Music in the Kitchen: Favorite Recipes of Austin City Limits Performers

by Glenda Pierce Facemire with Leigh Anne Jasheway-Bryant
University of Texas Press, 320 pp., $34.95

Cooking Tent: Saturday, Oct. 31, 3:30pm

It’s a deliciously inventive idea – collecting recipes from stars of the famed Austin City Limits series on PBS. Author Glenda Pierce Facemire has worked as head makeup artist for the show for 20 years and gathered these recipes, garnished with photography largely by master ACL photographer Scott Newton and peppered with artist and band bios plus other tasty tidbits.

It’s not just working at Austin City Limits that gives Facemire her credentials. She’s been employed by all four major networks and PBS, plus CNN, BET, CMT, BBC, HGTV, MTV, A&E, Good Morning America, Nightline, 60 Minutes, E!TV, and many more. That experience taught her a thing or three not only about her art but about how to deal with celebrities, something that came in handy with coaxing recipes from the likes of Loretta Lynn, Dr. John, Sarah McLachlan, and Femi Kuti.

The book is divided into chapters that begin naturally enough with tongue-in-cheek appetizers like Willie Nelson’s Tequila Mango Salsa and continue through the courses to mouthwatering desserts such as Neko Case’s Hounds­tooth Chocolate Chip Cookies. Beautifully designed to resemble a vintage album cover, it is obviously a coffeetable book. It sprawls across a kitchen counter, the layout doesn’t always lend itself to reading easily while cooking, and who wants to risk dropping a glob of butter on a $35 book? (Just copy the pages on your scanner to use in the kitchen.)

A number of instant favorites appeared. On the must-try-someday list are:

• Sara Hickman’s Pad Thai

• Calexico’s Boeuf Bourguignon

• Johnny Gimble’s Apple Cake

• Ray Benson’s Corn Soup

• The Subdudes’ Intensely Subdued Red Cake With White Frosting

Funniest Recipe: Billy Joe Shaver’s Synthetic Huevos Rancheros

Next Funniest Recipe: Dan Hicks’ Treat Sandwich

Best Recipe Name: Drive-by Truckers’ Drunken Baby Carrots

Best Vintage Fashion Photo: Janie Fricke in red fringed buckskin and a headband

Least Likely to Try: James McMurtry’s Idiot Ridge Dove

As a final grace note, the sheet music on p.298 is “Strawberry Jam” by Michelle Shocked. Sweet.

This article appears in swine flu.

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