What is it about the Pioneer Woman?

They say what you like or hate about something or someone says a lot more about you than it does about the adored/hated.

Pioneer woman is my alter ego's frenemy.

She's everything I am not.

She lives out in the plains of the Oklahoma.

I live in one of the most congested areas in one of the largest cities in the world.

She has 4 children whom she home schools with a cowboy ranching husband.

I have a canine niece that I babysit once a week and need to recuperate for two days after the event and married to a bloke who can't put up a shelf.

She is so sweet.

I am a bitch - to name a few differences.

I should kinda hate her or at best sneer at her but I don't.

Yet I can't say I exactly idolise her either.
I respectfully admire her more like.

Unlike sexual relationships where the people involved think it a very complicated situation but it very simple, I consider my relationship with her to be complex.

My mother watches her on the food channel network in Korea and as a non native English speaker, she says she understands every single English word the Pioneer woman utters unlike the few questions asked to her by a Glaswegian immigration officer at Heathrow airport.

Unlike Nigella, she doesn't pepper her dialogue to camera 
with articulate alliteration but 
punctuates the majority of her recipes with,

"So yummy."

"It's soon darn delicious!"

My mother and I reminisced about the old days where we attended the English speaking Catholic Church on the U.S. military base in Seoul where despite its physical location, the people were very much the heart of middle America and you could have easily thought you were in Kansas.

My mother and I agreed she reminds us of those really busy and booked to the hour in her diary housewives who used to bring a casserole to the monthly potlucks that our Church would like to hold.

They were always so sweet and so enthusiastic - 
just like the Pioneer woman.
She reminds of the housewife from Little House on the Prairie but with a super mod-con kitchen and good pots.

It must be a Pavlov thing - I feel really safe and know the food may be garnished with potato chips but by jove I will be fed.

The only time I witnessed my mother lie was at one these potlucks where she bought some Korean style double fried chicken and passed it as her own.  Despite people's cultural preconceptions about Asian women, they share some similarities with the French and believe that homemade isn't always best. 

She didn't mean to tell a lie but she overheard some ladies complaining about someone who brought a store bought item so I never judged her for it because there was the suburban Bible belt alpha housewife prejudice about buying something intended to a church potluck.  

Believe it or not, 
Asian women on the whole aren't that competitive nor surprised by another women's cultivated culinary nor inept cooking skills.
Most meals are always partly bought, partly self made, and party given by relatives and friends.

"Why is everything fried?"
My mother keeps repeating during every single episode we watch!

"Why is everything with butter, cream, flour, and eggs?"

I had to tell her that Korean food was always soy, garlic, chilli, sesame oil as a base.

We don't watch Pioneer woman for any of her recipes nor her kitchen tips as we don't watch her for fashion advice.

It's simply voyeruism.

Let's be honest...
she isn't so much a cook as she is an assembler of food that you buy at the centre aisles in any given supermarket in the U.S.A. 

I hate Oreos and this cake is probably why American food gets a bad name.

But it does seem to give the Pioneer woman a perpetual sugar high.

Oddly, my husband can't bear her and while he will suffer through a documentary on the NHK channel about the purest form of black dye that originates in Kyoto, he will grab the remote and change the channel when Pioneer woman is on.

But I think that's because he wishes he secretly had a wife like her.

One of these days, 
I am going to be like Pioneer Woman and make trifle in kilner jars like one of those super popular pictures on Pinterest.

Lay down my home made quilt.

And admire my garden that is the size of Hyde Park.

While talking about my favourite sex and the city episode drinking some white wine cocktail.

No, I'm not.

But good for her I say!