Recipes make home cozy for holidays

A few days from the time you read this, you'll be piling everyone into an automobile to whisk the family away, possibly over a river, possibly through the woods or perhaps under a river if you need to visit your more interesting relatives in Baltimore or Virginia Beach.

The lucky ones, however, are those who get to stay home. Stafford County doesn't quite make it over the Rappahannock, but over the Potomac and through Quantico will do nicely. Even before I moved here years and years ago, I came to visit my grandparents from central New York, which was over the mountains and through I-81, which may as well be wilderness, really.

If one finds oneself hosting the family get-together, the mix of friends or just whomever you feel like bringing around, chances are only a truly country-fried Thanksgiving will do.

That's easy for some of us, those who took the cooking courses and have had lots of practice. Then there are folks like myself, who can barely pan-fry a sausage without setting off the smoke detector three or four times. (This article also serves as an apology to my neighbors. I swear I'm working on it!)

Luckily, a few country stars have some recipes for you.

Trent Willmon (of "Beer Man" and "Dixie Rose Deluxe's..." fame) put out a cookbook this past June, The Beer Man Cookbook, filled with recipes from he and some of his friends, including Eddie & Troy of Montgomery Gentry, Jewel, and Eric Church. While it won't teach you how to properly serve up the perfect turkey, your barbecue sauces and squash casseroles are covered, as are generous helpings of what Willmon refers to as "man food."

And if that doesn't work out, you can always pitch the lot of it and head to Grandmother's House. What you lose in face, you'll make up for in a good meal.

Visit the Web site, trentwillmon.musiccitynetworks.com for more information.

Paul Kent is the afternoon on-air personality on Thunder 104.5 FM.