Tag Archives: Mom

PW Weekend: food, food, food

Are you tired of hearing about my weekend with the Pioneer Woman yet?

It’s only taken me a month to spit it all out.

This is the next to last installment, and I am lumping together accounts of what amounted to a treasure trove of food.

The very first night we were hit up the side of the head with her chocolate sheet cake, which we devoured warm from the oven.

For anyone who doubts the existence of this woman, let me reaffirm that we watched her whip up this cake with our own two eyes.

And she served me a piece with her own two hands.

Here, Jenna–have a piece of chocolate cake. I insist!

Why thanks, P-Dub. I think I’ll have seconds.

It was delightful for breakfast as well. I speak from experience.

The next day chefs Lia and Tiffany whipped up some toffee.

Whipped, whipped, whipped. I can’t stop using that verb, but it’s a perfect description of what these women did in the kitchen. They made it look so easy. However, just to avoid an F– on my English composition scores, I think I should come up with a synonym for ‘whipped.’ Let’s make one up. How about ‘zaboomed’ or ‘razzifrazzed’.

You can click here for the toffee recipe–you won’t be sorry.

And then Lia showed us how to make truffles.

It was all very scientific, with tons of useful facts. This woman knows her chocolate, what makes it fall apart, what makes it get that weird chalky white color sometimes, and what makes it go ‘zing.’ But all I can remember is that she tests the temperature of her tempered chocolate by touching some to the point under your lips where your chin begins. Apparently it’s a very heat-sensitive spot. Next time I’ll take notes. Though wait–there will be no next time! *weeping into sleeve* Oh well, I’ll console myself by making the truffles by myself and talking to my imaginary friend the P-Dub as if she were there. Imaginary friends totally worked when I was a kid–why not now? And why can’t one of them be exactly like Ree?

You can click here for the truffles recipe as well as a thorough step by step documentation by the P-Dub herself.

We all donned non-Laytex glove thingies, dipped our hands in chocolate, and rolled the truffles in between our palms. I would have photographed the occasion, however being covered in chocolate and holding my DSLR were not compatible states of being. So I chose the chocolate. It was an existentialist moment.

Lia also showed us how to make these chocolate designs.

You pipe ’em on a sheet of parchment paper, let ’em dry, and then stick ’em on a truffle. Or a bowl of ice cream. Or something. Gorgeous.

There’s nothing like watching a woman at her craft. Lia knows everything about chocolate, and I mean everything. High school chemistry teachers would do well to invite her to guest speak in their classrooms. That would have snapped me out of my chemistry-induced high school head fog, I’m telling you. It brings meaning and sense to a discipline that I heretoforth had seen as inapplicable to my life.

For dinner, Ree counteracted our heavy consumption of cookies, truffles, and toffee with a nice slab of beef tenderloin.

It looked more raw than I would have thought was appetizing–but it was actually melt-in-your-mouth perfect. Mark my words.

On a tangent, don’t you love Ree’s ring and bracelet?

We ate the tenderloin with a generous heap of seafood pasta and a perfect salad.

It was heavenly. I wish I had that pasta recipe . . . Lia and Tiffany razzifrazzed it up from the remains of the seafood they used for our salad lunch.

In fact, Christy couldn’t finish her pasta. So I pulled out my trademark move. “Um, are you going to finish that?”

You think I’m joking. But I’m not. Thanks for the rest of your pasta, Christy. It was awesome.

There was a second tenderloin that got abandoned on the counter, so at night I snuck back to the kitchen and had at it.

You may also think I’m joking about this . . . but I’m not. I ate a nice chunk of it, in the dark, with only my Mom as a witness. She promised to take my secret to the grave.

I also expressed my love to Ree’s knife, her famed Wüsthoff.

I’m happy to say that the Wüsthoff reciprocated and said it had a fond place in its steely heart for me, too. It was a tender moment.

Look! I’m putting my feet on the P-Dub’s coffee table!

I leave you with a quote I came across on someone’s blog. I wish I could remember whose, because I love it.

Stay busy, get plenty of exercise, and don’t drink too much.  Then again, don’t drink too little.  ~Herman “Jackrabbit” Smith-Johannsen

PW Weekend: a morning with the wild mustangs

 

Hello all, and welcome to installment 33,127 of the PW Weekend series.

I’m sorry it’s taking me weeks and weeks and post after post to chronicle what took place over an evening, a day, and a morning.

But I’m also not sorry. Because there are fantastic things to share, in particular these shots of the wild mustangs.

You may be thinking to yourself: wild horses on a cattle ranch? Hunh? The explanation goes something like this: it’s a federal offense to kill a wild mustang. However, this breed of indomitable beauties is taking over certain Western States. So the government was like “Crap! What are we going to do?” Well, they separated the mustangs out into ladies and gentlemen to avoid any more funny business, and contracted people with extensive lands to take care of the horses. The Drummond ranch plays host to a huge herd of mares.

In the winter months, the grasses aren’t enough to sustain them, so Marlboro Man (the Pioneer Woman’s husband) and the kids feed them in the mornings.

We went along for the ride.

It was early . . . but not too early. A mere 7:30am.

Mission #1 was to fill the back of the truck with feed. Marlboro Man didn’t seem to mind that everyone and their mother was taking his picture.

I never in my life would have imagined when I started reading Ree’s website last year that one day my Mom would be riding in the front of a truck with Marlboro Man.

Hi Mom! My head still gets a funny ache when I think about it.

Ann, Jenn and I rode in a separate truck driven by Ree’s eldest daughter.

She successfully drove us through fields . . .

. . . through some kind of moat of danger . . .

. . . and through a landscape riddled with obstacles.

Some obstacles she just drove right over, but some obstacles required talented maneuvering.

Like these cow-shaped obstacles.

Oh wait! Those are actual real cows!

Our kind driver was especially patient when Ann and I shrieked “Oh, can you stop here, we just want to take a couple more pictures!” and practically climbed out the truck’s windows.

This only happened about 529 times.

My name is Patsy.

This is my butt.

All the cows wanted to show me their butts. I could barely get in a good head shot of some nice-looking bovine creature before they were turning around and modeling their hind ends.

My name is Rex Magnificat.

This is my butt.

Thanks Rex. That’s just what I needed to see on a bright and early morning before I’ve even had my coffee.

We were able to see the wild horses in two separate pastures.

I don’t even know what to say about them.

They’re simply glorious.

If only I hadn’t forgotten my telephoto lens.

One minute they were all trotting parallel to the trucks, on the other side of a fence, in their own little world of mustang-ness.

Then . . . whoomp.

Hello, horses. Hello, Jenna.

I like to think we made a connection. A connection that will outlive time and space.

Thank you, Marlboro Man and daughter, for so graciously carting us ladies around your neck of the woods.

Thank you for posing for a million pictures and understanding that because we love the Pioneer Woman, we love you, too.

Make sure to check out Ann‘s rendering of the account–she’s such a funny writer.

And in case you haven’t seen enough of Nelson and Winthrop, here they are again.