Automne

The food was great in Hong Kong! I finally got to try xiong long bao (soup dumplings), had rice noodle rolls (they had this peanut sauce and adding hoisin sauce and sesame seeds (as directed by the tour guide) made it sooooo good), tried a century egg (nope), and a bunch of other Cantonese dishes. I just bought a wok and some other Chinese utensils/ingredients because now I really want to try my hand at authentic Chinese cooking. And I’ve decided Taiwan is my next big trip (goal for 2020).

Ugh, did Ree write the descriptions for the menu items? 1.) She’s a terrible writer. 2.) Nobody needs a blog post; just say what the item consists of and that’s it. I’m amazed at how a rancher family just cannot cook beef. I’m watching the goodbye dinner for Paige and Caleb episode and those ribeyes look grey and sad despite being on the grill. No browning, no crust, not even grill marks. If you’re going to go with the butter route with steaks, why not butter-baste them in a cast-iron skillet? I enjoy cooking steak (especially ribeye) by sous-vide and then searing/butter-basting them in the cast iron. Perfectly cooked, I get that nice crust on the steak, and great flavor from the garlic and herbs with the butter. Also, hi everybody! I just returned from Hong Kong and I wish I were still there!

If I want spaghetti to go with my chili, I’ll just make Cincinnati chili, thanks.

Oh, geez. You think PW will show a bit more tact and realize that two funeral-themed shows in such quick succession would be classless? Or am I giving her too much credit? Frankly, I don’t feel too charitable right now. I recently attended the memorial for the mother of a family I’ve known for around 14 years and her adult kids are (understandably) devastated. The youngest three aren’t even 30 yet and the youngest of them all isn’t doing too well and I worry about her. I feel so horrible for them. I can’t imagine any one of them creating a TV show episode surrounding their mother’s death or any of them supporting such an idea.

I LOVE Ina’s house, but I do really love Nigella’s new kitchen and that cuter-than-hell patio.

Not viewer reactions, but Ree claiming that the episode was “hard to watch:” https://people.com/food/ree-drummond-pioneer-woman-emotional-episode-mother-in-law-death-reaction/amp/ If it was hard to watch, imagine how everybody that’s not Ree felt filming it. I haven’t seen the episode for myself and I don’t know if I want to.

FN is doing a mini-marathon of her “16-minute meals” episodes. I truly hate her notion of 16-minute meals. When does the timer start? When you actually start cooking? Prep alone would take 16 minutes. There’s also the fact that Ree’s 24 hours per day is not the same as the 24 hours her audience has. Anybody testing Ree’s 16-minute meals is going to be disappointed at how much longer it will take them because they barely have a fraction of the resources Ree has at her disposal. Also, why would you use marinara as a base for a taco pizza and not salsa or taco sauce and not use any spices commonly used in taco seasoning when cooking the beef? Otherwise, it’s a ground beef French bread pizza, not a taco pizza. EDIT: Okay, wow. Talk about egregious. This 16-minute episode on now is a hack job clip show because one segment was literally just in the previous episode and another was in the episode before that. And two of the recipes are basically chicken parmesan and the third is chicken piccata. FN has got to be trolling the audience with this and trying to show what a charlatan Ree is.

The problem with home-schooling in the States is that it’s left up to each state to come up with regulations. So there are some states that say parents with an 8th grade education can homeschool their children. There are no federal standards to follow, AFAIK. And a darker side of homeschooling is since parents can be their children’s teachers, abusive parents now have a way to keep their children away from mandated reporters.

You know, Ree doesn’t look bad with the brunette. If she went with a balance between that and the Pennywise red she’s got going on now, it would be a vast improvement.

More PW Magazine fun! Who accessorized this ugly-ass poncho better? I’m going with Missy, because when you have something that colorfully hideous, best to pair it with the LBD and understated shoes so you don’t look like a full trainwreck. Whereas Ree fully embraces being a calamity. Well, at least Ree isn’t trying to hide her wealth anymore. They legit converted a bedroom into a pantry for the show. Also in this picture, a glimpse of Paige’s tragically fried hair. Nothing about her coloring says that she could ever pull of platinum blonde. Just yikes. A look at the catering crew and Ree’s ugly grandma-curtain tops:

From what I understand, that was just the first half of the season. There are supposed to be another eight episodes, but there's no date as to when the show returns.

Two episodes back-to-back filmed years apart had baked ziti as recipes. The second episode called it a mini meatball bake, but it was baked ziti. Either my claim that her show is a rehash of like six episodes is only a slight exaggeration or FN is semi-aware she is repetitive and is trolling the audience.

Bacon. Wrapped. Club. Crackers.

You’re so sweet! I missed this forum and all you guys!

Neither. It’s Shaye Elliott. She had a 6-episode run of a show called The Homestead Table a couple of months ago. I’m guessing it was a test season (but when they barely advertise it...). I liked it, but checking out her website, I noticed the DoTerra bull (http://theelliotthomestead.com/).

“Girl Meets Farm” is yet another tryout of giving a blogger a TV show, like they did with “The Homestead Table” (which I liked, until I saw the hostess is heavily into DoTerra, a MLM. Hard pass). I think FN knows that Ree has nothing left in her and while they’ll still air her show because they’re not spending the money producing it, they may be aware enough that eventually her ratings are going to go down from a bored audience. They’re trying to hit paydirt again, so we’re seeing 6-episode order shows to dig out another gold nugget.

Patton Oswalt said that she was having a hard time sleeping due to her investigation into the EAS/ONS/GSK, so that's what prompted her to use the sleeping pill (Ambien?). That combined with the unknown vascular disorder contributed to her death.

Using chili peppers in a lemonade or other summer juice drink could be delicious, if done right. Like using jalapeño or bird's eye chili in a mango lemonade (mango and chili peppers are a good combination. At the hotel, we used to do a mango flambé with a cilantro-jalapeño ice cream). But the key phrase is "done right." Ree is not somebody I'd trust with delicate flavor combinations. I fear the day she discovers floral extracts and flavorings. Her using lavender or rose water is a terrifying prospect. Everything would taste like spa soap.

Aw, thank you! Sorry to be so sporadic here. Started a new job back in February and had computer issues for a couple of months. Plus, I more or less stopped watching PW. She's gone from being amusing to just pissing me off. And because I think everything Ree does is calculated, in regards to the messy-ass truck compared to Hyacinth's pristine Lexus, I'm sure that was another strategy to continue trying to sell the down-home rural rancher's wife story by showing that yes, this truck is used for farm and ranch work. Re: that JMU thesis. I really hate how some feminist circles seem to think that women shouldn't criticize other women. Especially when that "sisterhood" bull only comes up when a woman is being rightfully criticized for doing some morally dubious things. No, women love seeing successful women, but we don't like seeing women become successful by stepping all over other women and then using the power that came with their success to suppress. Like raking in millions per year in government handouts for letting wild mustangs roam your thousands of acres of land, but then vote for the people that will take away needed government services from those in poverty. It's been my theory that Ladd and Ree were an arranged marriage. I don't know about the part where they needed Ree's family's money to save the ranch, especially when the Drummonds essentially own Pawhuska (a Drummond is a judge and have dismissed family members' traffic violations and such). With Ree and Hyacinth's friendship, the Drummonds and Hyacinth's family were friends for generations, so it's more a tradition than anything genuine. Plus, Hyacinth reads as a bit of a starfucker; I'm betting she spends so much time around Ree because of the fame the blog and later the show brought. I don't know if both Ree and Hyacinth married into the families that were friends for so long or if Hyacinth was born into the family. I really wish they didn't cancel Farmhouse Rules. Give me somebody who actually lived that rural farm life since birth. My ideal FN/CC show would be a show consisting of several farmhouse home/professional cooks (like Amy Thielen and Nancy Fuller and obviously find nonwhite farmers, too) from different regions of the USA and each episode has them comparing and contrasting dishes and showing true homestead cooking. FN dropped the ball on that when homesteading has become increasingly popular ever since the 2008 recession.

It’s interesting to note that Ree is rarely brought out of her Pioneer Woman set onto other FN/CC shows while the other chefs and hosts have multiple gigs. Like, they don’t even bring her out for The Best Thing I Ever Ate and they get anybody tangentially related to food on there. Both FNS and that Thanksgiving Live a few years back illustrated why (and why you shouldn’t hold up food bloggers next to professional chefs, unless said food blogger is/was a chef). It’s pretty clear that Alton, Bobby, Giada, and others view Ree as a hack. It was funny on Thanksgiving Live when all the hosts were asked what their favorite part of the turkey was and Ree gave a generic answer of dark meat (I think), but Alton and Ina started talking about the oysters hidden in the back of the turkey and it was clear Ree had no idea. Then there was the bacon-wrapped club crackers fiasco. After Thanksgiving Live, Ree was shoved back into her Pawhuska corner. I guess they decided to take her off the shelf, dust her off, and give her another chance in a non-PW arena. I really don’t think they’re going to trot her out to guest judge on Chopped or anything like that because she can’t even fake knowing anything about food on a professional level. Her own show is basically six episodes done over and over again.

The only thing I will give her is that she got in on the ground floor of food blogging and immediately cornered the Christian homeschool niche. Other than that, it’s all due to the fact that she married the family that essentially owns Pawhuska, OK and rakes in millions per year. She could afford to not have to fit blogging around a job + family (and even then, she could afford tutors, maids, and other help while she took the credit for “doing it all”). She could afford top-of-the-line cameras and lenses (and only ever relied on the quality of the camera and Photoshop because her photography really isn’t that great). She could afford to pay a web developer and website designer (something that could easily go into the $1000s). She could afford to have an entirely new building constructed on the vast swath of land her husband’s family owns purely to be her test kitchen and studio. This is where so much criticism of Ree Drummond stems from. She always tried to portray herself as one of the regular down-home folk roughing it in rural Oklahoma and still does, despite the fact that her wealth is well-known. Now she’s trying to parlay her success as a rags-to-riches story. Granted, nobody wants to hear how a multi-millionaire got everything she wanted due to the power of money, but still.

Villanelle really relies on people not being able to shoot or otherwise harm her. It definitely caught her off-guard when Eve shoved the knife into her gut. And Eve learned that maybe fantasy doesn’t quite live up to reality when it comes to killing somebody, but she had an entirely normal human reaction. But that’s a trope that drives me nuts. Multiple people have a villain dead to rights on separate occasions, but always hesitate and let the villain get the drop on them. I wish Elena was given more to do. I hope she has a bigger role next season. The actress who plays Irina looks like a younger Emma Kenney (Debbie in Shameless US version).

A lot of shows do this. It’s the “death edit.” The Walking Dead does this all the time. When a character suddenly starts getting a lot of focus in an episode, they’ll be dead at the end of it and be the “surprise guest” on Talking Dead. Yeah, that was disappointing. We suddenly find out he has a baby, a wife, the circumstances of his marriage, and that he’s bisexual all in the episode in which he dies. That was a little lazy, IMO. It would have been a little better that we (the audience) find out about the wife and baby at the funeral for more of an emotional punch.

It does seem like Darlene is getting the better edit, but Becky is essentially in line with her characterization. Becky is very short-sighted, selfish, stubborn, and impulsive. Criminy, she got married at 17 to move to Minneapolis. Once she met Mark, all sense flew out the window and she made rather poor life choices. Even when her parents handed her a check for a lot of money with the intent that she take college courses, she wanted to invest all that money into Mark instead while she worked at the Hooters expy. Basically, all of Becky's chickens came home to roost in the past 20 years + the additional bad luck of her husband dying (which highlights her short-sightedness. You should always have a plan in case of marriage dissolution or spousal death). Darlene was academically lazy, snarky, and downright emotionally abusive at times, but she had some sense and a focus as to where she wanted to go and be in life and didn't completely sacrifice herself for David like Becky did for Mark. When David didn't get into school, but Darlene did, he tried to manipulate her into staying in Lanford, but she still went to college. Plus, David was a little more intelligent than his brother and probably was able to get some sort of decent and more secure job to provide for his family. David seems like the kind of person who would've gotten into IT. It would stand to reason that Darlene is somewhat better off than Becky. When you really think about it, Becky became Jackie while Darlene is (and always was) Roseanne.