I know, I know, you're hating me already, right? How can I defend Sandra Lee when she seems to have more people that dislike her than Rachael Ray? Read on.I've never understood why people dislike Lee. Is it the fact that she's beautiful and looks like one of Charlie's Angels cooking up a meal in the kitchen? Is it the fact that she doesn't do everything from scratch, and instead dares to use packaged foods from the supermarket? Is it something else that I'm not aware of?
Sandra Lee is the Food Network host that most of us can identify with. Most of us can sit back and appreciate Mario Batali or Wolfgang Puck, but we really can't make the stuff they make, at least not in the way they make it. At the same time, most of us know that we can probably cook just as well (if not better) than someone like Rachael Ray. So it's no fun comparing ourselves to those two extremes. We need someone in the middle, someone who obviously knows what she's doing in the kitchen, but does it in a way and uses the things that 99% of the audience is going to use. That's where Sandra Lee comes in.
Plus, she's nowhere near as annoying as Emeril and his "Bam!" and his audience that oohs and ahhs when he puts garlic in a pot (side note: I think a lot of his meals look awful, don't you?), or Ray, with her "Yum-O" and "awesome" and the way she carries every single ingredient she needs across the room in a bowl. She could probably cut down on those 30 minute meals even more if she just had the damn ingredients on the counter before hand. Not that I believe those meals are done in only 30 minutes, mind you.
But Lee...she's actually a joy to watch. She doesn't have any irritating quirks, and her meals and crafts always come out right, and as she's doing them you don't feel like you can't. You don't feel overwhelmed (or underwhelmed). You feel like the meals and crafts are something you can actually do. She's like Martha Stewart, only more accessible and with a better sense of humor.
You also get the feeling she really enjoys what she does. She hasn't reached that point where a lot of celebrity cooks seem to be just going through the motions. I was thinking the other day, what Food Network host do I look up online the most? Which recipes are the ones I seek out the most when I go to FoodNetwork.com? The answer is Lee's.
I don't know about your Mom or your sister, but mine are just like Lee. They're very good in the kitchen and very proud of what they make, but they don't make every single thing from scratch. I mean, do we have to? It actually makes me feel good that Lee creates a great dessert using a Duncan Hines cake mix from the store. I like how she'll take a store-bought product and mix it with something that she created, thereby creating something new. She seems to get that we all want to have a life where we are handy in the kitchen, where we can cook for family and friends without thinking we have to start a second career as a sous chef. She makes some great decisions, and she knows that the way she cooks is the way that most of us cook.
Yeah, yeah, she's hot too. But that's really just a first impression thing. It's the food that makes you stick around.
May is National BBQ Month and National Hamburger Month
Cupcakes, not for dessert (unless beef is your idea of a treat)
Because eating French Fries in the car is so tough
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
11-16-2006 @ 3:22PM
Eric said...
You have *GOT* to be kidding me?
*NO* irritating quirks?
She defines irritating quirk.
Shall we make a list?
1) Tablescapes
2) Aunt Sandy
3) Oddly-Placed Bustline That Drags The Floor
4) Nice (everything is NICE)
5) Just (Just do this, Just do that, Just have a cocktail).
There's five to get started. How many can we come up with that don't include the reliance on flavor-enhanced packaged foods?
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11-16-2006 @ 3:25PM
Betty Owens said...
I just want to say I too like Sandra Lee she is one of my favorites. How can anyone complain about her and then watch that Alton Brown. He's enough to make anyone stop watching the food network
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11-16-2006 @ 3:33PM
Ed said...
Man, Bob, you've got poor taste in women. She's definitely not beautiful. Between the plastic surgery, the fake tan, and the excessive makeup, she looks like she's trying too hard to look like a 22 year old starlet, instead of the 40-something leatherfaced hack of a "chef" she is.
Bob, do you really want some of Sandra Lee's "Gnocchi Dippers"? Alessi gnocchi, Bertolli olive oil, and Kraft Velveeta cheese forming that unholy trinity known as CRAP ON A PLATE.
Give me a break. At least rae ray tries to use real ingredients most of the time.
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11-16-2006 @ 3:50PM
Ima Wurdibitsch said...
I like her. I get some great ideas for quick, tasty, beautiful meals from her show. That's not to say that I don't appreciate the gourmet, make-it-all-from-scratch folks who use ingredients I'm never going to find in the culinary wasteland where I live. I like them all, some more than others. I take what I can use and discard the rest.
I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who likes her. Thanks for the posting!
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11-16-2006 @ 3:52PM
Ryan said...
Yes...how brave and "daring" of her to cook absolute garbage, which, being composed almost entirely of processed and prepackaged foods, happens to terribly unhealthy. What a brave soul. I wish more chefs could be such brand name whores...have you seen any of her recipes from her website? In just one recipe, not only does she specify which brands of marinara sauce, Italian seasoning, and olive oil to use, but she tells you which brand of jarred pre-peeled garlic to use. Yeah, I'm serious.
And no irritating quirks? How about starting every statement with "I want you to..." or "Now I want you to..." Not annoying at all. Not to mention that her only bit of effort and creativity goes into her boozing.
In a time when the negative health effects of prepackaged and processed foods are coming out, when nutritional experts and chefs are condemning America's addiction to these foods (see Christopher Kimball's piece in the Globe), you're sticking up for a woman who urges the masses to pollute their bodies with the very things we should avoid at all costs. How daring.
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11-16-2006 @ 3:57PM
Jen Stone said...
Basically everything about her is annoying. But mostly the fact that she does not use fresh ingredients...it goes against eating healthy and any effort to keep the population from getting fatter. Not to mention that I have tried 2 of her recipes and they were horrible!! I would not serve her food to my dog!
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11-16-2006 @ 3:58PM
Mary Sue said...
Honey, stop drinking Auntie Sandy's cocktails. They rot your stomach and your brain.
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11-16-2006 @ 4:04PM
barbara henslee said...
Sandra Lee is my least favorite host on the Food Network. I keep the food shows on for hours every day, butI grab for the remote the minute she appears and I change the channel. I'd be so happy if her show was cancelled. The absolute worst part is when she has the bratty niece on and we're supposed to think the kid's adorable. Yuck.
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11-16-2006 @ 4:11PM
Pat said...
I personally like Sandra Lee. Sure she uses processed foods we all have. That is the kind of cooking I have time to do. Almost anything is better than hearing that loud mouthed Rachel Ray say YUM-O time after time or that crazy audience oooohing and ahhhing over spices Emeril adds. Pleeeease. The best entertaining cooking show in the network is by far Mrs. Paula Dean. She is for real.
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11-16-2006 @ 4:11PM
Jumper said...
LOL, I love the way people love to pick apart and over anal-yze the host on Food Network, yet still watch them. Your picking them apart and whining about them only makes them more popular. I guess you have never heard the saying "There is no such thing as bad press". You may be saying bad things about them but you are still talking about them, and rating success is all about the buzz. And ya'll are some busy B's....LOL
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11-16-2006 @ 4:13PM
Dave said...
Wow, the hate factor is pretty strong here! I've not watched this show, but understand the comments as I've watched Mrs. EVOO, Mr. BAM and the wanna-be food scientist quite a bit. Not to mention others. I like some, don't like others. But I Don't have the energy to get upset about a food show.
What you all need to do is take a deep breath and consider that food shows are a business. Unless the host differentiates him / herself, the show will fail. So, the quirks that bug you are an important part of their business plan.
Do yourself a favor and just learn from the food and preparation methods. Don't waste your energy hating on the host. If you truly don't like them, there are about 998 other channels to watch.
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11-16-2006 @ 4:15PM
rainey said...
Oh man! Have you ever used one of her recipes? Apart from the fact that there's no skill involved in doing any of them you can look at the ingredients and tell they taste like crap.
Then there's the issue of whether there's anything authentic about the woman. Watch them cut away from whatever she's doing with her hands so you can't compare her work to the ones prepped by her staff.
She's so useless (unless you've gotten bored with Playboy and Hustler) that she wouldn't even have an content on her show if she didn't have her mixer and her curtains color coded to the booze she's slinging.
Sandra is a working girl. She's just a very high paid one with a unique comeon and a TV studio instead of a street corner.
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11-16-2006 @ 4:19PM
rainey said...
Dave, babe, Sandra is the culinary equivalent of the car chase. That's what her audience is. And if that's how she's gonna make her money that's the consequence she's gonna hafta live with.
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11-16-2006 @ 4:19PM
Garbanzo Jones said...
I love Sandra Lee, and I honestly can't tell you why. Of course she has irritating little filler lines that she says all the time. So do the rest of the cooks on the food network; except for Emeril, who talks so slowly on his show sometimes it sounds like he forgets what he started saying in the first place. Rachel seems to turn more into a man every year, giada looks like she is miserable on her show, emeril sounds like he's about to fall asleep, tyler says "Mmm-kay" all the time like that guy from south park, c'mon...its like shooting fish in a barrel, give Aunt Sandy a break people!!!
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11-16-2006 @ 4:24PM
Tara said...
I agree I like the things she creates and her ideas are usually pretty cool and easy to do. She can get pretty annoying sometimes though. She's a little to overenthusiastic for my taste and doesn't get into enough detail about what she's doing. She always says, "And you're going to bake this for literally, just a second," when really, the thing needs to bake for a half an hour. "Literally just a second" does not equal a half an hour. Granted, I know I can go look up the recipe online but it just kind of gets on my nerves.
Another thing is, how many different sets of dinnerware does this woman own!? She has a different pattern and color scheme of china for every occaision you could imagine. Not everyone has the means to do this, or the storage for it. In that way, I think her "tablescapes" are a little out of reach. I guess if you had a neutral set, some of them would work, maybe.
All in all, its not enough to keep me from watching her show. I dont TiVo it or anything but I'll still watch it if its on.
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11-16-2006 @ 4:43PM
Steve Sando said...
I thought this was a joke posting at first.
I think I'd rather eat at my home than yours. Or your mother or sisters. We can still be friends!
I'm not a fan. Sometimes she goes to so much trouble opening all the different packages, she would have had a quicker and tastier dish if she cooked with actual food. I can't figure out if she's in on the joke. Does she really think this food is worth serving/eating or is she just pandering to the lowest common taste level. Does she really think her "tablescapes" are pretty or is this the best she could come up with this week. I think she may be smart but some of this food is so bad, it's hard to tell.
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11-16-2006 @ 4:44PM
laura said...
I love watching Alton Brown! He's lame in a hilarious way and his food always looks accessible and delicious. His little scientific tidbits are the reason my kitchen hasn't been set on fire in quite a while.
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11-16-2006 @ 4:45PM
Jumper said...
LOL, I love the way people love to pick apart and over anal-yze the host on Food Network, yet still watch them. Your picking them apart and whining about them only makes them more popular. I guess you have never heard the saying "There is no such thing as bad press". You may be saying bad things about them but you are still talking about them, and rating success is all about the buzz. And ya'll are some busy B's....LOL
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11-16-2006 @ 5:02PM
JD said...
The moment I saw Sandra's name on this post, I knew it was going to be a major problem. OK, maybe not a problem but a load of smack attacks. Honestly, too all the haters, keep hating because she is laughing her way to the bank.
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11-16-2006 @ 5:07PM
Jeremy said...
I've never seen her show, but I don't mind entry-level cooking shows at all. I mean, I don't like them personally, but I don't think they should be cancelled.
There was a time when I loved Emeril's show. That guy got me into cooking and eating more adventurously. I can't stand him now, but thanks to him I think a lot more people are taking interest in what they're eating.
I hope it's the same with her viewers.
Take people who can only micro-wave hot-dogs, and get them to watch this show. I'll bet in 2 or 3 years, they'll be using more advanced recipes and cooking techniques.
That goes for Rachel Ray too, and any other food network host.
If they can get viewers to take an interest in what they're eating, eventually they'll stop eating 100% pre-packaged crap.
I guess what I'm trying to say is: those shows aren't for foodies, they're for foodies-in-training.
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