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I saw the reports this morning. The Merediths claim it's a hit job because the allegations are becoming public right when their show premieres, but it's at least three different couples that have similar complaints. Also, the show has been out on D+ for a while now; it's only premiering on TV with Magnolia Channel's official takeover of the DIY Channel.

I think the last time I ventured into Wal-Mart was pre-pandemic, so I have no clue what the PW stock is like now. I do remember seeing some of the cookware. I never want to buy any celebrity cookware line because the quality is rarely there. I'd rather spend the extra money on guaranteed quality like All-Clad and Le Creuset. Note that PW uses Le Creuset on her show.

I did not know this existed! Just put the PlutoTV app on my XBox and browsing now.

I see Restored is now under the Magnolia Channel on Discovery+, so your wishes seem to have been granted.

HAHAHAHA OMG that wax warmer is HIDEOUS! But I don't doubt that there is somebody out there that will see it and decide that they must have it for their home filled with ostentatious Christmas decorations.

This woman really needs to find other drinks to make that isn't just lemonade/limeade in some form.

I only come to the forum sporadically and missed this. What sad news. Lura was such a fun and engaging presence on the board. We'll miss her and I wish her family warmth and light in the holiday season.

I started a Magnolia Network topic in Network Talk because I forgot the FU topic still existed, hah. I actually like the Magnolia Network. Like I said in Network Talk, it's more HGTV than HGTV. There are actual gardening shows! I really like Homegrown, where Jamila Norman transforms people's backyards into functioning gardens. I also liked The Lost Kitchen and seeing how a restauranteur in a small town found ways to keep herself afloat during the pandemic. I'm actually watching The Ranch Table right now. It's Pioneer Woman but not annoying and far better food.

Really, all of the Drummond land is stolen land. And there's no way they gained all that land to be in the top 25 landowners without doing some very unsavory things.

If somebody comes with with a more clever subtitle, by all means. Since the channel has launched on Discovery+ and will soon takeover DIY Network, it's time for it to have its own topic. I've been watching on Discovery+ and...I don't hate it. It's basically what HGTV should have been all this time. It's not a 24/7 Chip + Jo show. I actually haven't watched her cooking show or the new FU episodes. There are plenty of non-competition food shows, gardening shows, renovation shows, and interior decorating shows. I do truly appreciate that there are actual baking shows that aren't ridiculous competitions *gives Food Network the hairy eyeball*. And I'm enjoying the DeVol Kitchens show. I've been following them on Instagram for a long time and have serious kitchen envy. It's all definitely in JoJo Gaines' beige farmhouse aesthetic, which is a pro or a con depending upon your viewpoint. It's giving basic bitch, but I actually don't mind it. It's comforting like a pumpkin spice latte. The other thing I appreciate is that from the outset, they have more diversity as a baby network than Food Network and HGTV in the almost 30 years those channels have existed.

What’s really annoying is remember back in 2019 Food Network was continually and disruptively hawking their Food Network Kitchen app? Even to the point of having what basically amounted to infomercials. They also bought the Panna app (an app I absolutely loved) and were supposed to absorb all the material from Panna onto FNK (which they have yet to do). Now it’s like they completely forgot about FNK and are hawking Discovery+ instead. I signed up for the free trial of Discovery+ (I got the FNK app for two years free because I was a Panna subscriber) and it has all the shows FNK has plus a lot more, including some of the shows from the early days of Food Network. Only difference is the cooking classes and the digital shorts are still only available on FNK. Speaking of the digital shorts, there’s one I actually like called “Every Day Is Saturday” with Sarah Copeland (of EdibleLiving.Com). The premise is pretty tone-deaf in today’s world: “What if every meal is like the weekend? Unrushed, uncomplicated[...]”. But...I actually kind of like it, but I like the basic-bitch cottagecore aesthetic. It also does what I’ve been wanting out of cooking shows for a while where the focus isn’t getting dinner on the table as fast as the episode’s runtime, but actually taking the time to cook and enjoy the process as much as the end product. But again, I recognize being able to do that is a privilege, but it’s a philosophy I’m working toward to being able to live my life by.

If you decide to subscribe to Discovery+, you’ll get all six episodes of Baked In Vermont. I can’t believe this show only got six episodes. They need to bring it back, even if it’s digital only.

I just saw one of the At Home episodes for the first time tonight and I liked it. It’s actually nice to see them in their home kitchens cooking because that fits in with the whole raison d'être for the show. Like let’s see them make the recipes where they don’t have top of the line professional equipment and a large amount of space. It makes me think of the now-defunct Panna app where you had professional chefs cooking their recipes in their home kitchens.

Donald Pleasance in all his creepy, sinister glory.

Well, while it might not be breaking new ground, I’m down for a show that takes out the fake real estate search that takes up too much time. The veil has long been lifted; we all know that the house was already purchased and everybody watches for the demolition and the final product. It’s about time they start removing that aspect.

I didn’t hate the muted colors; that’s fine for adults who like the Joanna Gaines neutral palette farmhouse aesthetic where any color used is dulled, otherwise it clashes. But for a baby who’s vision is still developing, colors need to be bright. Hence why everything for babies and young children are in garishly bright colors.

I’m watching a rerun from last year “Faster Pasta.” Aside from the undying cooking show trend of finding every way to cook dinner in the least amount of time that I’ve complained about plenty (especially with Ree who was never beholden to a 9-5 job or doing all the homeschooling and domestic chores like she claimed), one of the “recipes” was fried pasta. Her introduction to it was baffling. She was going on about how she was doing something so wacky and out there by frying pasta. Does she think her audience are full of oblivious idiots? It sounds like it with the way she expected people to lose their minds at the idea of frying pasta. Hon, you’re in the Midwest. Fried (or “toasted”) ravioli has been a thing in that region for decades. It’s not that big of a leap to go from frying ravioli to frying cooked bow tie pasta.

There were three main anti-PW sites: The Pie Near Woman, who used the Lucille Ball and Ken dolls; The Marlboro Woman, who went paywall and then ceased to exist (she had mentioned something about one of her sons getting into some serious legal trouble); and The Pioneer Woman Sux, not too sure what happened there.

So is FN just pretending they can’t find actual chefs who are charismatic and would like to have a cooking show? They’re really scraping the bottom of the barrel with this Amy Schumer Learns To Cook show

Molly really isn’t making a case for Midwestern food and it makes me miss Amy Thielen’s show even more. I’m not Midwestern (though my paternal side of the family are all Ohioans), but I like seeing overlooked regional cuisines. But Molly showcases the things that make Midwestern food a punchline and not something that makes somebody who lives in NYC, New England, the Southeast, and Southwest (areas with well-known delicious regional cuisines) want to try Midwestern food.

At least one of those B&Bs is a Drummond property, though. You ever watch one of those fictional shows set in a small-town that is pretty much owned and run by one hugely wealthy family to the point most of the revenue generated is from their businesses and properties and the local LE and judicial system is in their pockets? That’s the Drummonds in Pawhuska, OK, down to the part that there is a Drummond who is a judge. And as @chessiegal pointed out, sure Ree was at the right place and the right time for her blog to take off, but that was sure easy when she married into one of the wealthiest families in Oklahoma and therefore didn’t need to fit blogging around a 9-5 job and had an unlimited budget for a professional camera and equipment and had the Lodge built primarily for her pursuits. And could afford the marketing and all those Kitchen-Aid mixers and $150 gift cards to various high-end shops that she supposedly just found lying in a junk drawer for giveaways in her early days. Even her TV show is a result of that wealth. She produces the show. The Food Network only spent the money to buy and air it. They don’t even have to waste money marketing her show; I have FN on a lot and you do not see ads for PW’s show. The Gaines are on the same track as well in addition to driving up housing costs and property taxes with their fixer-uppers. The Magnolia bakery (which is likely riding a serious copyright line with the well-known Magnolia’s in NYC) is theirs. The restaurant is theirs. The B&B is theirs. They bought and renovated the old grist mill just for Joanna’s cooking show. The only thing you could really appreciate them for is trying to change the association of Waco to them and not David Koresh and Branch Davidians.

Did she really revitalize the town, though? I have similar issues with Chip & JoJo Gaines. It’s less revitalization and more takeover. They’re not helping local townspeople to open and succeed with their own businesses; the success is just with their own Mercantiles and bakeries and mills and other properties.

I hate to admit it, but I’ll probably end up watching too much of the Magnolia Channel. I follow DeVol Kitchens on Instagram, so I’m intrigued by their show. And I really kind of hate the fact that Magnolia is prepped to be more about home & garden than the channel literally named Home & Garden TV.

The design makes it look like it’s supposed to be displayed in a cabinet and not actual dinnerware to be used. Given that it is likely to be cheap junk that would easily chip, scratch, and break from normal use, you probably should only display it.

So, I watched. Meh. It was home videos shot by Ella of Joanna cooking. She made chili with cornbread, zucchini bread, and chocolate chip cookies. A bunch of nonsense on how they’re surviving quarantine on their large farm. Then a clip of Joanna’s cooking show of her recruiting two friends to help her make garlic knots, a layered salad, and I think some sort of lasagna pasta bake and footage of her and Chip renovating the grist mill where the cooking show will be filmed. Absolutely nothing groundbreaking. Not to sound like a total Negative Nellie, I will say the grist mill kitchen is quite nice. It still exhibits Joanna’s aversion to color, other than the gold accents on the stove, but I do like how the spices were organized. As for a general FN/CC topic, I wonder COVID-19 and the resulting quarantines for however long it will go on will change food shows. I would love to see the end of 1.) the constant competition shows and the DDD type shows and 2.) gatherings and entertaining always being the framework for cooking shows. Not everybody likes entertaining or having more than a couple of close friends over once in a while. I’d like to see more baking shows that aren’t competitions (bring back Baked In Vermont!) and cooking shows with actual chefs (not bloggers) that get back to basics and cooking for one or two people. You’ve got people flying the dark right now because so much is focused on cooking for 4+ people. Most people don’t want to be eating leftovers of one meal for a week.