The Kitchen Parton

Dolly Parton’s younger sister, a prominent C & W singer in her own right, has put together a cookbook entitled “Stella Parton’s Country Cookin’ ” (Adams Publishing: $7.95). The recipes come from her family and friends and have a nice homey feel, but surprise--they’re not mostly old Southern dishes like fried okra and matrimony cake. Plenty are mid-century Americana, such as Jell-O salad (a lot of the recipes do mention brand names) and dump cake (where you dump cake mix and canned fruit in the baking pan and let gravity sort things out) and tuna-noodle casserole (four recipes). A handful are health-foody, including some dumplings from sister Dolly that call for cholesterol-free biscuit mix.

And a surprising number are quite a long way from Pigeon Forge, Tenn. Six pages after sort-of tuna chow mein you come across a quiche aux crevettes , and her cabbage strudel has to be Hungarian. One time she met Omar Sharif, who dazzled her with suave Egyptian charm. “Needless to say,” she writes, “I floated back to Nashville and made everything I could think of using curry.” Gotta burst your bubble, Stella--curry is about as Egyptian as it is Tennessean.