I escaped the house-in-progress last night and went to the "Pioneer Woman Cooks" cookbook signing with my youngest daughter. We arrived at the Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe just as it was about to begin at 7:00 instead of hours early, which we now know to do next time. We stood in line to buy our books and were assigned a letter code -- Group N -- for the actual signing. We were quite a ways from the action and the author, Ree Drummond, behind stacks of bookshelves so we couldn't really see anything while she spoke. Audience members asked her questions and she gave charming, funny answers. A child asked her if she had elephants. She said, "You know, until this very moment, I didn't realize that's what was missing from my life. We have horses and cows, but no elephants."
Once she sat down to begin signing, they announced that people with the letter A and anybody with children should get in line. At least an hour went by before they got to Group B. My daughter, who is currently working two jobs so believe me it was amazing that she even had last night off, was fading fast.
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| Ree Drummond, signing her cook book |
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| Missy |
Ree's sister-in-law, Missy, and mother-in-law, Nan, were wandering through the crowd, chatting, signing their photos in the book, taking pictures with people. They were gracious and provided a nice distraction from the wait -- for a while.
We were fortunate to have found a couple of chairs to park ourselves in and spent some time going through the cookbook. I will say this is one of the prettiest cookbooks -- lots and lots of gorgeous pictures of more than just food. There are many pictures of ranch life and animals and kids, family and friends. I know it's hard work, but it sure looks lovely in the photos and Ree is an amazing photographer.
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| Nan |
I have already chosen a handful of recipes that I'm going to be trying out soon like the scones and chicken fried steak and jalapeño poppers and meatballs. My in-laws are coming for a 2-week visit around Thanksgiving so I'll have a captive audience to cook for. And I'm throwing a baby shower for a friend in December, so I'll be trying out recipes to serve for that as well. Missy said that when they hold their annual 4th of July get together, they make over 300 jalapeño poppers. Lots of food gets consumed on that ranch.
We lasted until 10:15 when they had made it to Group G and figured it would be at least midnight before they got close to our Group N. We ended up leaving our books to be signed and will pick them up today. The big bummer is that we didn't actually get to meet Ree or have a picture taken with her. But I am truly excited about this gorgeous cookbook and wish her and her family the best of luck on the book tour and in the future. She mentioned that she would be writing another book on her love story with her marlboro man rancher hubby. Sounds scrumptious!
Visit her wonderful website at http://thepioneerwoman.com/
2 comments:
Party poopers! Sorry to hear you couldn't stay for the whole shebang. I've been to several favorite authors' book signings and treasure the book along with the pics. My most famous author signing would be Anne Rice. But my most visited author/artist is Clive Barker (3 times!) who even drew original art on my red leather jacket. It's the first inanimate object to be grabbed in case of fire!
That is so cool! I was in New York with hubby in 1996 and opened the newspaper to see that Brett Butler (the actress from Grace Under Fire) was having a book signing at a big bookstore on 5th Avenue for "Knee Deep in Paradise." Hubby went to a business meeting so I went to the bookstore and was one of the first in line. It was exciting. I have a few others, but that's the one that comes to mind.
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