Nobody who cooks does it with full hair and makeup in front of a TV camera.

It's cool when your husband starts to sing some old Merle Haggard song and I can pop in with a harmony and it doesn't sound too bad.

I finished high school, moved to Nashville for college, and set out to break into the music business. Every night when I called home with news of my experiences, my mom and dad would encourage me to keep taking those small steps.

There's an energy about Nashville that I love and I miss. And it's so awesome right now. It has a new energy that's so cool.

It's for balance, if you want to do that. But the truth is that we all know how we're supposed to eat. And so if you have fried chicken and mashed potatoes and white gravy, then the next day you have, like a grape and you're totally evened out and you're good.

My upbringing did not create a healthy affection for confrontation. I'd love it if everyone always got along, and nothing ever got tense.

Standing behind a kitchen counter telling people about what ingredients to put in a pot didn't feel right.