So, I was up in the middle of the night, hoping that my kidney stones were on the move at last, mainly because I don’t want to be on painkillers instead of vodka on Saturday night; apparently one should not do both, and surfing the web while I made sure I didn’t need to take another Vicodin, and I Stumbled across this website. It’s OK to go peek; it’s not going to engross you. Just get a good feel for it.

Pretty nice site, no? Well written, if a little chatty, and cleanly put together. Very non-amateurish, I thought.

And then I thought, waitaminute: what about this site?

I’ll cut to the chase. When I first came across the Pioneer Woman site, I thought it was just a little too produced to be real. It was quite possible that it was a front for a food conglomerate. I was, however, too lazy to check.

Now the Noble Pig site comes along, and I’m really thinking the whole thing is fake. For one thing, it’s a chore even for me to change the header image in my blogs. And Pioneer Woman even has dropdown menus and rollover buttons. Again, not impossible, but a pain. The photos on both are lit and shot exceptionally well. The writing, in both style and tone, is flawless. The recipes are undeniably appealing. Both are just a bit too well done.

I checked the bottom of both sites; both are “copyrighted,” and yes, I know my blogs say the same thing, but they’re boilerplate. Pioneer Woman says it was designed by this person (whose website does not inspire confidence), but the whole thing could be a front. Noble Pig merely gives the date.

I’m still too lazy to check, i.e., doing a Whois number on them; instead, I’m wondering why I’m so suspicious and why it should matter. Do I have some kind of deepseated prejudice against women who cook, such that I don’t believe they could achieve such online slickness? Am I so cynical that I think only a corporation would put up such a site?

If so, where’s the hook? Is the product placement all there is?

What are they up to? This is how madness begins.