by Ree Drummond
There were just a few problems with this dinner-at-the-creek scenario: First, Ladd and Tim have never been on a picnic in their lives and probably never will. If they aren’t working on the ranch, they want to be inside in the air-conditioning, out of the elements. Furthermore, the grass is full of chiggers, especially in the evenings, and they would never, ever sit in it, even with a vintage quilt as a barrier. To top things off, Rachel imagined that after the picnic feast, the men and the kids might go for a little swim in the creek. I could just picture Ladd’s glistening abs illuminated by the evening sun as he slowly removed his snug white T-shirt (like in my Soloflex poster in high school) . . . and I cracked up at the thought. Not to mention the snakes: “Have you ever heard of water moccasins?” I asked Rachel. I wasn’t sure if Lonesome Dove had ever aired in the UK.
Eating outside (or “al fresco,” as my British friends like to say) was a frequent theme when it came to early episode ideas. Setting a lovely table in the garden was something Rachel thought would be a beautiful thing for viewers—until I showed her that a garden in Osage County is comprised of overgrown tomato plants, scary-gigantic zucchini, and sunflowers missing their blooms because someone didn’t shut the gate to the horse pasture. And then there’s the matter of the sustained thirty-mile-per-hour winds on an average, pleasant day. Al fresco? Heck no!
One thing we do have in Pawhuska that they don’t have in the Hamptons is cattle ranching. Through the years, Rachel and crew have gotten to witness such agricultural excitement as large-animal vets reaching inside cows’ rectums, male calves getting castrated, uterine prolapses, and cowboys hollering and cussing to beat the band. And the cameramen have kept rolling the whole time, maintaining the utmost professionalism—although I’m sure there’ve been times they’ve wanted to run screaming back to England . . . with maybe a pit stop in the Hamptons on the way home.
Yes, Rachel and crew have slowly assimilated to ranch life through the years and have truly become part of our family. They love us and would do anything for us. We feel the same about them. Still, tornado warnings sound, the power goes out, the septic tank backs up, the dogs bring dead raccoons to the porch, the crew gets flat tires, and there are all manner of pests—from spiders to rats—that make their time here more than exciting. In fact, when I compare the social media posts of the crew when they’re filming with Ina to posts when they’re filming with me, it really paints a complete picture. Soft waves hugging the shore of Montauk, New York, a brilliant orange sun rising in the distance . . . versus a close-up of a hairy tarantula consuming a moth on my torn, rusted screen door.
At least their work isn’t monotonous!
Behind-the-Scenes Trivia from My Cooking Show
The first season of filming, we used 131 pounds of butter. These days, it’s more like 75. (My jeans aren’t smaller, though!)
Todd was six when The Pioneer Woman began airing. He’s sixteen now!
It used to take one and a half days to film one episode. Now it takes a day. (When my kids film the show, it takes half a day!)
There are about twenty-five people on our regular crew. (Just four people on my kid crew!)
British people call the trunk of a car the “boot.” One time they asked me to put the casserole in my boot and I was very confused.
British people call digging in “tucking in.” One time our director asked one of my dinner guests to go ahead and tuck in . . . and he looked down and tucked in his shirt.
There are enough groceries to make four passes of each recipe I make, in case something burns or doesn’t turn out quite right.
We donate leftover groceries to our local soup kitchen.
On a Christmas special in 2013, I accidentally wore two different green earrings, one in each ear. I didn’t know it until the special aired.
My least-favorite recipe I ever filmed for the show was a chicken strip pizza. I used frozen chicken strips and topped the pizza with coleslaw, pickles, and special sauce. It was absolutely awful, but because it was the end of our last shoot day, we had to move forward with it. I figured it would look better on TV when it aired. I was wrong.
My favorite recipe I ever filmed for the show was lobster mac and cheese with my girls. I demonstrated how to remove raw meat from a lobster tail, and the mac and cheese was so delicious.
During long shoot days, our sound guy, Martin, calls out crossword clues between takes and we all try to be the first to shout out the answer. The crossword book is from the UK, though, so there’s a lot of trivia I don’t know. (No fair!)
Once I made a four-layer chocolate birthday cake for Ladd on the show and stashed it in the fridge to chill. It fell over, and the fridge has never been the same.
Cowboy Josh dated a member of the production crew several years ago, and he visited her in London. He wore his cowboy hat and was asked for autographs on the street. (It didn’t work out between the two of them!)
When there are shots of my truck driving down the road, sometimes I’m not the one driving it.
My director, Olivia, is married to my close-up cameraman, Matt. They had their first baby together during the course of the show!
Ladd has scared me with a rubber snake nine times on the show.
I’ve scared Ladd with a rubber snake nine hundred times on the show.
At a campout show, Todd (age ten at the time) passed gas loudly on camera. The cameramen had to keep their composure and keep rolling, but I saw their bellies shaking from laughter.
In the first season of my show, I accidentally dropped my microphone in the toilet. (I told the sound guy right away.)
Left in a Man Cave
When Alex left for college, I was a mess for months.
The meltdown actually began in the spring of her senior year of high school, when I started realizing that everything she was doing was happening for the last time. The last soccer game, the last class, the last dance. I became teary around March of that year and it didn’t get any better leading up to August, when we drove Alex to Texas A&M to begin her college experience. Please feel sorry for Ladd for enduring that drive back to Oklahoma, because he had to listen to Paige and me wail and sob the entire seven-and-a-half-hour journey home. And the sobbing didn’t stop when we arrived back on the ranch. Our boys, Bryce and Todd, had stayed with Ladd’s parents when we took that trip, so the three of us returned to a dead-silent house. Paige looked at me, eyes still puffy, and said, “I miss Alex.” We both started crying again and didn’t stop for a month. Again, please feel sorry for Ladd. That poor man has been through a lot.
So acute was my pain over my first child leaving home that I feared things would never be right in the world—or certainly in my heart—again. But slowly, Paige, the rest of the family, and I began to adapt to our new normal, and we slowly got used to being a family of five instead of six, at least on a day-to-day basis. Paige got through her sophomore year, her junior year, and then her senior year of high school, and during that summer before she left for college, rather than feel the abject dread I’d felt with Alex, I just enjoyed every minute with her. To my relief, it seemed that the pain I’d felt when Alex left home had just been a onetime thing, and now that I’d exercised that muscle of mourning, I could handle the emotions this time.
I figured wrong.
Ladd and I drove Paige to college early one Wednesday morning, three years after we’d done the same with her older sister. We moved her into her dorm without a hitch. We walked around campus, bought her some college gear, and had a nice late afternoon lunch at a local café. But when it came time for Ladd and me to leave, it hit me like a freight train—my little Paigie Girl wouldn’t be coming home with us. It was as if we’d just been playing around, pretending that we were taking her to college, but it was never actually going to happen. It hadn’t felt real until that very moment. “Well, Mom . . .,” she said, flashing a little smile and reaching her arms toward me, “I love you.” She grabbed me in a hug.
The whole bottom dropped out. My throat sw
elled, my nose stung, my chin quivered, and the tears started pouring from my eyes. I grabbed her tight and sobbed uncontrollably. “No,” I cried, making absolutely no attempt to calm my daughter’s possible fear and trepidation or to put on a brave face. “No, Paigie! I can’t go home without you!” I could tell she was crying, too, but it was definitely more out of concern for her blubbering mother’s mental well-being than anything else. Ladd put a reassuring hand on each of our shoulders, possibly trying some hybrid of prayer and a Vulcan mind meld—anything to get these two women in his life—especially his wife—to stop crying, which always completely unnerves him. Ladd can make a fifteen-hundred-pound bull go in the exact direction he wants, but he’s powerless to stop a female’s tears.
Ladd almost had to physically help me into the pickup, and I gave Paige a final wave as Ladd slowly pulled away. And oh, the floodgates . . . they opened again. I’m trying to make it sound funny, but it really wasn’t. I was devastated, empty, completely destroyed at the idea of my beautiful Paige being gone from our house and apart from my world. She was such a flurry of daily activity and energy, a type A personality that kept our house alive. I loved Ladd and the boys and all, but I just couldn’t imagine how daily life was going to continue without Paige there running the show. I terrorized Ladd the entire three-hour drive home with cries of “I regret every moment I didn’t spend with her!!” and “Do you think she’s going to forget about me?” and other wails that were impossible for him to respond to in any logical way. This was different, way worse, than I felt when we dropped Alex off at school. At least when we drove home after taking Alex, I still had Paige in my life. On this trip home, I knew I’d have only Ladd, Bryce, and Todd at home to fill the void.
After a couple of days of intermittent crying and feeling sorry for myself for being the only woman in history ever to send two of her daughters away to college, I decided to buck up. I owed it to the men in my life to at least appear to be engaged. I started high-fiving them more, talking to them about their upcoming football season, and involving them in dinner requests for the upcoming week. I can do this, I thought to myself. I’ll just call Paige several times a day to get me through it, then the rest of the time I’ll totally be present for the boys and all their endeavors. I suddenly had a new attitude. And new hope.
Then school started, and here’s a glimpse into what the average day looked like: Got the boys up at 6:00 a.m. so they could get to the weight room. After that, they’d go to school all day, then football practice immediately after. They’d trickle home about 8:30 to 9:00 p.m. every single night. Meantime, Ladd was running the ranch, and I was rotting at home with nothing but two Labs and two Basset hounds (and two thousand mama cows) to keep me company. Oh, I had things to do, sure—cooking show, product line, cookbooks, career, yada yada yada—but it didn’t matter. That first week, the silence in the house was strange and deafening.
Monday night on the second week of school, I decided that if I couldn’t beat them, I’d join them. I was determined to mold my routine to theirs, getting the bulk of my work done during the day so I could have dinner and charming conversation ready for them when they got home at night. These boys still need a mom, I reminded myself. I brushed my hair, splashed water on my face, and started dinner. I couldn’t wait for them to walk in and smell the chicken Parmesan simmering on the stove. I looked forward to telling them about my day, to asking them about theirs. The Bassets and I were fresh out of things to talk about.
Bryce, Todd, and Ladd piled in after nine, washed their hands, and sat down for their late dinner, grunting here and there over how delicious it was. They launched into a lively discussion about who the backup quarterback was going to be that season, and I waited for an opening. Ten minutes later, the chicken Parm was obliterated, they’d finished the quarterback convo, and I saw my chance. “Oh, by the way,” I announced, “I’m going to Tulsa to get my hair done tomorrow.”
Crickets.
More crickets.
And then the darnedest thing happened. The guys nodded, then turned to one another and continued talking about football. I felt slighted for a second . . . then chuckled to myself, reflecting on how different things would have been if Paige had been at the dinner table that night—Paige, who was always eagle-eyed and tuned in about my and everyone else’s whereabouts, schedules, plans, motivations, and intentions. Had she been at that dinner table, my hair appointment announcement would have been met with the following inquiries:
What time are you going?
What time is your appointment?
What are you doing to your hair?
How long will it take?
What time will you be back?
What else are you doing in Tulsa?
And then what?
Can I come with you?
Why not?
Can you reschedule to a day I can go?
Why not?
What is your political affiliation?
What is your mother’s maiden name?
I need you to edit this English paper.
You should cut your hair shorter.
But exactly what time will you be back?
There was none of that now. Paige was now fully (and understandably) concerned with her life at college, and the dearth of follow-up questions from the guys in my house made one thing crystal clear to me that night: I now resided in a man cave, one defined by football and ranching, one where deodorant and socks were going to be the main emphases. But rather than fight it, I decided to embrace it and use the previously unheard-of quiet time at home to feed my creativity and work on projects.
Nearly two years later, deodorant and socks are still the focus, and I’m loving being the mom of football players. They still don’t ask me anything about my hair appointments, and never notice a single change in my cuts or colors, but that’s just fine by me. At least I can come and go without having to answer twenty questions! (I don’t even have to answer one question.)
Stayin’ Humble
Over time, I’ve slowly learned to accept the fact that I am technically considered a celebrity, simply by virtue of the fact that I’ve had a TV show for several years and am somewhat of a recognizable person (mostly, I suspect, because of my orange-red hair, which mostly comes from a bottle these days). Coming to terms with this has basically caused me to rethink the entire concept of celebrity, because if I am one, I don’t have a single clue what one is. I’m not being falsely modest here. It’s just that when I hear the word “celebrity,” I think of one person: Demi Moore. For some reason, I have always pictured Demi Moore living in a ninety-room mansion. I can’t explain why this is—it just became implanted in my mind somewhere along the way that that’s the way she—and all celebrities—live. And since I don’t live in a ninety-room mansion (I live on a ranch, which I love, in the house my husband grew up in, which I love . . . and I have manure in my yard, which I don’t love), there’s no way I can be a celebrity, too. Obviously, my point is that “celebrity” is really just a word, and doesn’t speak to any reality about the person or the person’s lifestyle, so these days especially, I take it with a grain of salt.
All of this said, I do also recognize that if I am a celebrity at all, I’m very low on the celebrity scale. This is not a Justin Bieber situation, in other words. Still, because I have a TV show and cookbooks, there are a few (maybe eleven?) people who know who I am and enjoy what I do, and for that I am nothing but grateful every single day of my life. If I ever have the chance to sign a book or chat with someone who has followed my website, read my cookbooks, used my products, or watched my show, I consider it a tremendous privilege. To be recognized in public or asked to sign an autograph is something that I will never, ever complain about.
One weekend a few summers ago, I had my annual gathering of fifteen high school friends at the Lodge on the ranch. We started having these summer get-togethers in 2008, after our twenty-year high school reunion the year before, because a lot of us hadn’t seen one another for many
years and we had so much fun reminiscing that night that we didn’t want it to end. So we vowed to meet every summer at the Lodge, and by and large, we’ve stuck to that promise. Since these weekends began, we’ve seen one another through burying spouses and parents, and one of us (not me!) even had a post-forty baby . . . so the connection we’ve renewed has been truly special.
During these weekends, we cook, drink wine, and laugh for forty-eight hours straight, and we always go away from the weekend renewed and refreshed. To help this along, I usually arrange for a massage therapist and manicurist to come for the whole day on Saturday so the girls can enjoy some much-needed pampering. This one summer, I decided to up the ante and forgo the tradition of all of us cooking the Saturday night dinner together and instead hired two sushi chefs to come from a restaurant in Tulsa. I thought it would be fun to watch the chefs in action, and besides that, it would allow the girls to really dig in and relax rather than pull together a big meal. The girls were all finishing up their various massages and manis late that Saturday afternoon when the two young sushi chefs showed up. We all enjoyed watching them set up their equipment and get started.
We were a couple of sushi courses in when Tracey, the manicurist, invited me to come sit at her portable table so she could do my nails. I didn’t always partake in these spa services during our girls’ weekends, as I always wanted my guests to enjoy them first, but Tracey and the massage therapist had ridden from Tulsa together and she had some time to kill. And truth be told, I was game to sit, relax, and have my nails done. My cuticles were tragic, and it was nice to unwind, shoot the breeze with Tracey, and enjoy occasional bites of sushi, which both my friends and the chefs occasionally delivered to me on little plates.