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She not only regularly cooks for one of country music’s biggest stars (her husband, Garth Brooks), but she’s even made a birthday cake for former President Jimmy Carter, with whom she and

Garth have built Habitat for Humanity houses for years. But Trisha Yearwood, 57, tosses it all off as if it’s, well, easy as pie. In her fourth cookbook, _Trisha’s Kitchen: Easy Comfort Food

for Friends & Family_, written with her sister, Beth Yearwood Bernard (with a foreword by Brooks), singer and home chef Yearwood serves up the kind of bountiful breakfasts, snacks and

appetizers, soups, salads and sides, meats, fish, veggies, and sweets she features on her popular Food Network show, _Trisha’s Southern Kitchen_. (Just for the record, “I’m a savory girl,”

she says of her preferences. “It got down to 60 one day. I said, ‘I’m making chili.’ ”) This 125-recipe offering was born of the pandemic, “being home and really not leaving the house for a

long time,” explains the Monticello, Ga., native. “It had been five years, and I had a lot of experience under my belt from five years of cooking on the show, and it set the stage to get up

every morning and walk into the kitchen and think, ‘What should this be about?’ ” AARP sat down with Yearwood (virtually!) to talk about good food and great conversation. _This interview has

been edited and condensed._ You say, “This book is as close as I can come to having you sitting next to me in the kitchen.” Yeah, the biggest compliment I receive from people who watch the

show is, “I feel like I could be in your kitchen with you, and it wouldn’t be weird.” Like, “I feel like you’re a friend.” And I love that. The act of sitting around a table and having a

meal together is as much about communication and relationship as it is about the food. YOUR PARENTS WERE YOUR INSPIRATION, AS THEY BOTH COOKED AT HOME. ARE THE BOOKS AND THE SHOW A WAY TO

CONTINUE THAT FAMILY LORE? They really are. My sister and I talk about this a lot. Because both of my parents are gone, making their recipes and telling their stories keeps them alive for

us. And I love the byproduct of that, which is having somebody in Montana tell me, “I made your dad’s Brunswick stew, and now it’s our tradition every winter.” Now my family stories and

recipes are in their house. And that just makes me so happy.