Dolly Parton and Rachel Parton George Discuss Solid Iron, Hen and Dumplings, and Satisfaction

Tinfoil Swans Podcast

On this episode

Dolly Parton is an American icon for all the correct causes. She’s at all times 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 expensive to her coronary heart. She and her sister, Rachel Parton George, just lately co-authored the cookbook Good Lookin’ Cookin’ and the 2 joined us on Tinfoil Swans for a rollicking chat about being happy with the place you are from, consuming bear and squirrel meat, feeling insecure in eating places, caring for 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 occasions, offered greater than 100 million information 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 a long time. Because the Nineteen Eighties, Parton’s nonprofit Dollywood Basis has donated tens of millions of {dollars} to help childhood literacy applications, restoration for victims of the Gatlinburg fires, and most just lately, reduction efforts within the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.

Rachel Parton George is the youngest of the 12 Parton siblings. She had a starring position within the TV sitcom 9 to five, carried out onstage internationally alongside her relations, and solid 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, Nervousness: 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 Further 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 Finest American Meals Writing. She was nominated for a James Beard Broadcast Award in 2013, received a 2011 EPPY Award for Finest 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 business, and is the previous vice chair of the James Beard Journalism Committee.

Highlights from the episode

On satisfaction and ingenuity

“I’ve at all times been happy 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 deliver residence rabbit, and squirrels, and all types a issues. And we knew the right way to cook dinner it. We knew the right way to put together it.’ However we did eat issues that folks assume, ‘Oh my God. You ate that?’ Once you dwell within the nation, you make do with what you bought. And also you’re additionally cook dinner, so you may make nearly something style good. Some issues we didn’t eat, like opossum. However I suppose if we would have gotten hungry sufficient, you could possibly try this.” — Dolly Parton

On getting snug at eating places — or not

“I keep in mind feeling awkward for a very long time, being from the nation, once I first got here to Nashville and having to go have conferences in eating places. Trigger we did not go to eating places and once we did, it was only a gap within the wall little nation factor, the place they’d serve the identical type of meals we grew up consuming. However I used to be at all times so nervous, trigger I did not know the right way to use the correct fork, or the correct spoon, or the correct glass. Even to today I am unsure I understand how to do all that. So I simply keep in mind being uneasy, attempting to look at different individuals, see what they had been doing so I would not make any huge errors. For nation individuals, once you’re not used to that, it’s totally uneasy. I nonetheless tend once I’m at huge banquets and stuff, to make sure I am watching to verify I’ve obtained the correct factor on the proper time — the correct fork, and all that.” — Dolly Parton

On getting just a little corny

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

On individuals who hold secret recipes

“I need everybody to be so glad and profitable once they make any of those recipes. I need it to be implausible, 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 guide. I’ve just a few little issues that I make, that everyone needs me to offer them the recipe. I say, ‘I’m not doing it.’ They mentioned, ‘Nicely, it’s a must to do it earlier than you die.’ I mentioned, ‘No. You are simply going to must 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 try this. She’s too critical about all this.” — Dolly Parton

On stained pages

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

“Rachel is just a little neater than I’m. I imply, even books that I am studying that ain’t obtained nothing to do with cooking, I am at all times consuming once I’m studying. And even guide 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 just a little 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 plenty of cleaning soap, or detergents, or scrubbing. That is how I handle it.” — Rachel Parton George

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

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

“I keep in mind again once we had been rising up, mama at all times cleaned her skillet. She’d take a rag, like with the lard, and clean it out and grasp it on the wall. We actually take that critical in regards to the iron skillet rising up — you simply be taught that. And I had a pal 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

“At the present time and time, households are falling aside with politics, or this, or that, or the opposite. And it is at all times so great if you’ll find that heat and that love, and hold issues collectively. And what can deliver households or mates collectively greater than good meals? You may 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 sequence of intimate, informative, stunning, and uplifting interviews with the most important names within the culinary business, sharing never-before-heard tales in regards to the successes, struggles, and fork-in-the-road moments that made these personalities who they’re immediately.

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. Pay attention and comply with on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you pay attention.

These interview excerpts have been edited for readability.

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