I watched an episode today. I can only surmise that the overly sugary- sweet presenting style has come from all the literal sugar she adds to everything. She even said at one point, something like "sugar ALWAYS makes everything better." Uh, no it doesn't. It was almost as if she was addressing her critics by saying this. How can she feed her kids all that unhealthy stuff? Does she eat all this stuff herself? As for the person who wrote a previous review quoting how many hits her blog has etc etc, nice try bigging her up, whoever you are (Ree).

Is her husband a mason or something and he got her a show on Food Network? I don't see mind blowing talent.. I expected it to be the country version of the Barefoot Contessa show but nope. The whole theme of the show - ranch life, feeding the kids etc is smart but there is something about this woman that makes me cringe. First off I'm from Europe, I love the country and so I love some good old American country living, but as most women of this day and age, the Pioneer Woman tries too hard to fit into the country girl stereotype and be cute and "sweet", it comes off fake and forced - that voice and smile!! Also too much advertising of her personal life - in one episode she referred to her honeymoon time and how she got pregnant and implied the obvious - This to me appears cheap "hey I know I look all nerdy but I get laid with a guy hotter than me and y'all need to know!". Nothing more gross than a conservative nerd talking about her sexual life on a cooking show! And if you consider the butt pics she takes of her husband, that's just low and creepy. Lastly, I agree with the other viewers, her cooking is loaded with butter, fat cheeses, carbs, and some more butter. As an athlete I am loving recipes that are light and balanced and I'm always waiting to see one protein serving and one carb but it's usually all fat & random carb servings in one meal in a desperate chase to make everything indulging. It's food for women on PMS, eternally! ..you know the days when you go crazy and crave something dirty and fattening. I wouldn't eat any of what she makes even on cheat day. Other than that I only watch it from time to time because of the ranch view.

in this Food Network series, the host Ree plays "the new Paula Dean", in that her recipes are chalk full of good old processed ingredients. in the segment i watched today, she incorporated fresh sweet strawberries in her dish. not satisfied that the strawberries natural sweetness is enough, she dumps a cup of processed white sugar over them, so that the sugar can further bring out the sweetness in the fruit. i suppose that's fine, but my stars, that's a lot of sugar! it's a wonder to behold. Ree is a sweet person, and i'm sure she is a marvelous cook, who feeds her ranch hands and family well. this is one of the better "down home" entries on the Food Network Channel. it seems to be doing well, and i hope it thrives for as long as Miss Drummond wishes to keep going.

I have dipped in and out to read some of the Pioneer Woman's blog and found a couple of her recipes enticing and enjoyed the whimsical writing style dotted between her photo breakdowns. As a result, I was keen to see this low-key humour and some insights into southern-ish cooking reflected in her "cooking show". What a let down. Whatever sparkle exists in her writing is devoid, and her presenting style (I don't know if this is scripted: if it isn't, it's time to pay someone) is inane, patronisingly repetitive and utterly uninspiring to anyone interested in learning to cook or broadening their repertoire through the show. But presenting style isn't everything, and we all know cooking show formats are contrived. What saddens/irks me the most that the food network has given a show to someone who doesn't appear to appreciate food or show skill in preparing it. I like the occasional shortcut recipe (I'd never make my own puff pastry and prefer shop bought hummus to homemade) but this show seems to provide a cavalcade of the sort concoctions the toddler puts together when he is left home alone or students when they first leave home and have no idea what they are doing and ultimately end up eating baked beans out of a tin. Take for example the recently demonstrated dump cake (or excrement cake, if we are translating British idiom_. This cake mixed cherry pie filling (the one ingredient which Nigella, who is open to a shortcut or two, begs viewers not to stoop to) and tinned pineapple, covered in a cake mix and sliced butter. If she wants to follow this route and be "one of the people" Drummond's time might have been better spent demystifying cake mixes into flour and baking powder and showing viewers how easily they can make their own mixes. That might have been slightly resembling of a cooking related topic.Other recipes included opening "pork n bean" tins and baking them with bacon on top. This 2am drunkenly thrown together student food is about as revolting as I could imagine, even without thinking about the quality of the sausages. The throw into a bunch of butter, stir and occasionally bake method is pretty the much as taxing as it gets from cakes to casseroles. "Great!" I hear folks cry, "We don't have time for anything more difficult". Here's the thing. Eat the way this woman cooks, and you won't need time. You'll be being happily squashed into your own coffin, wondering why it didn't taste better on the way.Hey, even Ina has the occasional episode where she makes one dish and and shows us how to shop for three others, but they are an anomaly, and a useful tip in combining flavours. She experiments, she highlights freshness and flavour and buying the best your budget allows. Her recipes are both homely and sophisticated. She even likes butter. She does not however, drown every item on the plate in butter, because she knows it would detract from flavour by overkill. Here we have cheese, bacon, beans and butter on an turntable of anagrammatic recipes. Undoubtedly these are tasty ingredients in the hands of an experienced home cook or chef, but no cook worth their salt never ventures outside their comfort zone pyramid of four main recipes. Especially not those with shows on Food Network. I love cooking shows, and will pretty much sit through any cooking show, or have it on in the background as a source of inspiration and comfort, but for the first time on food network, I have to switch off when I see this starting. So there you go, toddlers and clueless teens, this one's for you. Foodies, walk on by.