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The Pioneer Teen! Ree Drummond shares vintage photo on her 51st birthday

See the Food Network star before she was famous in this rare and adorable throwback pic.
/ Source: TODAY

Happy birthday, Ree Drummond!

The cookbook author, blogger and Food Network star turned 51 on Monday and celebrated by giving her fans and followers on Instagram a look back to her pre-fame days.

Maybe back then she went by The Pioneer Teen?

“Today’s my birthday, so I’m posting a photo of me when I was 13,” Drummond wrote alongside the photo, which shows her sporting braces.

As a young teen, Drummond may not have found her calling yet as the doyenne of ranch domesticity, but as the soft-focus photo proves, the big smile, freckled cheeks and bright red hair she’s known for were already firmly in place.

Drummond also offered up some sweet trivia about what she was like as a teen.

“My favorite movie was Tootsie, my favorite song was Come on Eileen, and I was about a year away from falling deeply in love with Billy Idol,” she wrote.

These days, she’s a pop culture figure herself, helming a long-running television series, publishing 15 books and even becoming a Barbie doll.

While Drummond is sure to make the most of her birthday, she might have a hard time topping last year’s celebration.

In honor of the star's big 5-0, her husband, Ladd Drummond, threw her a big surprise party, which was attended by plenty of her family and friends. At the time, Drummond said that the food was so good, she vowed she’d “be daydreaming about it for the rest” of her life.