‘The Pioneer Woman: Staying Home’ Episodes are High Art

“What I am doing here?” The Pioneer Woman host Ree Drummond asks, giggling, after she blows out a wooden spoon that caught on fire. “I don’t belong here. I have a cooking show and I don’t deserve it.”

This is just one of the many beautifully candid moments caught in Food Network‘s latest culinary experiment: The Pioneer Woman: Staying Home. Instead of leaning on just their vast back catalogue of Pioneer Woman episodes, all of them promoting Drummond’s Instagram-ready, picture perfect, “life on the farm” brand, the network has encouraged its biggest star to shoot all-new episodes while under quarantine. Robbed of her ring light and professional production crew, Drummond has been awkwardly making pantry staples under the direction of her two adult daughters, Alex and Paige, her chipper nephew Stuart, and older daughter Alex’s boyfriend Mauricio. The results? High art.

The Pioneer Woman first premiered on the Food Network in 2011 and since then has become a goliath hit for the channel. The series follows cookbook author and uber-popular food blogger Ree Drummond as she prepares easy-to-make dishes sure to please the cowboys in her life and the kids in yours. Ree Drummond’s whole deal is a bit of a contradiction, though. Although her brand is designed to evoke the rustic, can-do spirit of people making ends meet on the frontier, her husband, Ladd, is actually one of the wealthiest landowners in the United States. Her farm life is one of carefully curated luxury. This inbred irony has made The Pioneer Woman a beguiling hit, as she prepares dishes tailor-made for suburban tastes, while also projecting an ideal that most of her viewers could never attain.

Hence why these new episodes, made with utter candor and filmed on camera phones, feel so alive. For once, Drummond can’t lean on a carefully designed production. There are no food stylists, assistants, or professional directors on set. Instead, we get Ree Drummond unplugged. Forced to cope with a real crisis, the Pioneer Woman finally gets to live up to her name. We’re seeing the show adapt in real time, and in turn, Drummond herself.

If there was ever one major critique to be hurled at Drummond as a host, it would be that she could sometimes come off as stiff on camera. She would choose her words too carefully and glue a stiff smile to her face. Now, she is letting loose, making self-deprecating jokes and laughing earnestly with her kids. Even though she thinks she’s losing her mind, this manic quarantine energy makes Drummond more relatable than she’s ever been before.

While there’s no doubt that COVID-19 has irrevocably changed life for all of us, The Pioneer Woman has somehow gotten better under lockdown. Not only does her tried and true reliance on hacks and pantry staples finally make sense, but Ree Drummond feels more honest and alive than ever before. The Pioneer Woman: Staying Home is a giddy, nervous, and unfettered reflection of the wild days we’re living in, and proof that Ree Drummond really is a compelling culinary superstar.

Ree, you have a cooking show, and you deserve it.

Where to stream The Pioneer Woman