Most of what I know about Joanna Gaines is what I’ve gathered from magazine covers at the supermarket checkout counter, or snippets of her and her husband Chip’s wildly successful HGTV series, “Fixer Upper,” I’ve caught while killing time in public waiting rooms. Anyone who has visited my condo might correctly assume that farmhouse-chic home design isn’t exactly my jam.
When Gaines came out with a cookbook in 2018, I was ambivalent. By then the couple’s enterprise, Magnolia, had grown to include a booming marketplace and restaurant in Waco, Texas, a partnership with Target, and a quarterly magazine. I saw “Magnolia Table,” billed as a collection of family favorites and selections from their restaurant’s menu, only as one more celebrity-driven brand extension. I have to admit, though, that since it became a No. 1 New York Times bestseller, and soon spawned a follow-up cookbook, I’ve become more curious about her appeal as a cook. The arrival of “Magnolia Table: A Collection of Recipes for Gathering/ Volume 3″ (Morrow, 40) was my chance to find out.
In the introduction, she ticks off memories of “savoring something delicious:” bites from the top tier of a wedding cake preserved in the freezer pilfered late at night as a child; rolled grape leaves shared at her Syrian grandmother’s house; kimchi and other Korean fare prepared by her mother and grandmother; chocolate chip cookies baked for her dad on Saturdays.
Born in Kansas and raised in Texas, Gaines studied communications at Baylor and later met her husband, who was working in her dad’s auto shop in Waco. Their mutual construction and design interests led them to start a house-flipping business that grew into a TV show.
Now as a mother of five, she relates easily to working parents and empty nesters alike, with comforting, accessible recipes such as Sticky Bun Casserole, Pork Chops with Apricot Honey Chipotle Glaze, Enchilada Soup, Arugula and Dried Cherry Salad, and Sheet Pan S’Mores.
Perusing these pages, I get a sense of a likable, down-to-earth person behind the brand whose kitchen is not just a stage, but “a place I crave. And my island, my anchor.”
Susan Puckett is a cookbook author and former food editor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Follow her at susanpuckett.com.
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