My name is Amanda. And I love The Pioneer Woman.
Ree Drummond is hilarious and spunky and I love her blog, thepioneerwoman.com.
I really don’t read cookbooks, mostly because I don’t cook much (my husband is most certainly the chef of the two of us) but I love that her personality jumps out from the page just like her recipes do.
All of the photography is her own, and as a non-cook, I appreciate the step-by-step photos and stories on each page about why she loves each recipe.
Ree Drummond would never be accused of taking life too seriously and for this I love her. One particular picture on the Sangria recipe page illustrates this perfectly. You see her pouring the wine on top of the fruit into a gorgeous glass carafe with a spigot. There is very clearly red wine draining from the open spigot and the next caption says “And generally, if you’re pouring wine into a container with a spigot, it helps to close the spigot first.” The caption and illustration could very easily have been omitted, but Drummond chooses to include it and uses it as a way to tell her readers “Hey, it’s ok if you screw up in the kitchen. I do it too [despite my lovely photographs and general appearance of having it all together with abundant grace and style].” So not only did she let the spigot drain to laugh at herself a minute, but she also took a picture BEFORE she closed it and then published it. Leaving the spigot open is no doubt something I’d do, and for Ree’s ability to prevent me from feeling badly about something like that I am grateful.
The food is no doubt country and makes you (yes, even me, the non-cook) crave a quiet Sunday afternoon at home to get lost in the kitchen.
