‘Pioneer Woman’ sticks to her groove with new cookbook
Airbnb looking for 100 of the best home chefs for a trip
Ree Drummond – known for her Food Network cooking show, “The Pioneer Woman’’ – won’t follow diet trends to sell cookbooks.
“I have found that I have to be authentic to me, otherwise it won’t work. My interest will fizzle. I stay most passionate when it’s something that’s really going on in my life,” she told The Associated Press.
For instance, Drummond tried the Keto diet this year, but didn’t stick with it. Still, she does offer Keto-like recipes in her latest cookbook, “The Pioneer Woman Cooks: The New Frontier,” to reflect public interest in the diet.
“It was a little too hardcore for me to sustain, but that’s what was behind the handful of lower-carb recipes in the cookbook. Just on those days or weeks when you want to kind of make slightly smarter choices, those are the recipes that reflect that,” she said.
“But I call them lower carb because I’m not making any Keto greats happy.”
Drummond’s cooking is all about making your stomach happy. She’s generally known for hearty fare, along with rich desserts. Surprisingly,
though, bread is not her strong suit.
“I can kind of muddle through ... But I just don’t have the artistry to make a really great loaf of bread. So that’s going to be my lifetime goal,” she said.
Guides
Her cookbook includes step-by-step visual guides with her recipes.
“It’s the style that I used when I first started food blogging back in 2007. I just decided to take pictures of the steps as I cooked,” Drummond said. “I had no idea if anybody would be interested, but I posted them and the people who read it at the time said, ‘Hey, do another one.’ And so that became my style.”
Her brand continues to grow each year. She started as a stay-at-home married mom to four children on her ranch in Pawhusaka, Oklahoma, blogging about motherhood and simple recipes. Now she has a hit show, a collection of cookbooks and children’s books, and a houseware line at Walmart. She was even featured on the cover of People
magazine.
“I blogged on a whim, but I blogged about things that made me tick. Like, my kids. I wrote funny stories about raising them in the country,’’ she said. “It’s kind of crazy what has happened since then. But it’s helped me enjoy the ride because, you know, just make all the plans you want and then pop popcorn and sit back and watch. You never know what will happen.”
Also:
NEW YORK: Airbnb is launching a global search for 100 top home cooks and treating them to a trip to Italy to learn how to refine their recipes with teachers including David
Chang and his mom. The lucky chosen will travel to the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo, Italy, for a week’s worth of workshops and tastings to take their food “to the next level.” Their recipe will also feature in Airbnb’s first cookbook.
Applications open Monday. Airbnb users who are 18 and a resident of one of 30 or so eligible countries can nominate their favorite home cooks and complete an essay. Applications close Dec 23.
Winners will be selected by judges from representatives from Airbnb, the Slow Food organization and the University of Gastronomic Sciences.
The contest is part of a larger push into food by Airbnb, which also is launching a new program, Cooking Experiences, which connects users with intimate workshops hosted by families, cooks and famers across more than 75 countries.
Local hosts will gather and describe how to use ingredients, welcome users to their home and show them how they put together traditional dishes, from making enchiladas in Ciudad de México, Mexico, to Uzbek dishes in New York City.
“Unlike typical cooking classes, which can feel intimidating or time-consuming, at the heart of every experience is human connection; people coming together to make and share a meal,” Airbnb said in a statement. (AP)