‘Pioneer Woman’ Ree Drummond Wrote to Another Food Network Star Before Joining Network, With Hilarious Results

In a recent post on her blog, Pioneer Woman Ree Drummond recounted a short tale about the time she wrote a letter to Ina Garten, best known as the host of Barefoot Contessa. The fan letter came before Drummond was part of the Food Network family, but she was still food blogging away. And while it seems harmless, Drummond had plenty of jokes about Garten’s response.

The Pioneer Woman launched on Food Network back in 2011, moving from the blogging world full-time to only having it on the side. She still writes, which is where the festive post from May comes from, sharing a flag cake created from a recipe by Garten.

“I got this recipe years ago from my favorite Barefoot Contessa cookbook, Barefoot Contessa Family Style. Ah, what can I say about Barefoot Contessa? I love her. Her recipes are real, simple, and abundant…just the way I like ’em,” Drummond wrote on her blog. She then goes on to explain how she wrote Garten a fan email in 2003.

“I love her. I even wrote her a fan email once, probably around 2003, outlining in detail the love I feel for both her and her beautiful recipes. She filed a restraining order. Not really. She wrote me back. Actually, her secretary wrote me back, but I’m sure Barefoot Contessa told her to,” Drummond wrote, joking about the potential restraining order on its way. “Barefoot Contessa probably said, ‘That one girl? The one who wrote me a nine page letter about how my standing rib roast and sundried tomato pasta salad inspire her more than Mozart ever did? Better drop her a note before she shows up on my front porch.’”

Drummond closed out the quote with a small note to Garten, saying, “I love you, Barefoot Contessa. See you soon!” Funny enough, both would end up sharing the same production team when Drummond joined Food Network. This actually created a small, smidge of drama that Drummond wrote about in her memoir.

She said that her home in Oklahoma posed a block for Garten’s production crew. “It was the most incomprehensible turn of events that resulted in me, a regular gal with no official culinary training, winding up with a cooking show on Food Network. But life is a crazy roller coaster, and right or wrong, good or bad, it happened in 2011,” Drummond wrote in her memoir. “The production company that films my show is mostly British…Five times a year, they fly from London, England to Pawhuska, Oklahoma and spend three weeks on my turf, filming me cooking in the kitchen and Ladd working on the ranch.”

As she goes on to say, Pawhuska, Oklahoma is not the Hamptons where Barefoot Contessa is filmed. But after a while, everybody gelled and the proof is in the success of the show.