In the past couple of years, a lot of people have taken up cooking. Country singer Martina McBride has taken up writing cookbooks.
The country star, who headlines Saturday night’s free Sternwheel Regatta show on Kanawha Boulevard in Charleston, said so many people are intimidated by cooking.
“I love to cook, and I love to entertain,” she said. “I wanted to make a cookbook that was approachable.”
McBride said she’s currently working on her third cookbook. This one doesn’t follow a particular genre.
“I just want to make something that’s fun and interesting and will get people in the kitchen,” she said.
Cooking and cookbooks are just an outlet, McBride said, another way to be creative. She said she was lucky to have more than one interest.
The singer, best known for a slew of hits like “Independence Day,” “Blessed” and “This One’s for the Girls,” said she wasn’t really thinking about making another record soon.
Her last studio album, “It’s the Holiday Season,” released in 2018. It was her third Christmas record. Her last non-holiday record was 2016’s “Reckless.”
McBride said she didn’t write or record music during the pandemic.
“I think we’ll be seeing the effects of COVID for years to come,” she said. “I think none of us know how this has affected our creativity or our ambition.”
McBride added, “I think it’s going to take a minute to process.”
Beyond that, she really didn’t have a lot of time. McBride was having a busy summer.
“We’re really tearing it up,” she said.
McBride and her band are performing all over the country through the summer months and then will join Wynonna as the opening act for what was planned to be a Judds tour before Naomi Judd died in April.
“And then we go back out for a Christmas tour,” McBride said.
McBride doesn’t mind staying busy. When the singer’s children were younger, she trimmed back some of her touring obligations and spent more time at home. Now, her two eldest are grown and living on their own, and her youngest is in high school.
While the pandemic was hard for a lot of people, McBride said her family hunkered down at her house.
“So, it was kind of a silver lining,” she said. “We were together.”
When the youngest daughter moves out, it will mean a change. McBride said she wasn’t dreading it, but wasn’t looking forward to it, either.
“It’s a little bittersweet,” she said. “You want them to get out and have their own lives. If they move away, you hope they’ll go someplace interesting that you can go visit.”
