Lura

Love your posts, txvoodoo and rockitinu. You both bring something new to your threads that we haven't seen before. I'm sure I'm not alone in the hopes that you'll be back with more. A steakhouse and a pizza parlor??? I'll be darned! Ree is always saying that she and Ladd are highly competitive. It sounds like she is building her own empire. From the description, I think I'd be fairly miserable in Texas. My in-laws lived in Bradenton, FL, so I've spent a lot of time in the Bradenton-Sarasota area. I liked it. There is a small Mennonite community tucked in there with some fantastic restaurants. Those people can cook! After eating there, I had to go to Amazon and buy a couple of Amish cookbooks. Their pies are incomparable! Simple food but the best!

Congratulations, Spunkygal, on your 22nd anniversary! Crab cakes sound like just the thing for a celebration dinner! YUM! Wishing you many more happy years together. We're having lasagna with sauce, meatballs, tossed salad and sourdough rolls. No dessert tonight.

There's an old saying -- I don't know how true it is -- that if you have an odor, you don't smell the same odor on others. Maybe they don't realize they're wearing Eau d'Horses and the only one suffering is Ree, who hasn't been out all morning. Ree doesn't mind because she's leaving for NY soon to head up the FN and to publish her magazine from swanky offices on Madison Avenue.

LOL, Kohola! Truer words were never spoken!

I would so much like to have the New York Times recipe for Cheese Danish. The Times is now requiring a sign-in to its cooking section, and I can't stand to be on one more mailing list. Would anyone happen to have this recipe already? Thanks!

Some good-sounding recipes using sweetened condensed milk: https://www.eaglebrand.com/recipes/quick-easy Some of these sound a bit common, but I'd gladly love to sample others -- and may!

It's a good thing this show doesn't come with Smellavision. Can you imagine what it must be like when the family has been out wrestling cattle to the ground and riding horses all day? When they all gather for lunch, it must be an assault on the senses. With Smellavision, the show might not have made it onto the air. All that reeking of animals and sweat would certainly override the aromas of Ree's cooking. Ewwww!

I promised my husband a French chocolate pie next, but my grandmother's pumpkin pie won't leave my mind now! That marshmallow crème fudge is my favorite by far. So good! I try to save it for Christmastime because it disappears so fast.

I imagine that BH is full of trophy wives. I remember Ted Casablanca, who knew the inner workings of Hollywood as much as anyone did, writing on E! about many of them, from Cathy Hilton on down. It seems like a pathetic existence to me, but if they crave money and pseudo status badly enough and are passably attractive, I guess that's their choice. Yes, I think Erika fits into the same category, but at least she works hard at something, though I don't think that Dorit has Erika's drive for fame, do you?

I hope that you and your cousin hit it off well, grisgris, and that she is excited about visiting Pawhuska. You never know when long lost relatives can open up new doors. That's good of you to invite them for breakfast or brunch. You have a big heart. When my FIL passed away, my MIL and he had visited every state but Hawaii, a lifetime goal of hers. For her 80th birthday she asked us to take her to Hawaii on her "dime." It was summertime and so hot and humid that it was insufferable, but it was semi-interesting to see the state. Two summers later, she wanted to go again because she was a bird watcher and couldn't get enough of the unusual birds there. I suffered through it with swollen limbs from the heat, etc. Not much fun repeating the visit. If Ree loves OK, CO and NYC, I can't quite picture her liking the tropics. We found it touristy, with bus tours and cruise ships everywhere, and more people with cameras than I'd ever seen. Of course, Ree might be right at home with her camera, but I suspect she'd miss the cows pretty fast. How does that old, old song go? Something about "You can't take the girl out of the farm, and you can't take the farm out of the girl" or something like that?

Sounds delicious, biakbiak, and think your substitutions sound tasty! Will provide my address in case there are leftovers!

Fire-grilled ribeyes with bleu cheese sauce, potato salad, sweet corn, fresh asparagus, fresh ginger-marinated pineapple salad. Having four guests, plus husband, of course, for a birthday dinner with my fractured arm/shoulder in a brace -- the ultimate effort I can expend at this point. One friend is bringing a "mystery dessert," bless her. I am wildly crazy about Ina's "French" Potato Salad and find it almost addictive after all of the mayo-based dressings. Am true Irish and may have a need for potato starch in my bloodstream. Is anyone else here a potato lover?

I love these posts about living in other places and could read them all day. If anybody feels like writing a PM more about any of them, this swollen, (with edema from eyes to toes), miserable, suffering friend would appreciate the entertainment more than I can say. Ree's life in OK was interesting a looooong time ago, but it sure got tiresome fast. Amen to what cathy said about living with the cows all day! Just think, Kohola, if Ree lived in Hawaii, she could put a cheap facsimile of your beautiful whales all over her dishes, that is if people in China know what they look like. *shudder*

I'm glad to know that others feel the same way. Besides, I didn't see any paper flowers in the whole place, and we know that paper flowers are one of Ree's decorating go-to's.

Egg drop soup, orange chicken, pork won tons from leftover roast, Spring rolls, asparagus with water chestnuts and bamboo shoots (mostly Ken Hom recipes) and bakery fortune cookies.

I would like to ask the dumbest question ever asked online: What exactly is Dorit's purpose in life? She has to be one of the greatest pretenders I have ever encountered, even on television. I am trying to get back into this show after the absence of a season or two, and Dorit almost leaves me speechless. She doesn''t fit. I think she was born, raised, and hung out to dry for any takers. Her only purpose seems to be to wander, playing at one thing after another, spending money as she goes but never really making any. She's a straaaaange being.

Hi Jeanne222, and welcome. I agree that the Drummonds must be enormously wealthy by now, and IMHO they seem to be spending or not spending their money wisely, at least for the purposes of the show. I recall the episode of Alex's graduation party and the fact that she was hoping for a car as a gift from her parents. Ree pooh-poohed that idea somewhat disgustedly. I don't think the kids lack for anything, but the parents don't appear to spoil them. As for the hostess gift, I think that's a lovely gesture. I grew up mainly in small town Ohio but also in MA. In neither locale was that a custom, possibly because people were trying to recover from the war years financially. They couldn't even bake anything to take because sugar and other staples were rationed. I don't know whether that was why or not, but it's a nice way of showing your appreciation to the hostess. Here in CA, I have NEVER seen anyone take a thing, nor have I, although I've often tried to reciprocate a few days later with something homemade similar to Ree's treats, come to think of it!

Ethalfrida, Google offers many recipes for potato chip cake. Unfortunately, their site wouldn't allow me to copy the URL accurately tonight. You might find what you're looking for there -- everything from chocolate to the no-bake variety. Good luck.

We had a big charity banquet to attend this noon, so supper was light -- potato soup, half a chicken salad sandwich, crudités and fresh strawberries. I had made oatmeal cookies for dessert. Easy and just what we felt like eating.

My show of choice today was the episode in which Ree's mother and sister Betsy and Betsy's young son visited the ranch for the first time together. Actually, it's hardly my favorite show by a long shot, but with this broken arm and shoulder in this huge brace and swelling all over my body, I've seen a few too many shows lately, and this one was still left available. What are you going to do? You can either cry about your miserable lot in life or be quiet and watch the Smith clan. Is it a Southern custom / social rule that you have to take flowers to the hostess? Before the two proceeded to the ranch, they stopped in Tulsa to buy seafood, and then Betsy remarked that they had to stop for flowers. I wondered whether this was something their mother taught them or a custom of the region. The way Betsy said it made me wonder whether it was obligatory. Maybe some Southerners in here have the answer. Either way, I think it's a thoughtful thing to do.

For what it's worth, I have always felt that Ree's appearances with Ladd on the show were very contrived and entirely different from the way they are together when the cameras aren't aimed at them. I feel that Ladd is quiet by nature, and he seems to have few, if any, outside interests or hobbies that would take him away from riding a horse every day, thus making him rather dull in the conversation department. I think that Ree, who sees herself as a worldly woman, is uptight and is constantly trying to tease him or say something rather dumb to get a reaction out of him for the sake of the show. I think it would help if she could try to think of ways to bring him out without making herself look and sound so addle-brained. Her teasing remarks always seem to make me roll my eyes. She allows his limitations to bring herself down. Maybe the answer is to eliminate one-on-one scenes with Ladd and save Ladd for ranching or family situations where he is more comfortable and talkative. She wants to show him off as the "handsome hunk" she married, but it isn't working.

Homemade veggie soup for a starter (We couldn't wait to sample some), then leftover prime rib roast I had frozen, whipped potatoes au jus, roasted asparagus with only butter and salt, mixed fruit cup and cherry pie. [Canned sour cherries are priced almost out of sight these days. If you like them for pies and see them on sale, buy several. They're also hard to find where I live. Most at the markets where I shop are from Oregon and are very good.]

Did Ree make Blistered Beans? I don't remember those. Maybe I missed a show. Do you happen to remember the name of the episode? The name intrigues me. It sounds like something served on a ranch. I love green beans if you need help eating them up, roughing it!

I liked Nancy's show mainly because she cooked the kind of food that I like to cook and also because she was instructive. I hated to see it end. On this show, though, her role is merely to react to someone else's baking. I like her fine, but I can see how she and Lorraine could clash. They both have strong personalities and are bound to disagree sometimes. Did anyone else here see a segment of the baking show that Lorraine had on British TV? She made a couple of things for her father. She wasn't very adept or especially skilled and at one point admitted it. I wondered at the time how she'd gotten a show of her own. Now, when I see her judging others, I can't help but think of her show and how unprofessional, giggly and immature she was. Partly because of that, I tend to take Nancy's and Duff's opinions more readily.

In that the FN likes to be in control of their shows, especially one as popular as Iron Chef, I just can't get it out of my head that they know which younger chefs they want on the show and which ones they don't want, thereby making the new Iron Chefs preordained. In some cases it seems as if even the viewers can ascertain which ones will make it and which ones are good but not quite worthy. If this is the case, it doesn't ruin the show for me. There is enough suspense to hold my interest. I'm impressed by the amount of talent out there and have hope that some of these good people will keep the FN from becoming the Bobby Flay network.