The best Scalloped Potatoes EVER!

I'm not speaking in hyperbole when I say these are the best scalloped potatoes I've ever had. First, you need to know that the recipe is from my newest cookbook: The New Best Recipe from Cook's Illustrated. For Cook's Illustrated fans, that should probably say it all.  When my poor old Better Homes & Gardens general cookbook finally fell apart past shoving the pages back together, I had to make a decision on what general cookbook to replace it with and I'm am so glad I chose this one.  Being a little kitchen OCD, I love the way CI and their show, America's Test Kitchen, not only tests all the variations you've ever seen on every recipe but tells you all about each one and what the did and didn't like about them and why they did or didn't work.  Oh yes, come to mama.  This general cookbook does exactly the same thing.  So there's a whole page prior to the scalloped potato recipe talking about all the different ingredients and techniques they tested before deciding on the quintessential recipe and I have to agree with them: this is the one.

There are a few things that makes this different from the way my mother scalloped her potatoes: 1)  The potato slices are parboiled to reduce cooking time and assure evenness of cooking, 2) thyme and bay leaf are added to the stove top cooking for flavor not found in many traditional recipes, and 3)  the parboiliong liquid is half chicken broth to reduce the amount of fat.

All of those are excellent improvements to the standard church basement casserole dish version. The thyme and bay leaf create subtle taste that almost hypnotizes you into not being able to stay out of the casserole dish and the aroma is better than perfume, it was like distilled fall, all garlicky, thymey, and bay leafy.  The neighbors were practically beating down the door. 

Weekend Herb Blogging is being hosted this week by Nandita of Saffron Trail so be sure to head over that way late this weekend to see all the lovely herbacious dishes everyone's been cooking up this week.

Also, I have to say that the reason I made this dish in the first place is in honor of Barbara over at Tigers & Strawberries (and The Food Whore vicariously) and as an act of smirking rebellious tongue-poking-out "So there!"--ness to someone I'm going to rant about after the jump and the recipe.  So if you're like The Food Whore and you love your lemon drops, now's the time to go make one, even if it's 7am, becasue like the song says, "It's five o'clock somewhere" and if you have any pity for me at all, by the end of my story you'll be ready for a cocktail.  God knows I always was when dealing with the person I'm going to skewer. 

If anyone has been reading T&S lately, they've laughed, loved, and crossed themselves over Barbara's "rules" for picky eater etiquette, "It's a Matter of Manners".  The only problem is most of the picky eaters I know who are truly a**holes, challenging as guests would never see themselves in any of our posts, including the person I'm going to rat out here in a minute.  They would be shocked by the behavior of other people, the nerve, the gall, the audacity of some people. How could anyone be so rude?  Besides, how dare anyone take their spotlight or hostess's attention because after all, the true pain rude guest picky eaters aren't a "problem" in their own mind, they're just "taking care of my needs", you see.  It's a matter of being "assertive".

I need to make a quick disclaimer before I start this:  I don't know why. Believe me, about two sentences in that's what you'll be asking yourself and then furiously typing into my comment section. I really don't know why I let this woman treat me this way and I have no idea, really, why I let it go on so long. All I can come up with in hind sight is that it was a combination of being raised in the south to always be a "nice girl", the fact that her husband was a distant family member so, again, I was raised to always make nice no matter how rude anyone is to you, I have a basic ingrained people pleasing mentality that takes approximately 99.9% of my brain cavity (or did, the rest of my personality is now at war and slowly winning ground), I was physically ill at the time and so was under a lot of physical stress, and the rest, I think, was simply the little girl Glenna in me who kept thinking "I like you and if I keep doing nice things for you, how can you be mean to me?"  Naive, I know but sometimes our best inclinations have to be figuratively beaten out of us along the way.  So relax, go get something to drink, kick your heels up on the desk or table in front of you, and click on the link for both the recipe for the best scalloped potatoes ever AND a story that will make even The Food Whore sit back and say "Man, that chick was one big B---- with b***s and I've known some in my time! "

Cook's Illustrated Scalloped Potatoes with Thyme and Bay

2 Tbsp butter

1 medium onion, minced

2 medium garlic cloves, minced or pressed

1 Tbsp fresh thyme leaves, minced

1 1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground black pepper

1 1/2 lbs (about 5 med) russet potatoes, peeled and sliced 1/8" thick

1 cup low sodium chicken broth

1 cup heavy cream

2 bay leaves

4 oz cheddar cheese, shredded

A couple of cook's notes:  When I made the recipe, I used 1% milk instead of cream because, I didn't have cream, I was too lazy to go to the store, and we didn't need the calories. It worked fine and still tasted very rich and holiday indulgent.  Also, I used slices of Havarti cheese instead of cheddar because, again, it's what I had, it needed to be used, and hey, it was delicious!  Plus, my husband doesn't really like cheese so anything orange in a casserole dish is a dead give away for cheese to him but over the years I've found that he likes white cheese in recipes just fine because, like a kid, he doesn't know it's there.  The Havarti was fantastic. Give it a try.

1. Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 425 degrees.

2.  Melt the butter in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. When the foaming subsides, add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until soft and lightly browned, about 4 minutes.  Add the garlic, thyme, salt, and pepper and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds.  Add the potatoes, broth, cream, and bay leaves and bring to a simmer. Cover, reduce the heat to medium-low, and simmer until the potatoes are almost tender (a paring knife can be slipped into and out of a potato slice with some resistance), about 10 minutes. Dscard the bay leaves.

3.  Transfer the mixture to an 8-inch square baking dish (or other 1 1/2 quart gratin dish). Sprinkle evenly with the cheese. Bake until the cream is bubbling around the edges and the top is golden brown, about 15 minutes. Cool 10 minutes before serving. 

Ode to the Worst Guest of My Life

And now...drumroll please...for the story I haven't told in a very long time...Once upon a time about seven years ago, Gene and I were friends with another couple. We went out to dinner occasionally and always had a good time. Over some months we became closer and spent more time together, eventually spending every weekend or every other weekend together going out or going to each other's homes, depending on what was going on in all of our lives.  Let's call this couple: Dick and Jane, shall we? 

Actually, Jane was easy to get along with most of the time as long as we were in our own homes.  We were good friends. I adored her. She was smart and fun to be around, not exactly my warped sense of humor, but I liked her and found her interesting to talk to.  So for a long time things were good. We had a lot in common, although, I admit, looking back I saw a lot of warning signs that I ignored. We all do this. We have friends that until certain things slap us in the face we just don't "get it". Like, I never could figure out why they didn't seem to have any other friends.  Hmmm....  and why they would always make jokes about their family referring to Jane's personality as "rigid".  Hmmmm...  Yes, my friends, the answers to these quanderies became painfully clear over time.

It started with the little things.  Jane and I had often discussed diets. We're women. It's what we do.  We discussed diets and cooking.  Jane cooked but she wasn't an exceptional cook. She was one of those people, and I only know a few of these, who only makes a handful of recipes and that's good enough. She doesn't experiment or ever look for different types of foods to make and she doesn't express any desire to. To her, that's what restaurants are for.  When they entertain, Dick mans the grill, making killer ribs or steaks, and she makes the same side items every single time.  Good food.  I'm not being a jerk. I'm just saying, to those of us who approach food and entertaining in a different manner I didn't comprehend how rigid about food she was. She had her set little menu and her set little ways and her set little prep schedule and that's how they entertained, and apparently, as the story unfolds you'll come to find this out like I did, it's the only way to entertain. I just didn't know it then.

So the diet/healthy food talk became something that we discussed often when they came to our house, as in discussed it over the merits of each dish I had prepared. We never really discussed it at her house because I was raised to pretty much eat and rave about whatever a host/hostess put on the table in front of me.  But at first I had no problem with discussing my menu choices and prep. I love talking food.  As I've often discussed here, rarely can I make the same recipe in the same way twice because I'm always tweaking and playing and I love finding ways of getting max flavor out of minimum calories.  I often discussed that with Jane and she encouraged it. Great. 

I learned quickly that Jane had a few food needs. It started with fat.  Everything had to be low fat.  Except when it was a dish she chose to eat despite the fat but that's another rant for another time.  No problem.  I figured I needed to keep things low fat for msyelf anyway, so what could be the problem?  Well...I don't know if you guys are aware of this but have you ever noticed that heavy people who've been on a million diets are sometimes more nutritionally educated than skinny people who've never had to diet? Maybe it's just me but I've often found that hilarious.  Especially when skinny people who don't know what the hell they're talking about give me nutritional advice and do it in a manner implying that I'm obviously fat and stupid on top of it.  Jane's one of those people.  See Jane run her mouth.  But Jane wanted everything I cooked to be low fat because she was "so used to eating extremely low fat that anything with fat in it will upset my system so bad I break out in hives".  Okay.  No fatty desserts, no problem, I told her.  Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeellll now, she told me, a little chocolate never hurt anyone especially since Jane really loves chocolate cake so let's not get carried away.  Okay.  So no KC strips, pork, overly fatty casseroles, etc., for entrees, no problem. I'll sub chicken or fish.  Fish.  Ahhh....Jane required only firm-fleshed white fish: cod and tilapia. She didn't care anything about the benefits of omega oils in salmon because all she knew was that it was termed a "fatty" fish and therefore she could not, would not, touch it with a fork, Sam I am. It would make her break out into hives from looking at it.  She was unaware that the term "fatty fish" was relative in that both salmon and tuna have the same fat content as a chicken breast, it's just that they have a higher oil content than cod so they're termed fatty (er) fish.  By the way, just so you know, she often ate tuna, also a fatty fish, with no adverse effects.  Not that I'm calling her a liar, I'm just saying she ate tuna, another fatty fish, with no adverse effects. 

But hey, I'm a good little hostess. I can buy cod and tilapia and snicker into my shirt with the best of them.

I think all hell actually broke loose when we inherited my husband's family's lake cabin.  Yep, that's it.  Don't get the wrong impression here. The cabin was nothing ostentatious, just a little tiny one bedroom cabin with a fold-out couch in the living room, golf cart down to the dock, and a cute like 18-foot pontoon on a quiet lake.  Fun times. 

So the routine at the cabin went like this:  I packed up the washed linens from the previous trip, made out menus for the weekend and meticulously shopped and prepped and packed food trying to make meals that were celebratorily social, challenging or interesting enough for me as a cook, not overly caloric enough to ruin anyone's health or diet, and uncomplicated enough I wouldn't be screwed if I forgot something.  When we arrived, Gene hauled everything inside, cleaned up the outside furniture and the grill, uncovered the boat and prepped it, while I vacuumed and prepared the house, beds, and bathroom.  Dick and Jane's job was to be guests. 

Eventually as we all became more comfortable, they would arrive earlier and give us a hand with preparing the house. Occasionally Jane would help by bringing a few food items. Mostly she helped by pouring herself a glass of whine (pun intended) and pointing out to me what all I'd brought that was wrong.  If I brought butter to cook with I was told it had too much fat. If I brought margarine just to please her (we don't eat that crap) I was told margarine is bad for you. No sh**, really?  The next trip I'd bring butter and be told again it had too much fat and that I was to bring margarine. That circus went on the whole two seasons we used the cabin: butter/margarine/butter/margarine.  If I brought breakfast foods I was told no one in our party needed the extra calories. I brought eggs, I was told they only liked sweets for breakfast. If I brought pastries, I was told they only liked protein for breakfast.  If I didn't bring anything for breakfast, I was told that I had ruined their weekend off because they both were busy and weekends were the only time they could sit down and eat breakfast together. 

Eventually Dick and Jane began arriving at the cabin before us, sometimes by as much as a day.  When we arrived, on several occasions, I was told not to move the fans in my own home, not to rearrange my own furniture that they had moved, not to rearrange the food in my fridge, etc, because they'd gotten their first and Jane and set everything up "the way it should be". I was also told in a petulant voice a couple of times that she did not prep any meals for the four of us, that she had only brought food for the time the two of them were alone because "after all it's YOUR cabin and I had to do all the cleaning by myself so I didn't feel like I should have to cook meals too."  (Well, yeah, b****, you're the one who insisted on going down to my house before you were invited. Did you expect me to go run the vacuum for you and then leave for a day?)

By the way, the times when they went early to the cabin? For breakfast they ate bacon and eggs.  When I took bacon and eggs I was told that had too much fat and too many calories and no wonder I couldn't lose weight....  Oh, and just curious, but would someone look up bacon and eggs in their calorie count books because in my calorie count book it shows that there's a lot more fat in both bacon and eggs than in salmon...must be a typo, I'm sure, because neither of those foods made Jane break out in hives.

And that preview brings us up to the one and great awful horrible war:  rice vs. potatoes.  Jane's entertainment menu (there was a reason I told you that tidbit earlier) was always the same:  grilled ribs or steaks, Rhodes freezer rolls with butter slathered on the tops hot from the oven (funny, that extra fat never made her break out in hives either and she never used margarine), a vegetable, and the great and powerful all knowing all seeing invincible, and in Jane's book, HEALTHY, broccoli and rice casserole. Always.  Rice and broccoli casserole. You know the one. It's on every church potluck table. The one made with frozen broccoli, white rice stripped of its fiber, a can or two of Campbell's soup, and a big o' box of Velveeta.  Now THAT'S nutrition. 

Now, don't get me wrong.  I loves me some broccoli rice casserole. Grew up on the stuff.  I am the originator of WOBAT, obnoxious but tasty food, so I have no problem with the recipe itself but DO NOT throw anything in my face that's loaded with sodium and Velveeta fake cheese and cans of condensed soup and white anemic rice and 2 sprigs of frozen broccoli, and act all diva about how I wouldn't be fatter than you if only I ate that crap every weekend instead of a potato. Huh uh, ain't gonna fly, sister.  AND DO NOT do it in my own bloody home, stamping your feet, demanding that I make your crappy casserole to serve to you and tell me that the potatoes I did make for you to eat are unacceptable.  Not to mention, but I'm going to, a couple more things.  Let's beat the fat thing into the ground: do you think the broccoli rice casserole is low fat?  She couldn't eat salmon, beef, or pork, because they're too high fat but she can wolf down a big ass helping of that crap? Hello?  And what person thinks it's perfectly okay behavior for them to stand in another person's home and tell them what to cook?  I cannot imagine going to any one of your homes and saying "When I come to your house this is what I expect you to serve me and if you don't, I'm going to throw a big hissy fit because you deserve it."   And even aside from all of that, how boring is it to make the same dishes over and over and over again every single time you entertain AND THEN also demand that the people who entertain you on alternating weekends make the same exact recipes every single time? 

That blows my mind. I didn't know how to comprehend it, let alone deal with it.

And yet, I didn't throw these people out of my house.  I told you I don't know why. I gritted my teeth and let her harass me and kept saying inane things like "Why don't we have broccoli casserole at your house and potatoes at mine?"  I know. What a wimp.  Her behavior was so far away from anything I'd dealt with that I literally didn't know how to respond. And to make it worse, instead of confronting her I complained behind her back to my husband which did nothing but frustrate him and I kept trying harder to please her. Can you believe that? Short of making that freaking broccoli casserole, I doubled my efforts to make her fish, to cook low-fat meals, to clean my house and set the fans the way she wanted them, etc.  I bent over backwards to accommodate a spoiled, bratty 45-year-old in my own home and the result was the more I did it, the meaner and more hateful she was to me.

The final blow was after months of every meal I made for them being criticized and having her roll her eyes at me, stomp around my cabin and home, tell me that she and Dick didn't like it when Gene and I went down to our cabin with them, that they would prefer it if we stayed home and just let them stay at our house by themselves so they could have fun and so things could "be done the way they should be" AND WE LET THEM...  (I shouldn't admit that, I know.)  After all that, on one of the trips I couldn't take her attitude. I'd herniated disks in my neck for several months (gee, from cooking stress maybe? LOL) and I could not stay at the cabin that weekend.  I physcially wasn't up to the passive aggressive fighting with her all weekend.  We told Dick and Jane that we were leaving early but that they could stay in our home to finish out the weekend. Jane asked what food I'd brought down for their meals. I told them and when I said potatoes, green pepper, and onions for hashbrowns O'brien, she made a vomit face at me. 

That was finally the "IT". And yet, I still didn't confront her in person. I was in so much pain, physically from the disks, and emotionally from her at that point that I couldn't deal with her or the situation.  You know what I mean?  I know I sound like a wimp but I'm actually just a nice person and I simply could not wrap my little brain around the concept that someone I'd been so nice to could be so mean and hateful back.

And it wasn't over yet.

When we got home, I knew I had to confront her and Gene encouraged me. I also knew I was lousy at verbal confrontations. I hated them. I'm a writer so I wrote. I wrote a very nice loooong  letter to her sharing my feelings and nicely explaining to her that I didn't appreciate her constant criticism or her vomit face and stating that it was no longer acceptable.  However, I'm not going to sit here and lie and act like I was all that Miss Attitude because I wasn't. I found a copy of the letter about a year later and when I read it I made a vomit face--at how nice I was even then!  I gave her the perfect out. The letter talked about how I knew she was stressed out with their work and financial situation and how I was sure she wasn't completely aware of how she was coming across....geez, a wimp to the bitter end, Glenna!  But it was very nice. All she had to do was say "I'm sorry. I really didn't mean to come across that way" and stop being a witch and all would have been forgiven.

Unfortunately that's not what happened.  She denied it all.  Until I went back and backed up every single thing I accused her of with very specific descriptions of each circumstance and her exact words and our exact conversations. And her response?  I will never forget this as long as I live. The woman who had confided in me many times about her fights with her husband that "no matter how mad Dick gets at me he never has the right to disrespect me" defended her right to make vomit faces at me because "I have the right to express my opinion any way I want to".   

And that's when I knew we were done.  That's when I finally realized I wasn't the one who didn't "get it".  Okay, I realized it but I had a hard time accepting it, still, for a very long time because, in spite of everything, Gene and I still loved these people but there is a line that gets crossed where you cannot go back and that was it. We did see them a few more times and we all did sort of try to make up but the best Jane could ever do was to say that she was sorry that I was too sensitive and that she was sorry that I couldn't accept that she has the right to express her opinion. She was never sorry for being a hateful guest, never sorry for her criticism, her disrespect, her vomit faces, her demands.  As far as she was concerned, she did nothing wrong and everything would have been just fine if only I hadn't been so hateful as to serve her scalloped potatoes instead of broccoli rice casserole like she wanted.

And so the whole point of this rant is that, Barbara, I absolutely agree with your rules of conduct for picky eater guests. As a former convention planner and food service professional, and as a hostess, nice person, and medical professional, I will always respect my guests actual physical and medical food needs and allergies.  And I will always support an earnest desire by my friends to eat healthy or choose an eating lifestyle like vegetarianism, but never again will I be disrespected by anyone who confuses their emotional baggage with their food needs or assertiveness with bad behavior.  As hostesses we have an obligation to not put anyone in medical danger from allergies but we are not obligated to invite anyone back into our homes or even continue an evening in the presence of someone who abuses our hospitality or insults us.  I'm still a nice person but I've grown a lot, too, from that experience specifically and never again would I hesitate to say "I think it would be best if we call this evening over. Have a nice evening. Buh-bye now. Don't call us and we won't call you. Go be unhappy on your own time, bi-otch."

But I like to think of it this way. I solved a mystery.  I knew then with certainty why they never had any friends. 

Comments

[Kyleen]

Good for you, Glenna. Some people just don't get it. Ever. (Don't ask me how I know this.)

[sher]

I love Cooks Illustrated. I always find that their recipes are terrific. And I do like the idea of precooking the potatoes. The picture looks fabulous.

And I was laughing all the way through the section on Picky Friends. Or should I say "Friends"? And there is no mystery why they had almost no friends. No mystery at all.

[kalyn]

Unbelievable. Some people are really impossible. I used to cater houseboat trips so I know how demanding people can be. I had a person who swore she was "allergic" to onions, and yet I noticed when she accidentally ate something with them in, she was fine. From then on I didn't worry about leaving them out. Never a problem. Sounds like good riddance for your so-called friends.

The potatoes sound divine. Of course, potatoes are high on the glycemic index, but you might not know that parboiling would make them a bit better for South Beach, removes some of the starch.

[Rosie]

Wow! That chick would have never lasted that long with our family. None of us have problems telling a-holes where to get off. And I would have loved to see her try that with my friend Gail. Boy-howdy!

We have one friend who is a very picky eater -
he gets chicken strips because "he doesn't do the bone thing"
he refuses to eat mayo or anything that contains mayo
among other things...

His redeeming trait - "I know I have food issues and don't bother people with them" He will call ahead and see what I am making and bring his own dinner if he doesn't like what I am making. And I am cool with the fact that he accepts responsibility for his own food weirdness.

As far as your cheesy taters go - Yum yum...

[Jeff]

Yum!! Where's the ham?? ;)

[Glenna]

Kyleen--Thanks. I hate losing friendships but of course the obvious question is how much of a friendship was it to start with?

Sher--LOVE this cookbook and the way they explain everything and how they came to the conclusions on their recipes. It's like a real left-brainers view on cooking.

Kayln--Oh yeah. The Food Whore kind of stuff all the way. People are only amazing in that they have no boundaries!

Rosie--That's perfect. I have no problem with someone who's aware they're a pain in the butt and takes responsibility for it. Bring his own food. Great. You can live with that.

Jeff--No kidding! That's EXACTLY what Gene said! He got hamburger instead. LOL!

[Christine]

Loved your post Glenna. I don't find your inability to give Jane the heave-ho far beyond what anyone should have to endure Whimpy. I say you are a warm, caring, big-hearted, optimistic person who values her friends. That said, good for you for finally standing up for yourself.

[Glenna]

Christine--Thanks. That's really sweet. I appreciate that.

[Katie]

Great story! It's amazing what we put up with when it's all so obvious in hindsight!
As someone with food allergies (very few) I have learned to say 'no, thank you' to what I can't eat (on rare occasions) and eat lots of and praise highly what I can.
I have two dinner guest complaints: Those that sit down to table and comment about "the huge lunch they had so thye're not at all hungry" and the ones that make no comments at all about anything, not even a 'thank you'.
Oh yeah, the potatoes? On my list for the weekend...

[Glenna]

Katie--You get it. I have no problem with real allergies. It's the people who don't appreciate the effort and love you put into it that drive me batshit! :-)

[The Food Whore]

See... they are everywhere.

[Garrett]

Hmm, I have never had homemade scalloped potatoes. Only box mix growing up, which scared me off them forever.

[Glenna]

Garrett--the boxes are GROSS! LOL! Try them one time from scratch and from this recipe and you'll have an appreciation for them, I promise!

Thanks for commenting!

[michael jones]

That was really interesting post! I like the picture too! I am on some picky eater diet and i think that your article will help me with some issues!

[Glenna]

Thanks, Michael!

[kathy]

You could be my friend anytime and I'd never complain about a free meal from such a nice person. geeez what a nasty person she was. oh well.................

[Judith]

Did you bake the bread in the photo? If so could you give me the recipe.

[Lourdes]

I'm making this as I type, my potatoes are simmering in the Dutch oven and I am SO glad I found your post. I went through my copies of Cook's Illustrated and it didn't jump out right away...so I decided to go online. I am using dried Thyme as the grocery store was closed and Wal-mart was out of the fresh herbs. I'm using a wonderful Gruyere mixed with aged cheddar. My youngest son also does not like cheese and the yellow colour would turn him off. I will be crossing my fingers.

I also am glad that you posted your horror story on your unfortunately ill mannered "friend". I may have one of those in my neighbourhood currently. Last time we got together I made a sinfully delicious bread pudding, whiskey sauce to die for (used Dh's good stuff) and loaded with plump raisins and roasted pecans. She looked at it, then snubbed her nose at the pudding saying that Sorry, no! I don't like raisins OR pecans. At another time she decided the fantastic perogies she was tasting were not okay because she could taste the onions and she HATED onions. I am puzzled, the demo lady had chopped the onions and was frying them in plain sight right next to all those cheesy perogies. I can't wait to see what else she does not eat:)

I think one of the best things in life is to find someone who is as much a food fanatic as one is, that way our "interesting" ways aren't too much of a shock for them.

Truly her loss, I have never dieted BTW and now I may have to...but it's SO hard....I really love great food!

Thanks for making my Easter meal a wonderful one. Time to put the potatoes in the oven!

[Suzanne at :: Adventures In Daily Living ::]

Blech.

(Jane, not the potatoes)

[John]

The idea of Havarti instead of Cheddar, I really like. I usually use the bay and thyme myself. And the photo of the finished product is great. Maybe not a Broccoli and RIce Casserole nice, but, nice! LOL

[Emilia]

The potatoes look great. Do you have an equally great recipe for cornmeal muffins?

[Heather]

*Thank You* for making me laugh-out-loud!

I came online searching for a scalloped potato recipe, and came across this article...

I love your sense of humour! :) Not only do I have a great recipe now, I also have a new blog to read!

Thanks again ...and that "lady" sounds like a real biz-natch! No wonder she has no friends, who would put up with that snotty attitude?! :oS Augh. People.

[Carmen Gonzales]

Hi this post about your friend had me cracking up, what a loony bird lol, she wouldnt have lasted long around me hehe, I just made your scalloped potatoes and got RAVE reviews from my hubby. I posted it at my blog with a link to your blog. Thanks so much for the great recipe, its a keeper for sure

[Glenna]

Heather--Thanks! Look forward to "seeing" you around the water cooler.

Carmen--You know, you guys have helped me let go of my anger and see just how ridiculous the whole thing was!

[Carmen Gonzales]

I really shouldnt admit this lmao but I just made another batch of these potatoes, I doubled the recipe and they are already half gone lol, they are divine, I cant get mine to brown on top though? Maybe its the cheese I used or? Maybe I should put it on broil for a few minutes? Hmm, will have to try it when I make it again lol, Carm