Introducing Paula!

We started off with a welcome reception with Paula last night. She’s so much fun---quite the character and full of personality. She addressed the elephant in the room and responded to several other “lies” going around about her---

she and her husband, Michael are NOT divorcing and she did not take some secret weight loss pill. There’s no miracle there---she cut everything white out of her diet---flour, pasta, butter, sugar. She looks great and was a bundle full of energy. She’s cute and funny! How can you not love someone that say’s “y’all” in the twangiest southern drawl?

 Our first gift was this bag containing:

Her son, Bobby's brand new book---autographed, of course.

Today we started with a galley tour. There are 1250 crew members and 630 of them are food and beverage employees. There are 15 bars and 9 restaurants. Darren Ridley, the executive chef had a live-in position at Buckingham Palace and worked for the Royal Family. He has other credentials a mile long, but of course, his connection to the Royal Family was most interesting to me. A couple facts: 2300 dozen eggs, 12,300 lbs. of potatoes and 75,000 lbs. of fruit are used each week. The light fixture in the “Opus” restaurant (where we met for the tour) is incredible.

 Hundreds of dangly things.

After lunch, Paula did a cooking demonstration. 

She was a riot---stepping up to the table and saying---“What’s all this crap? I’m not cooking this?” Then she went to the printed recipes that we received, took one look and said, “Mrs. Salter’s Peanut Butter Pie? Who is Mrs. Salter and why aren’t we making MY peanut butter pie?” She started on the recipe and discovered that the powdered sugar was missing. They sent some people scurrying to find it. When they returned, they first had brown sugar. Next was granulated sugar. She just went ahead and used that. Finally the powdered sugar appeared, but it was too late.

While we were waiting, she gave us her Peanut Butter Pie recipe:

Paula Deen’s Peanut Butter Pie

3 cups cream

¾ cup sugar

Beat until peaks form.

Beat together:

8 oz. cream cheese

¾ - 1 cup smooth peanut butter

½ stick butter

Add mini Reese’s peanut butter cups cut in fourths or mini Snickers cut in fourths to half of the cream mixture. Mix with peanut butter mixture and spread in to a pie crust---or graham cracker crust. Top with remaining cream mixture and chopped peanuts.

Tomorrow, we have a photo session with her and a book signing with her son. Later in the week, we'll have her sign our pictures. 

So far, we've been so busy that we haven't had much time to relax. We went to the Broadway show tonight---great music from lots of my favorite shows. 

We're in San Juan tomorrow, but Chris and I are not getting off the ship. I've already been there. We're planning on getting some stitching done. 

Later...