Tell me about the Pioneer Woman

[haveapicniclife]

I gave up trying to use her recipes. They are super bland and I'm tired of spending time making them only to be disappointed. I thought Penne a la Betsy would be so good. We made it three different times and never could get enough flavor into it. I don't normally cook with so much fat, either. I don't read her blog, I just had some friends raving over the recipes.

[BravaAmica]

I have sort of kind of seen her website now. What is her story? Yeah, I could dig around, but I want the FJ point of view on this. She seems really fancy to be a pioneer.

She's a upper middle class girl who married into one of the wealthiest oil/ranching families in the US.

She also "homeschools" her four kids, if by "homeschool" you mean hiring tow private teachers to come to the house.

[Jessica]

Some of her recipes look like they'd be good. I wasn't a fan of the squash/carrot/curry soup that I made. She can be funny but after a while, recipes that involve 6 ingredients but 30 pictures of every single step get a little old. I get it. You like lots of butter. I don't need 4 pictures of it being measured, put into a pot, melted, and then with a bunch of chopped onion swirled around in it. Just tell me to sautee the damn onions, add the whatever else, simmer for however long, and move on.

[xReems]

Her recipes are LOADED with butter to the point where she makes it seem like Paula Deen is a health nut. That's just my opinion, I'm not a huge fan of food that's covered with 2 sticks of butter, when you can use just a couple tablespoon of it.

[skankbiscuit]

So facinating! Sounds like a mixed bag....I didn't know if she was a fundy or not because she doesn't really say anything.

I thought Marlboro Man's favorite sandwich looked good, until I saw all the butter on the meat and bread. Kind of made my stomach roll after that.

[Shirley MacLaine]

She says a lot of things that would appeal to fundies even if she's not. I was just watching more youtube clips of her and there was a mother's day one where she was like 'my girls can make this cake now' and 'if my girls would do the laundry, I wouldn't say no.' No mention of whether or not the sons can bake or whatever. Seems like a very traditional family.

[JesusFightClub]

I liked the fact there were pics of the food but wouldn't try any of her recipes. I'm trying to lose weight not pack on 20lb in a sitting.

Also, she's just another branded person...look cutesy, have A Story...bleh.

[Katiebug]

As others have said:

1) Her husband's family has been loaded for a long time, which sort of makes her "aw shucks, I met a cowboy in a bar and we live a simple life" schtick kind of absurd. Middle class rural ranching families aren't one of the biggest landowners in the state, nor do they have a guest house like hers. They weren't hurting for money even before she started blogging.

2) One or two of her recipes are tasty - I seem to recall one potato dish being particularly good. However I've tried others that flopped, and in general her recipes are absolute nutritional nightmares. I also don't dig her gratuitous pictures of cutting onions and sauteeing things.

3) By now she's basically a brand. If anyone is under the delusion that she doesn't have staffers to take her pictures, write and post on her blog, etc. they're nuts.

I get a kick out of Pie Near Woman and the other snark sites. She's sooo easy to snark on...and she has legions of devotees. Just look at reviews of her book on Amazon and you can see that anyone who dares speak the slightest bit of negativity about the book gets pounced on by Ree's fans.

[Lillybee]

I think that her meat recipes tend to be greasy. She never skims the fat from things like short ribs or chuck roasts.

[deelaem]

I loooooathe the Pioneer Woman! She's about as far from a pioneer woman as I am from a supermodel and pisses me off that she presents herself as such. Her recipes suck and she thinks she's god's gift to photography, which she is not. How many freakin' pictures does one need of baking soda and salt??

For some good laughs, go to the Food Network Humor site and read her reviews of PW's show. Apparently it sucks rather badly and her husband acts like a shithead when he's on camera. If I had cable, I'd probably watch it once just for the snark. :twisted:

[Angri-la]

Somehow, I missed this one. "Pioneer Woman"? Hardly!

I saw her show on a business trip, cable food porn is my guilty pleasure--what little I watched, well, it was horrible. She is inarticulate, unoriginal, and not tv pretty, so, of course, my first thought was "Which executive is she sleeping with to get this gig?". *no, I do not think everyone on television should be pretty, nor do I think all people on television are, I simply thought her super average, and her presentation was terrible, so I had to wonder: how the hay-ll....

Another one like that crazy in Minnesota "MckMama", but one with money and an employed husband.

And isn't calling her husband the "Marlboro Man" a bad thing? I wonder if she gets a cut from the tobacco companies...

[treemom]

I don't mind her. I like recipe blogs, and hers are well done.

A lot of people seem to find her irritating because she's rich, but posts a lot of folksy-Americana images and stories about raising cattle and living in the middle of nowhere. I don't mind it, because to me, she's a businesswoman who has carefully crafted a brand based on certain aspects of her life.

That is precisely why I dislike her. I hate the idea of human beings as brands. Moreso when they are lies.

[onlyorganic]

She's on a huge pedestal. I follow a few food bloggers who all idolize her. I know nothing about her site other than the time I made a recipe from it and literally took the bowl and sat in front of my tv noming the stuff and probably put on 30 lbs from the whole block of butter the list called for. It was delicious though. I don't know how the family eats like that every day (of maybe it's all for show?). Her recipes aren't exactly healthy and I detest when people say things like "We're country folk, ya'll! We can eat like this, good rib stickin' country folk." Like it's an excuse for poor eating, being country folk or whatnot. I come from New England and you don't see me guzzlin' chowda and maple syrup by the gallon with the same gusto and lame excuse...

[Miss M]

Her father was/is a Surgeon, her Mother was a nurse, she grew up living the life of Riley! What I absolutely can't stand about her is that she is all about "keeping it real" but nothing she does is real!

M.

[onlyorganic]

OMG I just looked at the Pie Near Woman site. It's just... wow. Someone put some serious time into that one.

[Mommy22alyns]

She's a upper middle class girl who married into one of the wealthiest oil/ranching families in the US.

She also "homeschools" her four kids, if by "homeschool" you mean hiring tow private teachers to come to the house.

Not me. :roll:

[library_youth]

The only time I've looked at her site was when I was Googling ways to make iced coffee at home and found her version. The way she does it looks like a huge pain in the ass so I kept looking elsewhere.

Her site seemed really cluttered and it was hard to find the actual blog part of it. Too much clicking around. I'm sure more clicks equals more $$$ for her.

[ADoyle90815]

Another snark site is themarlborowoman.com. I first read her blog, but eventually realized how wealthy her husband's family was so I didn't buy into the BS about her meeting him in a bar. Even if she did meet MM in a bar, she knew of the Drummond family, so she made it a goal to marry into that family. In the past, she's called her brother with DS the "r" word, but after getting backlash, she or her minions went through her blog to edit out that word. Her "romance" novel is something that appeals to some fundies and fundie lites because she implies that they didn't have sex before they got married, and only kissed while they were dating. Obviously, the stricter fundies might be offended by her book, as she gave "pieces of her heart" before marriage.

Interestingly enough, if you pick up an Oklahoma state map, you'll see that the Drummond home is actually shown. As for her recipes, she's mostly stolen those from church cookbooks without revealing the actual source, but she adds extra butter to them to where as someone else said, she makes Paula Deen look like a healthy cook. She's going to have a Christmas special on the Food Network, so we'll see even more of her heart attack inducing food.

Her blog is set up to require multiple clicks because she earns $$$$ by every single click. When I realized that, I started using a feed reader since she doesn't earn $$$ that way.

[Shirley MacLaine]

You know, I was going to say it's fairly plausible that she wasn't aware of his family or whatever, I mean, seems like something I wouldn't know, but then I thought about it for a second and realized I actually do know the names of probably the three wealthiest/most powerful families in my hometown area. I mean, the wealthiest of the wealthy usually have shit in the area named for them and whatnot, wind up in the newspaper... you wind up knowing whether or not you give a shit.

Not that I think it's bad that she wanted to marry him or something, it doesn't really matter, just thinking aloud.

[hoipolloi]

Since her hometown (Bartlesville) and his hometown & ranch (Pawhuska) are in the same county, it's hard to believe that Ree didn't know who the Drummonds were, even if she didn't know him.

[lilah]

I'm pretty ambivalent about all the Pioneer woman hate. I find her blog posts to be cloying and obnoxious. Her recipe posts often yummy, albeit usually something I'd only make once or twice a year because of the fat content. (I was sort of amused when she posted a noodle kugel recipe for Passover, apparently couldn't spend 10 seconds to figure out Jews don't eat pasta kugel dishes during Passover. I find myself visiting her website less and les now that she's this big media behemoth but I don't really begrudge her the hard work and time she's put into her success or her savvy at developing a brand.

As for the private tutor thing, I suppose that better than education neglect or the Duggar SODRT. Her homeschooling section of her website has always been a total farce (no actual content about her children's learning, just lots of guest posts, quizzes and product reviews)

[Nurse Jenna]

This is from Wiki:"A motion picture based on Drummond's book From Black Heels to Tractor Wheels was reportedly in development at Columbia Pictures for Reese Witherspoon to star as Ree."

I guess she is more popular then I realized.

[Shirley MacLaine]

Didn't they already make that movie? IIRC, it was called Sweet Home Alabama.

[theologygeek]

The funny thing is how many of her followers think that Ree Drummond is the Pioneer Woman. She's no more than the PW than Lucille Ball was Lucy Ricardo. The Pioneer Woman is just a character created by Ree Drummond. She's good at marketing her character, that's for sure.

[terranova]

I started reading her several years ago, before she got mega famous. I really enjoyed her then, I liked her honesty (compared to so many other bloggers) in regards to homeschooling. I also enjoyed reading her recipe posts and her photographs (her kids are cute).

I stopped reading daily about the time of Black Heels to Tractor Wheels because it didn't interest me, then really lost interest when her site changed and became less personal and more commercial. It also turned me off when she farmed out a lot of her posts to other bloggers, although I understand why she did it.

Having said that, I still check every now and then, and I find her funny and self deprecating.

I don't care if she's as rich as all hell, good on her. I wish I had her money. I don't think being rich is something to snark on her for. Especially since she makes no bones about how nice her house is, how expensive her clothes are or how big their ranch/farms are.

As for her fundie status, I would say she's pretty main stream Christian.

She almost never talks about God, religion etc on her blog (one of the things I like about her). Although she does mention going to church, from photos it seems like a "normal" place.

She earns money of her own, her daughters work hard on the ranch, they all wear jeans, her girls play sports, she doesn't submit (or never mentions it) to her husband, ie, none of the warning signs on fundieism.