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In search of some Halloween TV that didn't include blood and gore, my three-year-old and I finally chose the Food Network on Sunday afternoon. After a blood-sugar-rush special on the All-Candy Expo, Sandra Lee was throwing a Halloween party in a rented mansion for her Semi-Homemade show. I was lazy. And I love parties. So I kept watching.
I can't stand the show for many reasons, not least of which is Sandra's love for her beautemous self. She had at least five costume changes, none of which looked so much like the thing she was dressing up as, as the costume that a showgirl might wear if she were appearing as (for instance) a princess, or a sugar-plum fairy. Gag.
But why I really can't stand the show: it would be far easier, not to mention vastly cheaper, not to mention far healthier for your party guests, to make things really homemade instead of Semi-Homemade.
Let's take her pumpkin cheesecake petit fours. I imagined she'd take a cheesecake mix and add some canned pumpkin. Not Sandra Lee. She painstakingly made teensy tart shells out of a mixture of sugar cookie mix, cream cheese, and a panoply of other ingredients, far more than belong in traditional pâte sucrée. This would take a normal cook an hour, if not more, for the 12 or 15 mini tart shells (which would feed, I'd imagine, three or four party guests).
Then we come to the filling. I thought my eyes were going to pop out of my head when she pulled out a storebought pumpkin pie and started scooping out the innards. "Save the shell and crumble it on ice cream!" she trilled. "This is so easy!"
She poured heavy cream into the bowl containing the pumpkin pie guts, and then pulled out a storebought cheesecake (approximate price at Costco: $12.99). And started scooping out its guts, too, to go in a separate bowl, also mixed with a bit of whipping cream. "This crust can go on ice cream, too!" she said, her voice getting higher-pitched with each word.
OK, so this is ridiculous. But then... the tour de force. Three. Separate. Piping. Bags. Made, of course, out of large plastic Ziplock bags, useless after their last hurrah distributing $25 worth of pumpkin cheesecake filling into 12 tiny tart shells. For some reason, see, Sandra felt it necessary to have some filled with both pumpkin AND cheesecake, some with just pumpkin, some with just cheesecake.
Why? Why? Why? It would have been just as quick to make tart crusts from flour, butter and water, and mix cream cheese with pumpkin puree and sugar. No, quicker. It would have cost $4 or $5 instead of $25 or $30. And it would have probably tasted better. What is the point, Sandra?
I won't even get into the Green Ghoulade, made with green Gatorade, limeade, and... oh, God, I can't even finish typing this crap. Sandra, please, find a new career as a showgirl and leave the cooking to people who actually cook.
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11-02-2005 @11:16AM Misty said... This should be voted best Slashfood article ever... and I thought I was the only one who thought her crappy recipes were totally stupid.
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11-02-2005 @11:14AM twolf1 said... I agree, that show is terrible. One thing that annoys me, beyond what you mentioned, is her ever-changing color-coordinated kithen set.
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11-02-2005 @11:31AM Fash said... I occasionally watch this and once saw her gut a store-bought apple pie in a quest to make "Easy No-Cook Napoleons" or something.
The thing I hate the most, though, is how she refers to her "tablescape".
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11-02-2005 @11:54AM Punisher2K said... She's a hack at best. Nothing more then a good enough looking home cook that cuts out time by adding more cost to a meal. Seems like she is some rich CEO's wife that wants to watch TV all day and then take 15 minutes to make dinner.
I was unimpressed with her Halloween show. Would much prefer to see Paula Dean do a show, even though there wouldn't be as much cleavage.
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11-02-2005 @11:57AM joe said... Ditto the comments, plus she looks like a particularly high maintenance ex-girlfriend of mine...
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11-02-2005 @1:03PM Greg Dendler said... She makes Rachael Ray look positively organic. On one show, for example, she (semi- home tm) made chocolate truffles using chocolate pudding mix! All you really need is some heavy cream and good chocolate ... and no exotic chemicals. Ugh.
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11-02-2005 @12:15PM Beth said... I agree with this being probably the best article in a while... I too thought she has been ridiculous in her efforts. Sometimes I watch just to see what crap she comes up with.
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11-02-2005 @12:47PM karsh said... Holy crap; watching that show is like fingernails on a chalkboard! Honestly, for what she's doing, it would be cheaper (and probably quicker in some instances) to just make it from scratch.
And don't even get me started with the cocktails she makes for each show...that's about as "homemade" as it gets.
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11-02-2005 @12:52PM Zillionaire said... I heart Sarah Gilbert.
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11-02-2005 @12:58PM Trachalio said... Is this a Food Network USA only show. I've yet to see it up here on FoodTV Canada... thankfully by the sounds of it!
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11-02-2005 @1:14PM Sofia said... sometimes i watch just so i can be repulsed by what she's making...once it was chicken pot pie in coffee cups. the "chicken pot pie" was an mix of canned chicken and vegetables and pre-made gravy, but she took the time to cut and make phyllo dough tops for the coffee cups.
my guess is her guests eat before they go to her parties.
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11-02-2005 @1:18PM Myron said... Ditto; good write up, show sounds stupid. This seems to be in the lineage of the Cake Doctor, which I never understood.
I haven't seen the show so I googled her. There's a whole website of her recipes. They are thoughful enough to specify which brand of each processed food you are supposed to use.
http://www.semihomemade.com
This topic reminds me of a recent issue of Southern Living which had a recipe for quick hummas. Two ingredients: store bought hummas and lemon juice. Yes, thats quick.
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11-02-2005 @2:45PM sarah gilbert said... I love you guys too. and after I wrote the writeup I read her bio on her site - evidently she started out at QVC. that explains a lot, but still doesn't shed any light on why the Food TV people thought she deserved a show. I would say something salacious about her cleavage, here, but I'm SO above that (heh).
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11-02-2005 @2:37PM Brad said... Man, this article is dead on. It's sad, too, because I initially thought this show would be perfect for University students like myself who don't necasarilly have the time or resources to prepare every meal from scratch.
Maybe someone should point the Food Network to this article + comments and who knows; maybe we'll get Mario Eats Italy or that Two Fat Ladies show back.
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11-02-2005 @2:52PM Misty said... I just e-mailed this to contactus@foodnetworkondemand.com, I'll post if I ever get any responce.
"Hello,
I just thought you'd like to see what some of my foodie friends really think of Sandra Lee.
Thank you,
Misty
http://www.slashfood.com/2005/11/02/semi-homemade-why-not-make-it-really-homemade/#comments"
Thanks for the idea Brad!!!! :D
Misty aka "Crap Disturber"
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11-02-2005 @3:22PM Beth said... Brad - I agree, I'd rather see repeated episodes of Two Fat Ladies than Sandra's Semi Stupid Show. It's a shame Jennifer, one of the fat ladies, passed away a few years ago.
I hope Food Network responds!!
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11-02-2005 @3:34PM Sofia said... QVC, eh? The transition from Diamonique® to the Food Network must have been interesting
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11-02-2005 @3:35PM Beth said... Just found this as well.. http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/my_recipe_box/review/0,1973,FOOD_9919_32123,00.html
very amusing to read the assortment of reviews on her pumpkin petit fours. And can anyone verify that her show has been cancelled??? Could we be that lucky?!?!
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11-02-2005 @4:59PM M-L said... This is an issue it seems everyone agrees upon! I've seen this show two or three times outside of the idiocy presented far Halloween.
My initial reaction to her show (the bbq-esque summer episode) was that this woman likes to PLAY with her food. I think she was cutting up and forming crescent rolls into "buns" for cocktail weenies. Just the way she handled the food multiple times and was so inefficient made me want to throttle her to stop her "save time" preaching.
Actually, I think the Halloween show was perfect. It was scary! I missed the part where she scooped out the pies/cakes to make the filling for the petit fours...which uh, weren't even petit fours but tartlets, but I did hear her exclaiming the profound idea to "crumble over ice cream!" (Do people REALLY need to be told they can throw anything over ice cream?)
Wasn't part of the show with another the Food Channel personalities? I can't remember his name, but he seemed to be pretty amused at her inanity.
My question is this: who sponsors her? Kraft? PNG? Some big name has to be paying for this lunacy to make it sound as though you should be bringing home prepared foods, undoing them, and respinning them into something "semi-homemade." Semi-Homemade is just a half hour commercial for all the food that isn't fit to eat.
Sandra Lee btw, per the "About Sandra" section on the SHM site, lists the following in her bio (you do the math and see if you don't come up with something 100% annoying too)
QVC
*Attending* U of Wisconsin
Wallcoverings, Windows & Interior Fashion’s “Achiever of the Year”
"internationally-acclaimed Lifestylist"
It's honestly too bad that someone who sits on the board of SoCal UNICEF, works with Project Angel Food and Harvard's Women's Entrepreneurship Conference has to have such a vapid and useless public face.
Isn't it?
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11-04-2005 @8:43AM Jim said... OMG thanks so much for this post ! I have never made it through a complete semi-homemade show. After 5 mins I am astonished at what this woman throws together, and I am compelled to move on.
I have to believe her crap show is some cruel joke on viewers or better yet on her !
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