May 28, 2013, 6:58 p.m. ET 'Pioneer Woman' Serves...

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LIFE & CULTURE May 28, 2013, 6:58 p.m. ET

Food Network's show "Pioneer Woman" is an under-the-radar hit with urban pioneers and a window into how cooking shows are increasingly more about a lifestyle than food.

Food Network

'The Pioneer Woman' celebrates the routine on a working Oklahoma ranch, with photos of daily

By ELLEN BYRON

Steer your horse in front of cattle to slow them down. "Fixing fence" is a job that is never done.

Cowboys love black pepper in their gravy.

Such are the insights into life on a ranch that viewers get from Ree Drummond—better known as

"The Pioneer Woman" to viewers of her blog and cable TV show.

Ms. Drummond's daily routine on a working ranch in

Oklahoma—herding more than 4,000 head of cattle,

wrangling four children, slinging out rich, down-home

meals for family and friends—turns out to be the guilty

escapist pleasure of a growing television and Web

audience.

That Ms. Drummond has become a star shows how far

cooking shows have come from the classic cooking show

format, or what network producers call the "dump and

stir." On "The Pioneer Woman" and other shows that fill

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'Pioneer Woman' Serves Up Guilty Pleasures, Lots of Butter

of 4Ree Drummond, TV's 'Pioneer Woman,' Starts New Season With Tornado Relief - WSJ.c...

5/30/2013http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323648304578497430321987200.html

chores, such as that of three of the Drummond children, Paige, 13, Bryce, 10, and Alex, 15.

Food Network

Ree Drummond in a cooking segment.

Ree Drummond

Bottlefeeding a calf (a topic for the coming season).

the Food Network and increasingly dot the schedules on

other channels, episodes often feature delicious meals

and gorgeous kitchens. To stand out and keep viewers

returning for more, producers need to keep coming up with fresh settings and lifestyles—be it

Nigella Lawson's posh London kitchen, Ina Garten's chic Hamptons retreat or Ms. Drummond's

ranch.

"Many watch because they want to appreciate a beautiful

lifestyle that they don't have," says Bob Tuschman, Food

Network's general manager and senior vice president.

"There's fantasy and romance that appeals to all of us."

With its fifth season on the Food Network starting

Saturday, "The Pioneer Woman," draws an average of

about eight million viewers a month, making it the most-

watched show with 25- to 54-year-old women, viewers

advertisers covet, during the network's high-viewership

weekend daytime hours, according to Nielsen data from

Food Network.

With websites

offering

another outlet

for recipes and

lifestyle tips,

this is a

golden age of

cooking

shows. Ms.

Drummond

built a fan

base with a

website and a

cookbook that

caught the

attention of

Food Network

executives,

who signed

her up for a

TV show.

Last week on

her website, Ms. Drummond addressed the tornadoes that devastated Moore, Okla., even though

they didn't touch down on the ranch. She has been asking her blog audience to enter a contest to

win prizes (KitchenAid stand mixers, turquoise-and-yellow cowboy boots), and donating a dime for

each entry. So far the efforts have raised $9,087 for tornado relief efforts, she says.

Ms. Drummond, 44, grew up in Bartlesville, Okla., next

to the fairway of a golf course and graduated from the

University of Southern California, where she majored in



Food Network

The Drummond family and friends share a meal.

Food Network

Ms. Drummond and her husband, Ladd ('Marlboro Man').

gerontology and studied broadcast journalism. She was a

vegetarian when she met Ladd Drummond, scion of a

prominent Oklahoma ranching family. Then, early in

their relationship he made her a steak topped with

sizzling butter.

"I still remember the first bite," Ms. Drummond says. "In

more ways than one it was all over."

From her enormous ranch about 80 miles northwest of

Tulsa ("in the middle of nowhere," she says), Ms.

Drummond fills her blog with lush photos of steers and

heifers, basset hounds, muddy chores and beautiful sunsets. She sprinkles in tips on

home schooling and the romantic musings of a city gal who followed the cowboy she loves. She

refers to her husband as "Marlboro Man" and occasionally sneaks in a photo of his Wranglers-and-

chaps-clad backside.

Viewers of the TV show go inside Ms. Drummond's

sprawling kitchen, with its gleaming Wolf stove, vaulted

ceilings, gigantic farm table and collection of Le Creuset

Dutch ovens. Her recipes, geared for home cooks, have

plain-spoken names like "Perfect Pot Roast" and

"Lasagna."

One of the show's more thrilling aspects is the generous

and unapologetic use of butter. For four servings of

"Marlboro Man's Favorite Sandwich," she cooks beef and

onions in two sticks of butter, and she uses two sticks of

butter, plus a block of cream cheese and cup of heavy

cream, for her "creamy mashed potatoes" in a

"generously" buttered dish.

"You're dealing with men and kids who are active eight to

10 hours a day," Ms. Drummond says. "Plus we don't eat

mashed potatoes with cream cheese and butter every

night of the week."

Many viewers find "The Pioneer Woman" and other

cooking shows fit how they watch TV now—they may

wander in and out of an episode, or watch fragments at

odd times—and they can still make sense of the relaxing

fantasy plot.

"When they show them herding the cattle, it's like going

on a little vacation to somewhere you wouldn't normally

go," says Christy Lane, a 40-year-old nurse practitioner

in Hewitt, N.J. and a daily reader of Ms. Drummond's

blog. She says she watches episodes when she has time to

herself. Her favorite recipes include Ms. Drummond's

"Spicy Pop Pulled Pork," which calls for two cans of soda

such as Dr Pepper.



Food Network

Ree Drummond's recipes on 'Pioneer Woman' are often plain, hearty favorites, such as deviled eggs (an episode on lighter recipes is in the works).

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Signaling that the Pioneer Woman has arrived, Ms.

Drummond is a magnet for parodies and criticism. Blogs

with names like themarlborowoman delight in skewering

her rose-colored view of life. Some doubt one woman

really can do it all.

"I love what I do so I'm very productive in the areas that I enjoy, like cookbooks, blogging and the

shows," Ms. Drummond says, adding, "I have a lot of messy drawers and closets behind the scenes."

In the works for Pioneer Woman in early 2014 is an episode on lighter eating—inspired by the 15

pounds Ms. Drummond says she has put on in recent months as a result of all the cooking she has

been doing for the show, her blog, her family and a new cookbook, her third. Also in planning stages

is a deli-style restaurant in nearby Pawhuska.

"In many ways the lifestyle presented on a program is

more important than the food," says Kathleen Collins, author of "Watching What We Eat," which

traces the history of cooking shows.

Ms. Lane, the viewer, says she started an herb garden last week, inspired by Ms. Drummond's

sprawling plots. "You get to see a completely different way of life," she says.

Capturing ranch life on camera has its challenges. The 20-mile trip to the nearest town, Pawhuska,

includes about 5 miles over gravel roads. A few times a year Ms. Drummond drives a pickup or

horse trailer to a club store to load up on basics like flour and paper products. To get special

ingredients like fresh mozzarella requires the haul to Tulsa. During warm months, Ms. Drummond

grows fresh herbs in her garden.

Filming scenes of the Drummonds dining outdoors, surrounded by the picturesque Oklahoma

plains, has proved almost insurmountably difficult. "We have flies, we're on a cattle ranch," Ms.

Drummond says, and sometimes it's so windy everyone has "horizontal hair." "We don't really eat

outside much," she adds.

Ms. Drummond says her show's producers once suggested taking the kids for a swim in the creek.

"My husband said, 'Have you guys ever heard of water moccasins?' " Ms. Drummond recalls.

Write to Ellen Byron at [email protected]

A version of this article appeared May 29, 2013, on page D1 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street

Journal, with the headline: 'Pioneer Woman' Serves Up Guilty Pleasures, Lots of Butter.



May 28, 2013, 6:58 p.m. ET 'Pioneer Woman' Serves...

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