FAIRHOPE, Ala. — She was heading to the recording studio one day, but made an unexpected detour into the kitchen. For country music sensation Trisha Yearwood, that’s alright with her. She actually seems to be enjoying her second career as a bestselling author.

“I didn’t really mean to,” Yearwood said during a recent phone interview from the Tulsa, Okla. home she shares with her husband, fellow superstar Garth Brooks. “I’m getting a lot of Facebook messages from fans asking if I’m not singing anymore.”

For the record, she hasn’t given up her day job. Yearwood is simply sharing with others family recipes she has enjoyed over the years. Her second cookbook, “home cooking WITH trisha yearwood: stories & recipes to share with family & friends,” went on sale Tuesday.

She will visit Page & Palette Bookstore, 32 S. Section St. in Fairhope, April 15, from 6 until 8 p.m., to sign copies of the book. In the spirit of Tax Day, the event is being sponsored by O’Sullivan Creel LLP, an accounting and consulting services firm that has served south Alabama and northwest Florida for more than 26 years.

Yearwood said she was initially asked to write an autobiography, something she couldn’t see happening for another 20 or 30 years. Instead, she took another path.

“It made sense to write a cookbook because I love to cook,” she said. “My mom (Gwen Yearwood), sister (Beth Yearwood Bernard) and I collaborated on our first book, and it was fun putting our shoeboxes of recipes together.”

That volume, “Georgia Cooking in an Oklahoma Kitchen: Recipes from My Family to Yours,” was a New York Times bestseller, and featured 125 recipes. After asking family members to share recipes, which they freely did, she realized there were too many to include.

The latest cookbook includes more personal anecdotes, time-tested recipes, and 100 color photos. The focus is on recipes culled from recent gatherings as well as the stories behind them that feature her extended family and close circle of friends.

It has one-pot dishes, pastas, salads, refreshments, desserts and much more, including Cowboy Lasagna, Vegetable Pie and Grandma Yearwood’s Coconut Cake. Other delicacies include Cornbread Salad with French Dressing, Baked Bean Casserole, Tennessee Jambalaya, Pumpkin Roll and Old Fashioned Strawberry Shortcake.

The recipes are handed down from her mother, her aunts and cousins, or longtime friends, while others are her own contemporary improvisations on classic Southern fare.

“(This) felt like an extension of the first book. It’s a real continuation of the first book,” she said, noting it has given her a whole new identity. “It’s who we are. I didn’t start out to be the cookbook lady. But I think most people (still) know me from the music.”

Yearwood is one of the highest-selling female artists in country music history. She has recorded nine No. 1 songs and 10 albums, and has received numerous honors for her efforts, including three Grammy awards.

Asked if anyone has actually approached her to talk about her culinary skills instead of her musical talent, Yearwood said, “Garth and I were out for lunch the other day, getting ready to leave, and someone came up to Garth and said they loved his music. They turned to me and said, ‘Oh, you’re the cookbook lady.’ I’ve got to get back in the studio.”

Yearwood has no illusions that the two cookbooks feature as much as a smidgen of healthy cuisine. She said, “You (only) eat like this occasionally. Garth made the breakfast bowl this past weekend.”

The breakfast bowl she speaks of (Page 25 in the new book) is Brooks’ original creation. It is a hearty (albeit not heart-healthy) mixture of eggs, butter, hash browns, pork sausage, bacon and cheese. It is prepared in a skillet, dumped into a bowl, and an individual serving could nearly feed an entire platoon.

“It’s a meal and a half,” Yearwood said. “Garth reminds me of my dad (Jack, who died in 2005). He’s this big weekend breakfast guy.”

She is more of a cheese lover, however, especially when it’s combined with macaroni. Yearwood called the featured crockpot macaroni and cheese (Page 123) “decadent.” She added, “Most people don’t make mac and cheese from scratch anymore. Our girls grew up on mac and cheese out of the box. (Upon seeing the homemade variety) they asked, ‘What is this?’”

Yearwood said her maternal grandfather was a big fan of her grandmother’s cooking, and wouldn’t eat anything prepared by someone else. The family matriarch would even use certain bowls when carrying food to covered dish dinners so her husband would know where to graze.

Yearwood enjoys telling such family stories, and the cookbook reflects that. It is dedicated to those loved ones who are no longer around to share a good meal.

“It’s important to preserve recipes as a legacy,” she said. “Those are those things that become important, especially after they die. It’s a way for them to live on.”

Don’t expect to leave the cookbook behind without trying out one of the tempting sweets included inside. Yearwood said, “We, for some reason, had so many dessert recipes. I was never big on carrot cake until we made this one (Pages 167-168). In my little community here, it’s become one of my signature cakes.”

Fairhope is the only small town on Yearwood’s 14-city book tour, which includes Dallas, Atlanta and Los Angeles.

She was born in Monticello, Ga. in September 1964, and moved west with her dog nearly 10 years ago after Brooks divorced his previous wife. The couple married in 2005, and he wrote the cookbook’s foreword.

“I’m always a Georgia girl,” she said. “This is a lot bigger town than the one I grew up in. It’s been a wonderful 20 years (performing), to be able to travel all over the world. I have a special place in my heart for small towns.”