Oh Lisa Vanderpump.  You might be one of the few housewives that I could actually see taking entertaining advice from!  Lisa is like a less drugged up, less drunk but equally saucy Patsy Stone from Absolutely Fabulous.  I want to be just like her and so do you.  Even though the last season of RHOBH was so boring I could barely watch it (who would’ve thought that LESS Kim Richards would be a bad thing?  Thank God for Erika Jayne), I still love Lisa and cannot WAIT for my secret true favorite Bravo show, Vanderpump Rules, to come back.

hello, dahling. image source: tumblr.com

In her usual self-deprecating fashion, Lisa claims that all of her seeming perfection in life is just smoke and mirrors.  Of course, all of her tips are riddled with innuendo and saucy jokes (darling, you didn’t know you bought a sex book, did you? wink).  I always love how Lisa is basically dresses and acts like the first five minutes of a 90s soft core-ish movie, but also claims to sex up Ken Todd (worst name ever) like once a year.  Anyway, Ken and Lisa used to have a butler that had been “engaged in royal service” which sounds like a dirty euphemism but it really means that they know how to set a mother effing table.

I’m sorry, do you NOT have a sparkly pink seashell dish to put on your tray for your Little Mermaid/Beauty and the Beast party? #peasant image source: Simply Divine

Lisa gives helpful suggestions like music for calming any “savage beasts” you have to invite to your shindigs (cough*Brandi Glanville*cough) because Bravo makes you.  Sadly, it doesn’t include Countess LuAnn’s “Money Can’t Buy You Class” or Kim Zolciak’s “Don’t Be Tardy for the Party” so I am just going to assume that this book was written before either of those gems came out.  I also love that Lisa says basically just throw pink roses and glitter on anything shitty at your house and people won’t notice that you are a terrible hostess.  Smoke and mirrors, dahling, smoke and mirrors!

pay no attention to the man behind the curtain (Andy Cohen) image source: giphy.com

Onto the cooking!  I decided to make the Wild Mushroom Soup as it is fall and this shit sounded easy and delicious, two of my favorite things.  As an added bonus, I didn’t have to buy any weird ingredients or anything pink, as I would’ve assumed every recipe in this book would have required.

giggy says you’re welcome, beotch. image source: blushinginhollywood.com

This was actually a relatively healthy choice, with the entire recipe having only 2 tbsp of heavy cream.  There was a mixture of fresh and dried mushrooms, onion, chicken stock, wine and flour.

I just hope this is better than LVP Sangria.

After letting the mushrooms and broth simmer for almost an hour, I blended them up with the cream (and managed not to explode the blender this time!  #growth) and was left with an elegant (lol) bowl of mushroom silkiness.

looks like a bowl of blended Ovaltine, tastes delicious!

This was actually really good.  It tasted very rich and smooth, but was light and filling.  I am not that surprised as Lisa and Ken have owned approximately 1000 restaurants and seem to know their shit, but still, you never know!  Actually, I must give (some of) the Real Housewives credit.  As bad as most of their books/wine have been, most of the cookbooks are somewhat legit, this one included.  I can’t believe I just kind of endorsed a Real Housewife book.  I feel so dirty….

I can feel her watching me… I’m sorry I doubted you, don’t have me killed!  image source: tenor.com