Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood are one of country music’s top power couples. The two highly value their family life and it’s no surprise that family— and a Garth Brooks family tradition— took a very important role in their early love story.
In a 2015 interview with People, Garth Brooks disclosed that a tradition he started with his daughters to be a “fun” dad ended up playing a huge role in his wooing of his future wife.
Brooks shared custody of his three daughters with his ex-wife, Sandy Mahl. When the girls were with him, they were at his one-bathroom bunkhouse on his ranch in Oklahoma and Brooks admits he had limited culinary skills.
Meals he prepared were simple, like spaghetti, macaroni and cheese, and chicken strips. “Those were pretty much staples,” he says of cooking for daughters Taylor, August, and Allie.
But Brooks allows that it was a spaghetti dinner “that changed our world.” As a single father, he tried to have fun with his girls “because I don’t care who you are, dads are never as fun as moms,” he adds. “They’re just not.”
During the first summer together after his retirement, Brooks had an idea. “We’re having spaghetti again, and we were holding hands, saying our prayer, and when it’s over, I said, ‘Don’t eat yet,’ and they’re like, ‘What?’ ” he recalls.
“I said, ‘Just take your fork in your right hand. Okay, we’re going to beat it against the table three times then I want you to throw your fork over your shoulder.’ I said, ‘It’s okay.’ Beat it, beat it, and they hurled those forks, I mean just threw ’em. ‘What do we do now?’ I said, ‘Now, you eat like a dog.’ ”
Brooks continues: “I took the oldest one’s head and just put it right down [into the plate],” he says laughing. “They ate like dogs and had the best time and then we went out and jumped in the pool.”
The tradition even served as an icebreaker when Brooks first brought Trisha Yearwood, whom he married in 2005, to have dinner with his daughters. “The girls said, ‘We want to eat like dogs again, Dad.’ Taylor reached over and took Trisha’s head and before I knew it, bam!” he says. “The whole table went silent. We were like, ‘Oh, crap.’ ”
“Yearwood was fantastic, though. She came up with a noodle across her forehead and she just reached right back over and just pow! She popped little Auggie’s head right down. It was on from there!”
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