Pioneer Woman Ree Drummond doesn’t like to think of herself a celebrity (although she is one) who has built an empire (although her multifaceted brand certainly qualifies). She also squirms when someone mentions her millions of fans.
“I have a hard time talking about my fans; I feel like it’s more of a large friend group,” Drummond said.
With a kind smile and knack for hospitality, Drummond seems to value relatability over celebrity status. She’s quick to sign a cookbook or snap a photo with a fan—that is, friend—and her approachable nature has contributed to the success of all things Pioneer Woman.
Her Food Network cooking show is filmed at Drummond Ranch, where the family’s cattle ranching chores often inspire episode themes. (The program has logged 40 seasons, and counting.) She’s authored nine Pioneer Woman cookbooks, with another one being released this October, as well as a memoir, a book of short stories and two children’s books. The Pioneer Woman Magazine shares her seasonal recipes and homemaking ideas. She just celebrated the 10th anniversary of her Walmart home collection; products are easily accessible nationwide. Drummond is also behind numerous Pawhuska visitor experiences, including The Mercantile restaurant, bakery and shop and The Boarding House boutique hotel.
That’s a lot of irons in the fire, but Drummond remains cool and collected. She has such an easy way about her that talking to her is like talking to a neighbor, rather than an international superstar.
“Especially living in an agricultural family, there’s a bit of grounding to the whole thing,” Drummond said. “You know, there’s still the same amount of manure in our yard as there was before I started my blog years ago.”
So, if not “empire,” what does Drummond call all of her successful Pioneer Woman endeavors?
“I think I’d call it my ‘business.’ It’s a little bit of my world—it’s not the world, but it’s my world—because my business reflects my family, my cooking, my home,” she said.
For this feature, we are grateful Drummond opened her world to us and generously welcomed us inside.
Pioneer Beginnings
Drummond’s impressive career and brand are both rooted in a blog she launched in 2006 titled “Confessions of a Pioneer Woman.” Before discussing the blog, Drummond paused to provide background on the Pioneer Woman name.
“I have been asked through the years where the name came from,” she said. “I had been married just a few years. Our two oldest were just toddlers. We were living in the lodge [on the ranch], which is where I eventually would film my Food Network show, and we lost all water pressure to our house. We had no running water for four months, and I did the whole haul-water, boil-water on the stove [routine]. I don’t quite know how I did it, but it was one of those hilarious country meltdowns … My friend Sally heard about it, and she said, ‘Oh my gosh, you’re a real pioneer woman.’”
“Pioneer Woman” was also what California friends lovingly called Drummond as she embarked on a new ranching adventure after marrying Ladd Drummond. It was intriguing to them because it was a departure from where and how she had lived previously. Drummond’s father was an orthopedic surgeon, and she grew up in Bartlesville on a golf course. She said she felt like Bartlesville—population 35,000—was “too small” for her, so she moved away for college, attending the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
Years later, as a young adult with plans to relocate from Los Angeles to Chicago, she returned to Oklahoma for a “pit stop,” as she refers to it. That short stay in Oklahoma was when she met Ladd Drummond, and her big-city plans changed direction … to Pawhuska.
“Bartlesville was way too small for me, [yet] where I wound up was even smaller,” said Drummond, musing about the irony. “When I got married, I was very much in love, and I did have a sense that my world was getting smaller, but that was OK … In many ways, my world expanded by moving to the country … There was something that clicked when I made that choice in life, and Oklahoma is completely responsible for everything that I have done and the creativity that I found.”
When the kids were old enough to work the cattle ranch alongside their father, Drummond was left alone in the home with her thoughts and desire to create. She began blogging daily.
“The first year, it was really just embarrassing stories from my past, funny pictures of the kids covered in dirt, working cattle—and funny stories, poking fun at myself usually,” she said.
Drummond remembers thinking her mom would read her blog, if no one else. However, to her surprise, her posts slowly started building followers.
“I started noticing that people would come, and then they’d share it with their sister or their friend, who would then share it … It just grew very naturally. It wasn’t until almost a year later that I shared my first recipe,” she said.
Photos became an integral part of Drummond’s storytelling. She would organize her images in a sequenced, step-by-step fashion. She loved taking photos, and readers got to see it all.
“If I was telling the story of a morning of working cattle, I would tell it with photos. Each photo would have a caption or, you know, a funny little moment. I did the same thing with recipes. I would take a picture of the steak, and then me seasoning the steak, and then me melting the butter … I took photos of what I was actually cooking, [and] the people in my life,” said Drummond.
Through reader comments, she received direct and ongoing feedback in real time, which helped further shape her content and style.
“I heard early on that what people appreciated about the recipes is that they could find all the ingredients at their local supermarket or grocery store. I really took that to heart,” Drummond said. “While there were times that I think I probably tried to dip my toe into a more elevated culinary water, I have always been very clear of who I am in a culinary sense. I don’t want to try to be something I’m not. So, I share the recipes that reflect our lives.”
“Pioneer Woman,” once a tongue-in-cheek nickname for Drummond, has evolved into something much more meaningful today.
“I think ‘pioneer’ means stepping into situations or areas of life that maybe you haven’t had the courage to before—or the opportunity to before—and that has certainly defined my career,” she said.
Reflecting on her ranch-sized ambition and the successes that followed, perhaps that pioneer spirit was her driving force all along.
In Print and On Screen
As Drummond’s blog gained more attention and followers, a publisher reached out about collaborating on a cookbook. In 2009, Drummond released her first cookbook, The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Recipes from an Accidental Country Girl.
“It was very much like my blog in print form: lots of photos of the kids and the ranch and recipes my mom and mother-in-law made,” said Drummond.
One opportunity often leads to another, and Drummond said this was definitely her experience with Pioneer Woman. As her cookbook was being released, Food Network executives called with a show idea.
“At the time I thought, ‘In no universe could I be on TV’ … I didn’t feel that I was in that caliber of cooks, but eventually we talked enough that they offered to come out, and I thought, ‘Well, the reasons not to try it are kind of disappearing.’ So, I tried it. I thought it would last a few episodes, but it just continued … It’s really been an amazing journey—hard at times, but very exciting,” she said.
Initially—and understandably—Drummond was terrified of the cameras. She ranked her fear of public speaking “right up there with sharks and earthquakes,” she said, but she kept trying, learning and improving.
“I still would like the first 15 or 20 episodes to be stricken from the record; I was very green,” she said. “What helped me eventually was, first of all, desensitization. Then, you just do something enough that you become comfortable … I started picturing the audience beyond the camera that was pointed at me, and I was able to really understand that I was speaking to them.”
Much like her blog and cookbook, the show paired Drummond’s stories about her family on the ranch with the recipes she was cooking that day to feed her hungry cowboys and cowgirls. It was a winning combination, especially as key production elements began falling into place.
“They came to film the pilot for the Food Network show sometime in late 2010, and the producer, director and cameraman stayed at the lodge. We filmed in the kitchen there, and then it just kind of clicked,” she said. “It was almost an affirmation … There were these moments of serendipity along the way. The lodge wound up being the perfect set.”
In addition to filming Drummond and her family around the ranch, cameras followed them to church. Drummond’s Christian faith contributes to her lifestyle, and the show captured that as well. For example, one episode followed Drummond on Good Friday, baking hot cross buns and then delivering baskets of them to neighbors.
“Early on, we’d show the crew coming along to church, like when we’d have a church potluck. We would have a few shows where we highlighted what I was making for the potluck the day before, and then they’d show the potluck itself. It’s nice to show our faith in natural ways like that,” Drummond said. “To me, it’s just a part of my life.”
Keep Oklahoma Friendly
Through her career, Drummond became a state ambassador of sorts. She has not only put Pawhuska on a national stage, but also she has demonstrated and discussed Oklahoma culture.
Since the “Pioneer Woman” cooking show first premiered in 2011, it has been produced by a London company—the same one that filmed Ina Garten’s “Barefoot Contessa” program, in East Hampton, New York.
“The first couple of trips out here, it was a continual education for them in the ways that Pawhuska, Oklahoma, is not the Hamptons,” Drummond said with a laugh, “but they loved it here. They felt safe. They felt at home—and I don’t mean just with us, on our ranch; I mean in Oklahoma.”
“Keep Oklahoma Friendly” is a motto that Ladd Drummond likes to say. Ree Drummond said that’s because she and her husband appreciate how kind Oklahomans can be, how quickly they will open a door or smile at a stranger.
“I mean, it’s that little finger wave that you get from other cars,” Drummond said. “The people who visit here still don’t get it. They’re like, ‘Do you know that person?’ And I say, ‘No, that’s just what we do here.’ … I think Oklahoma is, by nature, approachable.”
As she mixes with big names in big cities at big events, Drummond always carries her affinity for Oklahoma with her.
“I talk about Oklahoma: It’s beautifully wild and kind of a best-kept secret,” she said. “I describe it as my home, and I love it, and everybody needs to experience it.”
One way to experience small-town Oklahoma is through Drummond’s Pioneer Woman destinations, all situated in and around the hundred-year-old Osage Mercantile building on Main Street in Pawhuska. The Drummonds purchased, renovated and reopened the building in 2016.
Multiple (mouthwatering) Pioneer Woman spots dot the downtown area. The Mercantile features fresh-baked pies, cupcakes and other sweets upstairs, while Drummond’s famous chicken-fried steak and other Southern favorites are served in the restaurant downstairs. P-Town Wood Fired Pizza is another option, located across the street.
Drummond Ranch
Lately Drummond has been dabbling in a different kind of storytelling media, along with her family. The Drummonds are self-producing the Drummond Ranch YouTube channel, offering a detailed look into Oklahoma cattle ranching and their family business.
“Through the years, of course, we showed the ranch on my Food Network show, but it was such a tiny sliver of each episode. The crew would go film with them all day, but the footage that would wind up in the shows was about two minutes out of a 30-minute episode—and there’s so much to share,” she said.
Drummond likes how the YouTube format allows some episodes to be 10 minutes long, while others could be 25 minutes. The rules aren’t as restrictive as network television, so there is much more flexibility in programming.
“I think it’s really fun after all these years to be able to tell our own story,” she said. “I’m going to start focusing the stories on my children—my grown children—who are navigating a family ranch. Who’s coming back, who’s not, and everything that kind of goes into that—not to mention my granddaughter, who is my current obsession.”
This month, Drummond sends her youngest son back to Oklahoma State University for his final year in college. She’s also eagerly anticipating the arrival of grandbaby number two in September. Perhaps these family milestones will be shown on the Pioneer Woman website, magazine or screen. (Stay tuned.)
Life continues to provide meaningful moments for Drummond to capture, create and share—all in her beautifully relatable way.
Instagram: @thepioneerwoman | Drummond Ranch YouTube: @DrummondRanchTV | The Pioneer Woman YouTube: @thepioneerwoman | www.thepioneerwoman.com
