Tycoon or Tradwife? The Woman Behind Ballerina Farm Makes Her Own Path.
The New York Times
Her picture-perfect life as a Mormon farm wife has made Hannah Neeleman a social media star and a cultural lightning rod.
Like many a frazzled home cook, Hannah Neeleman suddenly realized she’d forgotten the final step of her recipe just as she was about to serve it. It was a sunny November afternoon in Kamas, Utah, and she was simmering a potful of stroganoff, made with beef and yogurt from the cattle ruminating in the barn next door.
“I didn’t add the mustard and the Worcestershire sauce,” the condiments that make the creamy dish sing, she said. Tripping into the pantry, she emerged with a glass jar in each hand: homemade versions of both.
It is not exactly hard to make your own mustard or Worcestershire, but who would bother? It is just this kind of self-sufficient, everything-from-scratch move that fills Ms. Neeleman’s audience with both admiration and irritation. It’s a mixture that has made her — and her Ballerina Farm — very famous, very quickly.
The name, inspired by her teenage years as a Juilliard-trained dancer, refers to the 328-acre ranch, dairy and family spread where she and her husband, Daniel, live with their eight children, ages 1 to 12. But “Ballerina Farm” is also Ms. Neeleman’s hugely popular social media persona, with nearly 22 million followers across TikTok, Instagram and YouTube — far more than the combined reach of the longstanding domestic goddesses Ina Garten, Martha Stewart, Joanna Gaines and Tieghan Gerard.
“I love to watch what she does, but sometimes it makes me crazy that she makes it looks so easy,” said Carly Weber, an elementary school teacher in Bloomington, Ind. “I have two kids, I can barely cook one thing most days, and there she is looking perfect and teaching herself to make mozzarella.”
