinds a issues. And we knew find out how to prepare dinner it. We knew find out how to put together it.’ However we did eat issues that individuals suppose, ‘Oh my God. You ate that?’ If you stay within the nation, you make do with what you bought. And also you’re additionally a great prepare dinner, so you can also make nearly something style good. Some issues we didn’t eat, like opossum. However I assume if we might have gotten hungry sufficient, you would do this.” — Dolly Parton

On getting snug at eating places — or not

“I bear in mind feeling awkward for a very long time, being from the nation, after I first got here to Nashville and having to go have conferences in eating places. Trigger we did not go to eating places and after we did, it was only a gap within the wall little nation factor, the place they’d serve the identical sort of meals we grew up consuming. However I used to be all the time so nervous, trigger I did not know find out how to use the precise fork, or the precise spoon, or the precise glass. Even to at the present time I am undecided I understand how to do all that. So I simply bear in mind being uneasy, making an attempt to observe different individuals, see what they had been doing so I would not make any massive errors. For nation individuals, while you’re not used to that, it is very uneasy. I nonetheless generally tend after I’m at massive banquets and stuff, to make sure I am watching to verify I’ve obtained the precise factor on the proper time — the precise fork, and all that.” — Dolly Parton

On getting slightly corny

“Let me let you know a enjoyable one about me and Rachel after we had been speaking about going into eating places to eat. First time we ordered off the menu corned beef and cabbage. And after they introduced it we stated, ‘Nicely, the place’s my corn?’ So when the waiter approached, he stated, ‘Nicely, um, you did not order corn.’ I stated, ‘Nicely, it stated corn beef. Might you convey us some corn?’ Anyway, we’re getting goofy, now.” — Dolly Parton

On individuals who hold secret recipes

“I need everybody to be so pleased and profitable after they make any of those recipes. I need it to be incredible, and I do know individuals like that.” — Rachel Parton George

“Nicely, I do maintain again on a few issues myself, trigger that [chicken and dumplings] recipe’s not even within the e book. I’ve a number of little issues that I make, that everyone desires me to present them the recipe. I say, ‘I’m not doing it.’ They stated, ‘Nicely, it’s important to do it earlier than you die.’ I stated, ‘No. You are simply going to need to miss me and say, God, I want she was nonetheless right here.’ You simply have to recollect me if you do not know precisely what it was. However I did not even attempt to put these recipes in. I did not maintain again on that. Rachel would not let me do this. She’s too severe about all this.” — Dolly Parton

On stained pages

“You simply can’t trash my e book.” — Rachel Parton George

“Rachel is slightly neater than I’m. I imply, even books that I am studying that ain’t obtained nothing to do with cooking, I am all the time consuming after I’m studying. And even a great e book that I am studying has obtained — I obtained tomato sauce right here, pizza sauce there, a thumbprint of grease on it. So yeah, I am slightly messier than Rachel. However you do not mess together with her cookbooks. She collects these.” — Dolly Parton

On cleansing forged iron

“A forged iron skillet for me is so particular. Nobody actually touches, washes, or cooks with it in my home. It is mine. After which, when the meals is completed and dinner is over, I take the iron skillet, and I simply gently wash the skillet after which I dry it, and I put it away. Do not depart it out. Do not put numerous cleaning soap, or detergents, or scrubbing. That is how I care for it.” — Rachel Parton George

“Do not you scrub no lard on it?” — Dolly Parton

“Oh. Nicely, I do earlier than I prepare dinner.” — Rachel Parton George

“I bear in mind again after we had been rising up, mama all the time cleaned her skillet. She’d take a rag, like with the lard, and easy it out and hold it on the wall. We actually take that severe concerning the iron skillet rising up — you simply be taught that. And I had a buddy keep over and put my iron skillet within the dishwasher. And then you definately simply obtained that little — that brownie, rusty factor. I by no means invited them again to my home. You washed my skillet.” — Dolly Parton

On the diplomacy of dumplings

“Today and time, households are falling aside with politics, or this, or that, or the opposite. And it is all the time so fantastic if yow will discover that heat and that love, and hold issues collectively. And what can convey households or associates collectively greater than good meals? You’ll be able to put your variations apart in case your dumplings are ok.”

In regards to the podcast

Meals & Wine has led the dialog round meals, drinks, and hospitality in America and around the globe since 1978. Tinfoil Swans continues that legacy with a brand new collection of intimate, informative, shocking, and uplifting interviews with the most important names within the culinary trade, sharing never-before-heard tales concerning the successes, struggles, and fork-in-the-road moments that made these personalities who they’re at present.

This season, you may hear from icons and innovators like Daniel Boulud, Rodney Scott, Asma Khan, Emeril and E.J. Lagasse, Claudia Fleming, Dave Beran and Will Poulter, Dan Giusti, Priya Krishna, Lee Anne Wong, Cody Rigsby, Kevin Gillespie, Pete Wells, David Chang, Raphael Brion, Christine D’Ercole, Channing Frye, Nick Cho, Ti Martin, Kylie Kwong, Pati Jinich, Yotam Ottolenghi, Dolly Parton and Rachel Parton George, Darron Cardosa, Bobby Flay, and different particular friends going deep with host Kat Kinsman on their formative experiences; the dishes and meals that made them; their joys, doubts and desires; and what’s on the menu sooner or later. Tune in for a feast that’ll feed your mind and soul — and loads of knowledge and quotable morsels to savor.

New episodes drop each Tuesday. Hear and comply with on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you hear.

These interview excerpts have been edited for readability.

Editor’s Observe: The transcript for obtain doesn’t undergo our commonplace editorial course of and will comprise inaccuracies and grammatical errors.