What Ree Drummond 'Missed The Most' About Filming With Her Crew

If you're a fan of country cooking and floral printed cookware, then you're probably just as excited as we are that Ree Drummond's Food Network show, "The Pioneer Woman," is currently shooting upcoming episodes. Fans couldn't be more excited, and neither could Drummond herself, according to a recent Instagram post (via People). 

Pioneer Woman fans noticed a big change during the pandemic, which separated Drummond and her U.K.-based film crew by over 4,000 miles and left the celebrity chef and her family to come up with creative ways to film the show. As a solution, the Pioneer Woman's five kids took turns taking the reins from the professionals to help their mom film for the last 24 months.

The Drummond children recorded an impressive 70 episodes of "The Pioneer Woman" using only their iPhones, and the family says it's been "bittersweet" for the kids to officially hang up their filming hats, according to the cookbook author's website. Given their impressive video production skills, some fans may suspect the Drummond kids to have careers ahead of them in show business. For now, however, they seem just as glad as their mom to have her regular crew back from across the pond. 

On a recent Instagram story shared by People, Drummond posted a picture of her and her old film crew smiling in "The Pioneer Woman" kitchen with the caption, "The crew is back!" What she "missed the most" about filming with her British camera operators, she added, was not the high-resolution shots or professional angles, but "crossword puzzles with the crew in between recipes." Based on her reaction to their return, it's the little moments she shares with her crew that Drummond values above the glitz and glamour of filming a hit cooking show. 

As for what "The Pioneer Woman" will look like moving forward, Drummond told People that it will be a "hybrid" between the earlier episodes and the more relaxed, family-centered version fans got during the pandemic. "I'm excited to create a new version of The Pioneer Woman," Drummond said on her website, adding that the series will continue to be filmed at The Lodge and still have all the "spontaneity" fans have grown used to over the last two years.