Mandolia

Earlier this evening I had the misfortune pleasure of catching part of PW's Thanksgiving shortcuts' episode which prompts me to send good wishes for Thanksgiving to one and all however you may spend the day and whatever you may eat. (I felt the show was a particularly made-for-tv bit of nonsense, with Ree pretending it was actually the feast she would serve to her family on the day),

Good point well made. Sums up the PW "ethos" (using that word gives Ree way too much credibility, but I can't think of an alternative) to perfection. And, sadly, there are those who lap up - figuratively, if not literally! - the abominations as if she's a culinary genius.

I've given up on my List Of Things Which Really Irritate, as it was becoming a book. However, I will share one of my Major Irritations: Ree never, ever tastes anything/checks for seasoning. I don't mean the abominations of chilli (jalapeno) over chilli (habanero) over chilli (chipotle and a dollop of adobo sauce (plus hot sauce and Worcestershire sauce "for a bit of tang"): I am not anti chilli, indeed I like hot-as-Hades if used correctly, BUT an overload can/will/does ruin everything. Her non-checking of seasoning which irritates is for things requiring a little more subtlety: dressings, sauces, etc. Recently, I saw an episode where PW produced - and this is a lovely thing to have as a drinks' party/cocktail party canape - pieces of grilled chicken breast on skewers with a peanut dip. Channelling a Thai-ish vibe of "sort of" satay sauce as the dipping element. At no point did Ree taste the dipping sauce, just chucked in stuff to whiz up in the processor til blended. Plonked it into a bowl. Cue the thesaurus-draining raft of words such as wonderful/marvellous/awesome. You have to taste things to check and tweak the seasoning: not random ingredients thrown together with supreme confidence it will just work. I am a competent cook, I even have moments (albeit infrequent!) of being a very good cook, and there is only one rule I follow with almost religious fervour: taste as you go along. You can't just wing it and hope for the best. There you are, Excerpt #1 from the List of Irritations! Of course, it's a show which takes the real out of reality so the irritation level should be ignored.

The striking thing (although not really a surprise) about this snippet/aka ad for Walmart, and all its glories, is how extraordinarily unnatural and uncomfortable Ree seems. It's as if a random shopper was stopped and asked to do a piece to camera, reading off the autocue. Rather than an experienced "performer". So stilted and, honestly, rather strange. I am not - absolutely not - going to mention wardrobe choice and hair, other than to say both come under the heading of deeply unflattering.

Lura, I do hope you enjoy it; whatever I cook is wildly imprecise about quantities as I do things by instinct rather than following recipes down to the last 1/8th of an ounce of an ingredient. I think pasta is a joy/blank canvas as one can make things up/improvise to create something delicious, inexpensive (even using shrimp), quick with very few components. And it doesn't need to have a gallon cream and/or 3 tonnes of cheese: pasta just with whole cherry tomatoes sautéed in olive oil 'til they get squidgy, some garlic, phaps some torn up basil, s & p takes moments. "Less is more" is not part of PW'S repertoire!!

One of my irritations (I've not done my list as have been rather unwell and can't seem to focus on more than a few sentences...and I need paragraphs for PW: The Things Which Irritate Me!) is that Ree rhapsodises about something as if she's invented a new and different marvel, when in fact she's doing something that others have done forever and a day.

Astonishingly uninstructive, Which isn't a surprise.

One thing is for sure: PW doesn't "do" improvised/unscripted.

A quick google search reveals, unsurprisingly, that PW hasn't exactly reinvented the wheel with the shrimp scampi roll up malarkey. There are loads of recipes for exactly that very thing, with a few variations, ingredients' wise, of the same theme. Watching the clip (Lordy me, I wish I hadn't: what a sight) you really would think that Mrs. Drummond had thought of this all on her own and the presenter behaved as if she was witnessing some sort of culinary miracle. An awful waste of a rather expensive ingredient. I love shrimp (prawns in the UK!) but never cook them to then add to a sauce that's going to be shoved in the oven. Overcooked, they go rubbery/tough. I always have a bag of uncooked peeled large prawns in the freezer, a bit extravagant but I look out for them being on offer; don't even bother to defrost them, just add to a pan in which I've sautéed a finely diced shallot and a minced/grated clove of garlic, lots of chopped up parsley, glug of white wine and a dollop of crème fraiche, squeeze of lemon juice, s & p and then stir around until the prawns turn pink. Cook dried linguine/whatever pasta I have to hand (unlike Ree, I don't have a million varieties of pasta lurking in a pantry the size of a small house) at the same time as making the sauce, drain pasta & put on the sauce, mix together: voila, an easy and quick supper. Sometimes I add a bag of baby spinach and let it wilt down before adding the prawns, and/or a few chopped up sundried tomatoes. Always a big hit. Back to the roll ups, as I strayed off topic!, surely you spread the shrimp mixture along the whole of each lasagne sheet? Ree put a dollop at one end and then rolled the sheets up. Which seems a lot of pasta to not much mixture. Having said that, Ree's shrimp mixture looked less than spreadable! In any event, lasagne roll ups are not something one meets in the UK. The first time I'd ever seen them was on PW (using the usual meat sauce one associates with lasagne - think she was doing freezer food for Edna May?) and I actually thought it was a PW invention and really rather clever. Silly me. Didn't realise at the time that lasagne roll ups are quite a thing in the States, with lots of variations.

I might unleash the List of Irritations! You're right: "natural" sums up the marked difference in persona. (eye on the clock as electric supply in the whole village where I live ("in the middle of nowhere") is going off at 7 while the elec distribution company does a day of scheduled maintenance work to power lines...it's now 6.30 so coffee to be made, toast to be toasted for breakfast and - as it's still as dark as night - a torch to be found!, No daytime Pioneer Woman for me, today!)

Food Network UK viewers have been treated (?) to some old PW episodes I'd not seen before, perhaps even emanating from Ree's first foray into the world of TV as the children are very young. Ree is quite, quite different. Much softer in every respect. When/how/why did it all change? (she asks, rhetorically!). Incidentally, I have compiled a personal list of PW's foibles which really irritate: it has given me an unnecessary degree of snarky pleasure.

A new-to-me episode yesterday within in the random repeats we get on Food Network in the UK: 4 hour lamb braised in the oven (Ina adapted the recipe from the original 7 hours' braising time as, after testing the recipe a few times, she found the 7 hour cooking time was too long, .I wondered if that was because Ina was using a boneless leg of lamb which would take less time to reach that wonderful "falls apart if you look it" moment). Ina didn't say it was boneless but it looked as if it was, i.e. the use of string. The lamb looked so, so, so good and wonderfully tender. And the cooking juices, complete with the squished garlic passed through a sieve and then reduced...heaven! Even the white beans sort of a la Provencale (I am not usually a fan of white beans!) it was served with looked super-enticing. BUT a leg of home-produced lamb is expensive in the UK, which is ironic given that we produce wonderful lamb - Welsh lamb is particularly good. I'd baulk at spending nearly £40 on a 4lb boneless leg of lamb I was going to braise. However good/delicious the end result is! Imported New Zealand lamb is less expensive, but it seems all wrong to buy NZ lamb when we are (rightly) encouraged to support British farmers. So....I'm going to do the recipe using a cheaper, but no less delicious, cut: perhaps a boned/rolled shoulder. Or even rolled breast of lamb which is extremely inexpensive and needs long, slow cooking.

I am barely able to contain my excitement: a new (to the UK) series of PW starts today. The trailer is - unwittingly - one of the funniest things I've ever heard. The announcer intones, rather breathlessly, "you have been warned...Ree is back". No doubt it will be the same-old-same-old variation on a theme. I shall report back!

Perhaps it is an automatic reflex with her voice, as you suggest, but it really grates. I wince while waiting for the 3 octaves higher than normal and overly excited "Hiiiiiiiii guys" when anyone walks through the door or PW arrives somewhere on the ranch with a truckload of food for a tailgate meal (all so beautifully choreographed!), followed by "anyone hungry?" said in a near falsetto.

AND there's the PW Steak House and Bar to come. (I found this article from the UK's Daily Mail, which appeared in June last year - I knew I'd read something somewhere about the latest part of the PW Vision, and was forced (not quite true!!) to do nocturnal online searching.) https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-5814699/Pioneer-Woman-Ree-Drummond-says-shes-thrilled-shes-able-revitalize-small-Oklahoma-town.html

I managed to download and crop the photo (gave me a chance to play with the photo editing facility on my new-to-me laptop). I agree, Dineen, Chuck doesn't look awfully well. Perhaps it's just a combination of the years catching up with him and also missing Nan, rather than some awful illness. I have a bit of a soft spot for him: of all the cast (bit part players) who people PW's "frontier", he seems the most natural and comfortable in front of the camera, as if knowing that the stage managed set pieces are a bit of a joke but, what the heck, just go along with it. Missy, on the other hand, looks like a frightened deer in headlights and I get always get the feeling she would like to be anywhere other than appearing on her sister-in-law's show and having to suffer s-in-l's sometimes gushingly patronising remarks..."great salad, Missy" about a bowl of lettuce and a few other bits while Ree has produced all sorts of dishes for the same family get-together.

Lura - I agree with all of your bullet points above. Particularly the final point which, when I first saw that episode (and reee-peated often) left me "gobsmacked" as we say on this side of the Atlantic. Happy Good Friday...I might try it out next Easter, as I skip around the village on THE MOST SOLEMN DAY OF THE CHRISTIAN CALENDAR before descending on the vicar's house bearing Hot Cross Buns in the manner of a deranged Lady Bountiful awash with gin (and a rictus grin). And I'm certain that part of PW's business strategy developed over the years - her "success" has not happened accidentally - is to perpetuate the myth that she's just an ordinary rancher's wife who lives an ordinary life cooking ordinary food. I suppose it's quite clever. Find your demographic and play it for all its worth, and you create an adoring fan base. Or am I being deeply cynical?

I think I need counselling after witnessing a PW "creation" (I used the word in its loosest sense) on one of her shows yesterday. Macaroni cheese stuffed peppers (I think poblano???) (if that's the correct spelling!) DIPPED IN BEER BATTER and deep fried. I can (more or less) get my head around mac cheese stuffed peppers but it's the batter/deep fried element which left me feeling rather sick and also speechless. I think she said it was an experiment. Not something I'll be making any time soon! Stuffed bell peppers are a favourite of mine, tho not stuffed with mac cheese!, so there's no reason to think stuffed poblano peppers wouldn't be nice. Having said that, I'm not sure that they're readily available in the UK. I might have to do some research!

Can't get rid of the quote thing (not sure how it appeared!) but no matter... On the official PW Facebook page - I admit to looking at it if very bored - there's a buncha photos of Ree with visitors in the Merc on 4th July. Her tunic top is a tad ill-advised and not exactly flattering, to my non-fashionista way of thinking. (sweet looking little girl, tho!)

Brunch for The Girls (oft reeeee-peated, probably, but only saw it for the first time earlier today). Tater Tots' (yes, I had to google that...brand name for a sort of frozen potato croquette, I think?!) pie with a citrus salad. I love citrus salads but PW's creation included slices of lime. Lime is a fabulous fruit in all sorts of ways, but - and it's a BIG but - not munching on slices of it on top of slices of ordinary oranges and blood oranges. A potentially weird and overwhelming taste experience. Pink grapefruit and avocado, sitting on top of watercress (I don't like arugula/what I call rocket) with a citrus dressing is good. But lays the way wide open for Ree Embellishments!

I had to google alfajores as well! And - this is from someone who doesn't really like sweet things, and who rarely eats pudding/dessert or cakes (which is why PW's "sweet offerings" make me wince) - they do look and sound rather wonderful. S'mores, when I first encountered them on FN (thank you, Ina...one of her beach barbecues), were a total unknown to me in the UK. Not high on my list of things for which I'd deviate from my more or less sugar-free path! Although I have happy memories of toasting marshmallow on sticks at bonfires. One thing I do enjoy (and it is VERY rich and VERY sweet) is Chocolate Biscuit Cake (what I think is called Chocolate Fridge Cake in the US? - like Rocky Road without the extra bits - I can see Ree unleashing her creatively enthusiastic penchant/ingredient overload for adding just about anything/everything within reach.

Bit in bold: pretty much what I was wondering. I really can't/don't believe that PW would condone or encourage "fishing for votes".

It doesn't bear thinking about!

Very true!

PW would benefit from watching Ina spatchcocking a chicken (as seen on a Barefoot Contessa episode recently shown in the UK.)