According to ultimateclassicrock.com, Linda Ronstadt has recently turned to family and food as a way of revisiting her roots. When she was younger her family of Mexican-European descent would host large all day picnics in Tucson. Since 2013 Ronstadt was forced to confront a future without singing when she got diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy. a degenerative disease similar to Parkinson’s. Leaving her unable to sing. Ronstadt was quoted in saying that, “That was one of my favorite things to do. Somebody finds a good site on somebody’s ranch or out in the country somewhere. And you make a mesquite fire and put a grill on it, And there’s conversation that goes on and — cracks about the food. And then somebody gets out a guitar. And you start playing a little bit. Pretty soon, they’re singing a song we know, and everybody starts to harmonize. And it’s not a performance. It’s not like being onstage. It’s just being there in the room or … under the trees with good food and good friends.”
Ronstadt’s latest book, Feels Like Home: A Song for the Sonoran Borderlands is more of a memoir with 20 recipes added in to the mix. Initially, Feels Like Home was supposed to be a collaboration between Ronstadt’s friend CC Goldwater, the granddaughter of U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater. A local Arizona couple, Bill and Athena Steen were supposed to join in as well, but it ended up just being about Ronstadt’s life with some recipes added in. Ronstadt co-wrote the book with Lawrence Downes, an editorial member of The New York Times, who described the book as being, “a road trip with Linda Ronstadt through the part of the world where she is from and loves the most.”
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