Meet the Pioneer Woman

In case you've never heard of the Pioneer Woman, then you need to get your head out of the clouds, and head on over here. You're in for a real treat. She homeschools, she takes awesome photographs, and she makes incredible food. And she blogs about her life in a way that makes you ache for the simple life on an Oklahoma cattle ranch. Ree, aka Pioneer Woman, aka P.W., aka P-Dub, just finished writing a cookbook. You can pick one up here, or here, or here.

When I heard that she was coming to my own turf on her book tour, I jumped at the chance to get mine signed. So I got to the destination at 11am. I was way back in line, but it ended up being right next to the stage. P-Dub showed up at noon. What I didn't realize at the time, was that she was surrounded by media from both the local FoxNews station, and for the TLC show Mall Cops. I met some really nice people in line. There was one comical moment. We noticed that the mall cops, the real ones, stopped traffic. On the other side of the ropes from where we were standing, they were fanning out to control the crowd. It took a few minutes, but we figured out that they were looking at a bag that had been left unattended on a bench near us. They were calling in a bomb sniffing dog. There was a young mother ahead of us in line who had two small children. These kids had done so well all day. We were almost up to the front of the line. She had stepped out of line for a short time to give the kids and herself a break and get off her feet. She had accidentally forgotten her diaper bag on the bench. But they wouldn't let anyone get near it, even when she told them it was hers. After the dog finished sniffing the bag, and it had been opened and the contents sifted through, she was told she could pick it up later.

After a four and a half hour wait, I finally got my cookbook signed. It was worth every minute in line. I've made many of the recipes in the book, and have my eyes on several others that I must try soon.