Ellen Rolfes - Gracelands Table: Recipes and Meal Memories Fit for the King of Rock and Roll

Gracelands Table Recipes and
Meal Memories
Fit for the King of
Rock and Roll ELLEN ROLFES
with
ELVIS PRESLEY ENTERPRISES Elvis and Elvis Presley are Registered Trademarks of Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc. Copyright 2005 by Ellen Rolfes Books, Inc. and Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc. Unless otherwise indicated all photographs copyright Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved.
No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher. Published by Rutledge Hill Press, a Division of Thomas Nelson Inc.,
P.O.

Box 141000, Nashville, Tennessee, 37214. The authors and publisher of this book assume no liability for, and are released by readers from, any injury or damage resulting from the strict adherence to, or deviation from, the directions and/or recipes herein. Rutledge Hill Press books may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fundraising, or sales promotional use. For information, please email SpecialMarkets@ThomasNelson.com. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rolfes, Ellen, 1946
Gracelands table : recipes and meal memories fit for the king of rock and roll / Ellen Rolfes ; with Elvis Presley Enterprises.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 1-4016-0207-X (hardcover)
1.

Cookery, American. I. Elvis Presley Enterprises. II. Title. TX715.R748 2005
641.5973dc22 2005009607 Printed in the United States of America 05 06 07 08 095 4 3 2 1 TO GLADYS AND VERNON PRESLEY,
who instilled the values of the familial taproot in their son,
Elvis Aaron Presley,
including the meaning of the meal table
wherever it might be set.

Acknowledgments E lvis Presley Enterprises, Inc., and Ellen Rolfes wish to thank the fans who contributed their personal recipes to be served at Gracelands table. Our special appreciation goes to those individuals who shared their favorite Elvis stories, which provide a glimpse into the indelible memories of his fandom. For their unflappable commitment, we thank our agent, Liv Blumer, and our publisher, Pamela Clements. Countless thanks to Carol Boker and her meticulous recipe-testing/editing team; to Roy Finamore, our gifted food stylist; to Langdon Clay for his exquisite photography depicting variations of Gracelands table; to Susan Sherwood, the official Elvis photograpy assistant, who captured the photographic memorabilia. Most of all, we thank Judith Kern, our talented text editor, who experienced an incredible journey as she wrote the interviews, and to Pete Davidson at EPE, whose steadfast devotion to the authenticity of the manuscript allowed us to present an intimate cookbook that takes the reader into other realms of the life of the King of Rock and Roll. Contents A s a train-riding, card-carrying, ever-loving son of the South, it is with deep conviction that I share this belief: Rock & roll music would not have the impact on the world as we know it had the Top Cat of Tupelo fueled his fire with tofu or sprouts.

Elvis was a Southern boy.He was raised on Southern cooking and neither the U.S Army nor Hollywood, in all of its glory, could sway him off the course of his upbringing. He stayed true to the kind of food that put lighting in his step and caused the whole nation to shake, rattle and roll. Who else but Elvis could make peanut butter and banana sandwiches famous around the world? Not a single journalist ever wasted ink on the fact that he could also has enjoyed a helping of grilled chicken or steamed broccoli from time to time. But the fact that he might have had a serving of bacon or two for breakfast at four in the afternoon seems to have caught the worlds attention. Actually, its really none of our business what he ate, or when. We should be mindful that a kings ways are not necessarily the ways of mere mortals.

Every aspect of Elviss life was fascinating. He was like a diamond in that he sparkled at every turn. What made him shine the brightest to me was the music. His sound was a blend of all things Southern rhythm and blues, gospel, the cry of a midnight train, cotton fields, honeysuckle, stealing a kiss from the prettiest girl in town, smelling mamas chicken frying as the sun goes down. His songs will forever drift through the universe like a beautiful dream. MARTY STUART I t happened rather unexpectedly one Saturday morningthe day that Elvis Presley re-entered my life. MARTY STUART I t happened rather unexpectedly one Saturday morningthe day that Elvis Presley re-entered my life.

My daughter and I were laboring to move a rickety, antique dresser with an attached mirror that Id had since childhood from my attic to her new home. I noticed some yellowed fragments of Scotch tape left on the mirror by something Id taped to it long ago, and in that moment I again saw Elvis staring back at me from those fragments. Instantly I remembered, as if it were yesterday, consciously deciding to put away my Terry Lee dolls forever in order to take a giant step toward becoming a grown-up. At the age of thirteen I was still miserably torn between two worldsplaying with the dolls while simultaneously trying to relate to my more sophisticated friends who were already wearing bright red lipstick. I had long been ready to leave the little girl behind and begin the alluring journey into womanhood, but Id needed a special someone to help me take that difficult first step. I remember hearing my first Elvis songs on the transistor radio Id been given for Christmas.

Our whole family had gathered with dinner on TV trays to see him gyrating on Ed Sullivans Sunday night television program. And, suddenly, I had feelings and yearnings I had never known. Like millions of others, I became obsessed with the weird surge of electricity that the sound of his mere voice created in my friends and me no matter where we were. With my allowance I bought 45 rpm recordings of Love Me Tender, Teddy Bear,and Dont Be Cruel. That music was like a new language being sung to me by a wild, wonderful, beautiful man who had the courage to be like no one but himself, and it touched my heart. I think I fell in love.

I bought magazines with stories about Elvis and read them late into the night under the covers. I meticulously cut out and taped little black and white tabloid photos of him posed in every conceivable way onto my dresser mirror. My mother was horrified at my un-child-like behavior; but I, like countless budding teenage girls at the time, had found the musical icon who would escort me into another place. He spoke to me. He sang to me. I heard him.

There was nothing anyone could do about it. Elvis was the man to walk with me over the threshold into adulthood, and my dresser mirror, before which I stood to look at myself each morning before school, became his shrine. And so, on that day of laborious furniture moving, I smiled at those forgotten memories and began to tell my daughter the story behind the indelible tape markings that served as a permanent reminder of how Elvis Presley had shaped my life. Now I am a woman with mature responsibilities and grown daughters who have their own lives and loves, but that day I was a teenager again, revisiting my relationship with Elvis. I had not thought about him in a very long time, but as with any first love, it took precious little to trigger instant memories and evoke long-forgotten feelings. In all the years between, I have remained close to my Southern roots, and as I shared my memories with my daughter that day, I realized that Elvis, for all his fame and despite his public persona, had never left his either.