‘Pioneer’ Drummond keeps her plate full
Dog treats the latest endeavor for cookbook author, Food Network star
NEW YORK – Summer break is getting closer, and it’s a welcome time off for Ree Drummond. ❚ The Oklahoma mother of four hopes to spend time with her children – and take a monthlong breather from her Pioneer Woman alter ego that sparked a blog, cookbooks, a popular Food Network cooking show, restaurants, a Hearst magazine, a cookware line, children’s books and now, a line of dog treats.
And yet, for all the irons Drummond has in the fire, she seems pretty calm about it on a sunny day in New York’s Bryant Park, where she gets to play with puppies and greet fans to promote her Purina collaboration (she’ll get that break soon enough).
“It’s not something that I could have possibly conceived of or orchestrated,” she told USA TODAY about her growing empire. “I think that’s part of why it’s been so much fun, because it wasn’t ever a direction I thought my life would head. Yet I’m still at home on the ranch, and I’m able to do these things that I’m passionate about.”
Drummond, 50, sealed her fate in small-town Oklahoma when she met her husband, Ladd, and became pregnant with her first child soon after marrying him and moving to his ranch.
When she told her high school friends “I was marrying a rancher and moving to the country, they were like ‘What?’ And they started calling me Pioneer Woman as a
joke,” Drummond says.
The nickname stuck and became the title of her blog about life as a ranch wife and mother. Her writing led to the first of five cookbooks, “The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Recipes From an Accidental Country Girl,” and a TV show that catapulted her to fame.
Known for her down-home country-comfort cooking (comfort meatballs and creamy mashed potatoes) and quick family meal recipes, Drummond has won fans who love her lifestyle as much as they love what she’s serving them.
Her Food Network show, “The Pioneer Woman” (Saturdays, 10 a.m. EDT/PDT), has “helped a lot of people relax in the kitchen. You don’t have to have culinary school to be a good cook.”
“Some people come just for the recipes, and others come because they like the ranch, but I think probably overall I’m not and I’ve never presented myself as an expert,” Drummond says. “I’m just a home
cook, and that probably makes it a level of accessible to a lot of people.”
She recently traded in some of her comfort staples for one of the current food crazes: the keto diet, which promotes eating low-carb, high-fat foods.
“I did a little playing with keto last summer,” she says. “I’ve kind of taken some of those concepts and tried to consider the amount of sugar and flour I’m eating on any given day. … They’re not earth-shattering or groundbreaking, but for me they’re a little bit of a shift.”
Drummond incorporated that into her sixth cookbook, “The New Frontier,” due in October, which features less decadent versions of some of her recipes but is “by no means going to be a diet or healthy cookbook.”
Despite her burgeoning business empire, Drummond laughs off comparisons to “Fixer Upper” couple Chip and
“It wasn’t ever a direction I thought my life would head. Yet I’m still at home on the ranch, and I’m able to do these things that I’m passionate about.” Ree Drummond On her growing business empire
Joanna Gaines, who live in Waco, Texas.
“I do see many similarities, and Joanna and I have exchanged an email or two cheering each other on,” she says. “But what they have achieved is amazing, and the sky’s the limit for them.”
Although Drummond is happy for the Gaineses and their new TV network, she has no such aspirations. “That’s where our paths will diverge; I think my husband and I are too tired for that.”
Still, Drummond piles more on her plate. In addition to their Oklahoma pizza place and market, The Mercantile, the Drummonds just opened an ice cream shop, Charlie’s Sweet Shop.
Even though her tiny town of Pawhuska has only 3,500 residents, Drummond encourages fans to come visit her local businesses and see the wonders of small-town living.
“I moved to the country in the middle of nowhere, and somehow my world opened up.”