Nikki's Reviews > The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Recipes from an Accidental Country Girl

(WARNING: incoming rant)

I wanted to give this book three stars but since I found out the TRUTH about what a fake and phony Ree Drummond is, I cannot.

Through several websites I read the truth about Ree, her life of privilege in an upper-middle-class family and then marrying into one of the top land-owner ranching families in the US. The "pioneer" appellation that Ree gave herself must be an inside joke because she and her husband are so rich (without even counting her $1.5M+ blog, TV show, cookbooks dynasty) that they get paid for land they don't work and to keep wild mustangs on their property (subsidized in the millions by the US government). In fact the little ranch operation that Marlboro Man (Ladd Drummond) runs with his brother Tim makes a paltry few hundred thousand a year in comparison to where the big bucks are (Ree's empire and the family land, some of which sold back in 2001 for over $20M - purchased by the US government).

Ree and her perfect little cowboy clan ARE NOT LIKE you and me, though she thinks if she pretends to be all down home by dropping the g's off all her words (gettin', fightin', talkin', home schoolin', eatin', feedin') and never refers to them but 'em (come an get 'em) she'll be able to fool the masses into thinking she's living like a modern "Little House on the Prairie". Which apparently she has been able to do quite successfully.

The truth of the matter is, she is not a lonely little prairie wife, strugglin’ to work a family ranch. She's gobs and gobs richer than her fans (most likely richer than just about everyone in Oklahoma), home schools with two teachers (I bet you thought she did the teachin' too, dinja?) had/has nannies for her kids as they were growin' up, had a ghostwriter and staff work on her cookbooks and recipes, clears easily a cool million in ad revenue from her blog and let's face it talks way too much about how she loves her husband and how hot he is in his Wranglers which personally makes me think he's a dud in the bedroom, otherwise, who are you trying (sorry, tryin') to convince by yappin' about it all the time? I don't care that you hit the hubby landowner jackpot (land stolen from the Native Americans) and pushed out four lil' brats, that doesn’t make you better or smarter or more interesting than anyone else who has done the same thing but on much less money, having to be far more creative than cooking in a kitchen bigger than most people’s homes (and that's not mentioning The Lodge which is literally a hotel/TV kitchen studio on their property built especially for her Food Network TV Show. You could land a Cessna in the living room).

Ree Drummond is as phony as the shade of red she dyes her hair.

Yet them regular folks out here eat it up. I admit at first I kind of fell for it too though it didn’t really make sense that she could be feedin' all them cattle-folk, schoolin' four children, bakin' pies for the church social, helpin' out with all the chores on the ranch, makin' a good supper for her family (and all the other meals), keepin' up her blog by writin' and takin' hundreds of photos, doin’ a TV show, writin' cookbooks, developin' recipes and wranglin' whatever's in Marlboro Man’s Wranglers on a regular basis. I mean she's called The Pioneer Woman not some durned Super Pioneer Woman who has a laser spatula for flippin' griddle-cakes and a giant cowboy bean-pot of radioactive energy that is the source of her powers.

So when I did a little diggin' round the old cowherd called th’ internet, daggummit what d'ya think I found?

Non-believers who were happy to turn a spotlight on Ree's duplicity.

And frankly if'n The Pioneer Woman tain't no real pioneer it kind of renders her cookbooks, somewhat ridiculous.

The recipes are simple Ladies Auxiliary type, for beginners with step by step photos that I guess are there in case you have no clue what sweatin' an onion in a fryin' pan looks like. Actually I don’t really see the point of the step by step pictures since they are very small and not particularly clear. Also step by step instructions for simple recipes is overkill.

It’s not that I don't like some of the recipes. But often they are recipes that you don’t even need a recipe for - like potato skins. Is there anyone who can currently walk into a kitchen and peel a potato that doesn't know how to make potato skins?

She does have an good recipe for cinnamon rolls (her mother's) and other recipes from various friends and family members that are pretty good too but as long as Cinnabon exists in the Pillsbury refrigerator case I see no point in going to all that work and I severely doubt that Ree does either.

The pictures are lovely (though over-saturated with Photoshop filters) and some of her humor is hokey and sweet. If only it were genuine. Well, if any of it was.

Curse me out if you're a fan of hers if you like but just know that you are defending a fake who laughs all the way to the bank. And she's laughing at YOU.