Cook like me, I'm Sandra Lee

In the past twelve hours, I have suddenly been introduced to the bizzarre subculture that swirls around one Sandra Lee and her Food Network program, Semi-Homemade Cooking with Sandra Lee.

You see, my wife, instead of becoming a Doper as I might wish, instead has gravitated to the Telvision Without Pity boards (no real problem there, I just like the SDMB more). TWOP, for those of you who may not have ventured over there, tends to have one thread per show, and allow it to run on indefinitely. (My wife was showing me their posters’ varying opinions on another FN personality, Giada DiLaurentiis, in the thread entitled “Everyday Italian in Little Big Head’s Kitchen”, which is up to about 35 pages.)

However, Sandra Lee is different. Sandra Lee inspires such traffic on TWOP that they have had to give her an entire child forum all to herself. The posts in the several dozen threads in that forum are neverending in their vitriol. One poster even created a set of highly amusing photographs illustrating the stages of preparation of her chocolate “truffles”, whose ingredients are: canned frosting, sugar (cuz’ canned frosting isn’t sweet enough, doncha know), vanilla, and cocoa powder. The pictures features the resulting globs posed next to a jug of Special Kitty brand litter, due to their uncanny resemblance to animal waste. The remainder of her recipes seem equally unlikely. What’s more she apparently spends three times as much on decorations (what she calls “tablescapes”) as she does on the food.

Her page on the Food Network Website continues the bizarreness. Each episode’s recipes include a review forum, with Ms. Lee’s detractors giving them all one star out of five, and her supporters giving five stars and exhorting the nay-sayers to leave her alone and get a life. It’s like Food TV’s own private little insane asylum over there. My wife noticed that several negative posts she has seen in the past have apparently been removed.

I checked in the BBQ Pit thread from a couple of months ago lambasting TV chefs, but she received scant coverage there.

Now, we get the east coast feed of Food Network on our DirecTV, so I was up at 8AM to watch this program for myself, and hopefully answer the question “If so many people hate her so much, why don’t they just stop watching when the show comes on?” Well, it turns out that’s like asking you not to look at a train wreck you happen across. More specifically, it’s like trying not to look at a train wreck around which a demented skinny blonde woman is erecting a circus tent in order to disguise the horror within and muffle the cries of the wounded.

It’s not that the basic premise of the show is unsound. The idea seems to be that you can save yourself time, money, and effort by using some processed items in your cooking, as opposed to doing everything from scratch. But it’s her whacked-out sense of where to economize (and for that matter, what constitues an actual recipe) that puts you in “WTF?” mode. And to say she’s a little on the scatterbrained side is putting it mildly.

Today’s episode was about French Foods. Most of the recipes might be all right, except for her insistence that they are “authentic French” cuisine. The only person I can think of who would mistake this for French food would be the mother in the movie Hairspray who accepts the Dutch exchange student’s gift of a milk maid’s bonnet and says “Let’s try on these hats, and find out what it’s like to live in another culture!”

Her Crispy Potato-Pepper Cakes didn’t seem to hang together very well in the pan. Several posters commented in their reviews that they had to add bread crumbs when they tried it. Breac crumbs are listed on the recipe’s web page, but I didn’t see her use any on camera.

The episode’s front page declares that the Parisian Artichokes she will make are bursting with flavor, but I don’t seem to recall her ever getting around to preparing any.

She undercooks her pork (nothing says french like a bout with trichinosis!) and declares her sweet-potato-and-pear concoction to be some sort of souffle.

She surrounds a frozen Sarah Lee pound cake with stuff for dessert, laces some champagne with apricot juice (alcohol is apparently a must for all her meals) and voila!

Her fans (her non-fans call them “Fandras”) are as loopy as she is. Peruse the review posts and you see people having to make significant adjustments to her recipes, but giving her all the credit for whatever quality (at least as they perceive it) emerges.

But then for the really weird part. She tops off the half hour by showing you the paper plates with cartoons of mustachioed waiters on which she plans to serve this feast. She also shows the metal Eiffel Tower sculpture (I think maybe it’s a candle holder) that will act as the centerpiece. To locate this item and pay for it must have taken five times the money and time that went into preparing the food!

She then signs off, reminding us to “Keep it French!”

I have tried to convey an accurate sense of the show and its surrounding insanity while keeping this thread from being too Pit-worthy. If you have experience of this woman and can do the same, let’s hear from you!

I forgot to add that her online bio names her as a member of the Board of Directors of the U.S. Fund for UNICEF. Noticing from the stack of tax papers next to my monitor that that’s who we gave our Tsunami Relief donations to, and realizing she may have some say in the decision of what food aid gets to the victims, I have to wonder if I should actually anticipate any gratitude should ever I meet any of them.

I’ve seen a few episodes. She’s always going on about her “girlfriends,” but they never put in an appearance. Her niece showed up in one episode, but didn’t say a word the whole time. She did an episode over the holidays that featured a Hanukkah cake. It was frosted Carolina blue and was topped with a twisted-wire thing that she said was a Star of David. It towered about seven inches over the cake, and was leaning.

Personally, I’m sick of Rachel Ray. She did a “$40 a Day” episode that focused on the Triangle region (Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill) of North Carolina. Based on the show’s opening, it appeared that she would visit each city, but she spent the whole day in Chapel Hill shopping!

Oh God Ghod–you’re right! How did I miss her? She’s worse than Emeril.

You briefly alluded to her truffle recipe–I just found it
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_26029,00.html

1 (16-ounce) container chocolate frosting
3/4 cup powdered sugar, sifted
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

Moosh everything except the cocoa together, make little balls, pour the cocoa on and let 'em sit in the fridge until her balls get stiff ‘n’ crusty.

Eew. < South Park >I would not like to lick “Sarah’s Sticky Chocolate Balls”! :: snerk :: < / South Park >

Fenris

Trichinosis has been essentially eradicated in the US, and even if you encounter it, it takes a lower temperature to kill it than widely taught.

Is 20 minutes at 350F for 4 chops long enough to render the meat cooked?

Dunno. Depends on how you want it cooked. Some people are very willing to take the slight risk posed by rare pork. I am, for example. Other people aren’t. The risk is very slight.

I would be extremely disappointed in a chef/cook/show host who didn’t specifically point out what they were doing with the pork and if they were deliberately leaving it rare. She sounds lousy.

Let’s not forget it was an eight-pointed star. This was featured on the same episode as the “infamous” Kwanzaa cake, which may be even worse. see here.

This woman also advocates using Pixy Stix as a dusting powder.

I’m not sure this all isn’t some elaborate practical joke. I hope it’s a joke.

Those TWOP gals are mean!

I imagine she’d have a ton of appeal for the millions of foks out there for whom every recipe necessarily includes a can of Campbell’s soup, or some other processed, packaged food.

“Cook like me, I’m Sandra Lee” – isn’t that a song from Grease?

Oh, right, that was “Look at me, I’m Sandra Dee.”

I looked at some of the “reviews” of the Kwanzaa cake. People weren’t just mad about the cultural implications of said cake, it sounds like it was hell to bake and assemble. I thought that these were a few especially quotable statements from the reviewers.
[ul]
[li] I will never let my kids cheapen other people’s cultures through such seriously misguided things like making a cake with corn nuts and seeds on it![/li][li]I got so pissed off trying to make this cake last night that I would’ve punched Sandra Lee in the face if I’d seen her right at that moment. [/li][li] I nominate Sandra Lee for NAACP Woman of the Year for her ceaseless efforts to promote respect and sensitivity for other cultures.[/li][/ul]

I watch the Food Network plenty, and I’ve never seen her. I guess I consider myself one of the lucky ones.

In fairness – Kwanzaa cake made with popcorn is about as culturally accurate as Kwanzaa’s symbol for children –muhindi (corn.)

If you look closely, you’ll see that all the baking was done by whatever corporation supplied your grocer with the pre-fab angel food cake that you are to frost and decorate. This venom was engendered by the assembly, not to mention the concept.

Until I followed your link, I assumed you meant a dusting powder for
food, not bed linens and naked flesh! :eek:

Check out the reviews of her books on Amazon. It’s just as divided as those on the Food Network, with readers pretty much giving her either only one or all five stars. What’s interesting, though, is that the “review the reviewer” heading shows that the glowing reviews are often indicated as unhelpful, and the negative reviews are better received by other readers.

A hint from the “Balloons in Bed” section:

“For a sensual treat, I like to fill the balloons with “love favors” – romantic things you like to do with or to your love, such as a sensual massage, foot rub, bubble bath – whatever their favorites are. Take turns popping the balloons… and let the fireworks begin!”

I don’t think that’s what a “love favor” is…

By the way, is anyone else picturing a tank of helium and a bunch of vibrators?

The appeal of watching her show lies not in her terrible recipes…

Yep, she’s definitely a MILF.

I still say she’s a trophy wife gone famous.

Also, some of her five-star reviews on the Food Network website are obviously facetious. Some of the folks who hate apparently love to hate her so much they won’t risk negative reviews taking her off the air.