Semi-Homemade Cooking

[EllenC]

[hjshorter]

If Martha met Sandra in a Celebrity Deathmatch, who would win?

I bet Martha could kick her ass.

[bilrus]

They better get it on soon or Martha might end up using some homemade shank made out of a toothbrush.

Edited January 7, 2004 by bilrus (log)

[Mabelline]

I would just like to see Sandra take that Kwanzaa cake to a Nation of Islam party.

[VeryApe77]

They better get it on soon or Martha might end up using some homemade shank made out of a toothbrush.

To quote The Onion, is there a jail that could hold her?

[bergerka]

The wacky thing about Sandra Lee is that she starts out with some good ideas. Some. Tiramisu can be made with mascarapone & heavy cream, sugar, strong coffee or espresso, some alcohol, and ladyfingers. No big whoop there. That's pretty easy in and of itself. But when Lee does it, she starts off with ladyfingers... good, good, mascarapone, good good...Kahlua, ok... and then...

SHE PUTS IN VANILLA PUDDING CUPS with the mascarapone. Not even making instant pudding. She just tosses in the preservative and fake-flavor soup in with mascarapone. And on top, she tosses in some Cool Whip.

The woman's got a wonderful KitchenAid mixer right behind her, and she can't whip cream into the mascarapone or on its own as a topping.

I'm sorry. I'm still stuck on this post. I could almost - ALMOST - deal with the vanilla pudding cup idea (after all, there's always room for Jell-o...pudding), but COOL WHIP????? WTF??????? That is the most heinous shit on EARTH!

This woman must be stopped. I must watch an episode of her show right away so that I can maintain the proper level of ire.

Either that or I'll fall off the couch laughing, hurt myself, and THAT'LL piss me off.

K

[TrishCT]

I could go to the supermarket and buy a pre-made sponge cake. Bring it home, slice it in half. Fill it with one or two JELLO vanilla pudding cups. Put the top layer on and ice it with canned BETTY CROCKER chocolaty frosting. Voila, Boston Cream Pie, just as good as homemade!

Perhaps I should offer my services to Sandra's recipe consultants.

[Comfort Me]

I could go to the supermarket and buy a pre-made sponge cake. Bring it home, slice it in half. Fill it with one or two JELLO vanilla pudding cups. Put the top layer on and ice it with canned BETTY CROCKER chocolaty frosting. Voila, Boston Cream Pie, just as good as homemade!

Perhaps I should offer my services to Sandra's recipe consultants.

The humanity! QUick, assemble the unruly mob of villagers, complete with pitchforks and torches. We'll assemble on Trish's front lawn!

[Moopheus]

This woman must be stopped. I must watch an episode of her show right away so that I can maintain the proper level of ire.

Either that or I'll fall off the couch laughing, hurt myself, and THAT'LL piss me off.

You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll kiss your cookies goodbye.

[laurenmilan]

I'm sorry.  I'm still stuck on this post.  I could almost - ALMOST - deal with the vanilla pudding cup idea (after all, there's always room for Jell-o...pudding), but COOL WHIP?????  WTF???????    That is the most heinous shit on EARTH! 

This woman must be stopped.  I must watch an episode of her show right away so that I can maintain the proper level of ire. 

Either that or I'll fall off the couch laughing, hurt myself, and THAT'LL piss me off.

K

I was raised to revere real whipped cream, and was allowed to make it for company since I was 8. It was like some wacky ritual. It's funny seeing the look on people's faces when they taste it for the first time... some never had whipped cream without the fluffy texture you get from a can.

Whipping cream with a hand mixer is just way too good and way too easy to pass up on if you can help it.

Edited January 7, 2004 by laurenmilan (log)

[lia]

The best part of the angel food cake episode was not the cinnamon/cocoa addition to the canned vanilla frosting (could anything be more disgusting?) or the canned apple filling dumped in the middle of the kwanzaa cake, but the fake pearl necklace wrapped around the BLUE hannukah cake. With the wiry blue pearl Star of David plunked on top. hilarious.

[Bux]

I'm sorry.  I'm still stuck on this post.  I could almost - ALMOST - deal with the vanilla pudding cup idea (after all, there's always room for Jell-o...pudding), but COOL WHIP?????  WTF???????    That is the most heinous shit on EARTH!

A long time ago, some friends invited us over to share some strawberries and whipped cream they brought back from a weekend in the country. They were fine field ripened berries and my jaw dropped when I saw them plop Kewl Whip, or whatever it was called, on them. Whipped cream would have highlighted the berries wonderfully as would even a little thick cream that wasn't whipped. The nondairy product just ruined the berries. It greased the tongue in such a way as to shut out the berry flavor. Nothing is made better with this stuff, it is only made sweeter and I suppose the food glides off your tongue and down your gullet faster unless you gag on it. I scraped off as much of the stuff as I could and sheepishly muttered something about not really being a fan of whipped cream. I blame it, like everything else, on my mother who raised me not to say "I can't eat this shit" when I'm a guest in other people's homes.

I am not a healthfood freak or a worshipper of Alice Waters and the Chef's Collaborative. I support science in the kitchen, but Cool Whip is a freak of science. Villagers with pitchforks and torches is an apt image.

[pjs]

Real whipped cream was the first product I was allowed to prepare on my own for public consumption. So simple, even a 14 year-old could make it--with a hand whisk. There is nothing better.

The canned shit at least has some nitrous oxide content. The crap in the tub is noteworthy because it has no known useful purpose--like Sandra's show.

PJ

[krisdata]

The way I see it is if all my friends and family cooked from a can or box and then they come to my house and eat real homemade food...they're going to think I am a SUPERSTAR in the kitchen! I like that!

My mom tells a story of when we were kids and another family joined us for dinner. She made spaghetti, out of a box, with sauce from a jar, and everyone's favorite virtually everlasting "grated parmesan cheese." Now, I still cook this occasionally because it's easy, but I wouldn't exactly call it high cuisine... However, the other family's children were in awe of the dinner. They had never had spaghetti before, only Spaghetti-O's...

To some people, any amount of preparation is special...

[denise_jer]

Okay, I am by no means defending Sandra Lee and her "Semi-Homemade Cooking". I totally agree that the end product looks noxious.

But, I am wondering about her impact on people who just don't know how to cook and as a result, eat a lot of frozen prepared foods, Dominos, Taco Bell and the like. Is her book maybe a better alternative for these people? Maybe even enough to get them to start thinking about learning how to feed themselves instead of letting Corporate America determine what goes into their mouth and bodies?

[Bux]

But, I am wondering about her impact on people who just don't know how to cook and as a result, eat a lot of frozen prepared foods, Dominos, Taco Bell and the like. Is her book maybe a better alternative for these people? Maybe even enough to get them to start thinking about learning how to feed themselves instead of letting Corporate America determine what goes into their mouth and bodies?

She seems to support corporate America 100%. Wherever possible it appears she uses a prepared shelf stable product loaded with chemicals in lieu of a natural product. It appears as if she will go out of her way to find that product in stores and pay more money than she will for a natural food source. She will combine ingredients in such a way that the last ingredient will cheapen the first ingredient as long as the result is more baroque. "She takes "food" one step down from most frozen prepared foods and what's available at most fast food outlets. If I didn't know better, I'd assume her aim was to offend those who had any taste at all in the hope of drawing outrage in the belief that there's no such thing as bad publicity. Come to think of it, I don't know better. She's the advocate for Corporate America and, in my opinion, offers nothing positive, or at least nothing that will get people thinking about food in a positive way. Her recipes are for the Frankensteins of food, if Comfort Me didn't make that clear when he said "Quick, assemble the unruly mob of villagers, complete with pitchforks and torches."

[bilrus]

Okay, I am by no means defending Sandra Lee and her "Semi-Homemade Cooking". I totally agree that the end product looks noxious.

But, I am wondering about her impact on people who just don't know how to cook and as a result, eat a lot of frozen prepared foods, Dominos, Taco Bell and the like. Is her book maybe a better alternative for these people? Maybe even enough to get them to start thinking about learning how to feed themselves instead of letting Corporate America determine what goes into their mouth and bodies?

It just seems to me that a lot of what she is doing is as difficult or time consuming as making things from scratch.

Wouldn't it be better for those people's first step to be making something simple and good as opposed to something elaborate and half-assed?

[Katherine]

Okay, I am by no means defending Sandra Lee and her "Semi-Homemade Cooking". I totally agree that the end product looks noxious.

But, I am wondering about her impact on people who just don't know how to cook and as a result, eat a lot of frozen prepared foods, Dominos, Taco Bell and the like. Is her book maybe a better alternative for these people? Maybe even enough to get them to start thinking about learning how to feed themselves instead of letting Corporate America determine what goes into their mouth and bodies?

Actually, I think it's not only a crutch, but a shield that prevents them from ever being introduced to the idea that it's not hard to cook simple food.

People are in awe of complicated food they see in expensive restaurants and *Chef books. They don't want to hear that you need to cook a piece of chicken and make a sauce before you can put the two together. They want shortcuts. This paradigm shows them the way to make fancy, complicated stuff without having to learn to cook.

I can take all this processed food, throw it together, and It's complicated! And my family won't be able to tell the difference..

Sadly true.

[Bux]

She made spaghetti, out of a box, with sauce from a jar, and everyone's favorite virtually everlasting "grated parmesan cheese." Now, I still cook this occasionally because it's easy, but I wouldn't exactly call it high cuisine.

Most of us make spaghetti out of a box. Am I missing something there? Sometimes I make fresh pasta, but it's just different and rarely approaches the quality of the best packaged dry pasta from Italy. Jarred sauces vary, but there's no reason why one couldn't be excellent. Even in my local Italian shop which is one of the best in the US, they sell their own sauces. True it's a small production and sold frozen rather in a sterilized or pasteurized jar, but jarred sauce is not necessarily terrible. I'll agree on that prepackaged grated cheese. It's terrible. It's hard to find the balance using it. It's so stale that it has little taste, but once you use enough to really taste it, it can over power and ruin the sauce with its flavor.

[denise_jer]

Yes, it would definitely be better if they learned to cook in general, even just learn a few basics. But even that takes time. If in the meantime, they make something edible but not as healthy, instead of trying to make it from scratch, failing, and turning to Mama Celeste.

What seems simple for some isn't always simple for others. At least not at first. Especially if they just don't have any experience in the kitchen beyond pushing buttons on the microwave.

[Comfort Me]

Okay, I am by no means defending Sandra Lee and her "Semi-Homemade Cooking". I totally agree that the end product looks noxious.

But, I am wondering about her impact on people who just don't know how to cook and as a result, eat a lot of frozen prepared foods, Dominos, Taco Bell and the like. Is her book maybe a better alternative for these people? Maybe even enough to get them to start thinking about learning how to feed themselves instead of letting Corporate America determine what goes into their mouth and bodies?

Denise:

The people you are concerned for would be better served with a show that gives them a grounding in the basics. Instead of making Semi-Homeshit, they could be watching shows like Sara's Secrets, 30-Minute Meals, or How to Boil Water. I know each of these shows have their detractors, but they do a much better job of communicating useful skills to the novice. And their food, with rarely a processed ingredient, is better and more healthy. And it is Mostly Homemade.

[elfin]

Sandra Lee and Rachel Ray- and they cancelled Bourdain?!

[fresco]

Somehow, I don't think one good or bad tv example is going to make much of a difference.

The cards are stacked against a widespread revival of home cooking from scratch. You would have to turn back the clock to a time when there were two parents in almost every household, one parent (invariably mom) stayed home and dad worked a regular day which usually ended at 5 p.m.

And this seems to be about as undesireable as it is implausible.

[Comfort Me]

Somehow, I don't think one good or bad tv example is going to make much of a difference.

The cards are stacked against a widespread revival of home cooking from scratch. You would have to turn back the clock to a time when there were two parents in almost every household, one parent (invariably mom) stayed home and dad worked a regular day which usually ended at 5 p.m.

And this seems to be about as undesirable as it is implausible.

Fresco:

I respectfully disagree. My wife and I both work full time and we have a 6 year old. We have a "Mostly Homemade" dinner at the dining room table an average of 6 nights a week.

I pick my son up at 5:15, take him home and we work at getting dinner together. And dinner for me is rarely from a box, can, or takeout. I bake all our bread and make our breakfast cereals. I make our sausage and hope to learn the fine craft of cheesemaking soon.

And yes, in my spare time I've been known to knit a sweater, blanket, or scarf. I know not everyone has the interest or the motivation to take it that far. But many people won't ever try if someone is out there telling them that feeling your family crap is the way to go. It is really, when you boil it down, a matter of priorities.

We need someone out stumping for families to eat dinner together more often, with the tv off and the phone turned down. We need a cheerleader to say "Get in that kitchen and rattle them pots and pans!" And we need someone teaching basic cooking skills without pretense and giving people a boost in self esteem.

Damn -- we need Julia back. G-d bless her!

[denise_jer]

Denise:

The people you are concerned for would be better served with a show that gives them a grounding in the basics. Instead of making Semi-Homeshit, they could be watching shows like Sara's Secrets, 30-Minute Meals, or How to Boil Water. I know each of these shows have their detractors, but they do a much better job of communicating useful skills to the novice. And their food, with rarely a processed ingredient, is better and more healthy. And it is Mostly Homemade.

I totally agree with you; if I cannot think of anything for dinner, I would not turn to a boxed meal. Sometimes I come home from work, and if what Rachel Ray is making on 30 Minute Meals looks good, I jot down the ingredients and run back out to the store! I find her irritating, but I do like many of her recipes.

I am not condoning using Semi-Homemade as an alternative to buckling down and learning how to cook. Even if it's just learning how not to over-cook pasta! I was just wondering about it as an alternative to dialing out for junky food delivery/carryout...

**And I don't want to give the impression that I think all delivery is junk food. I used to live in Chicago where I could get any kind of meal delivered, and on occasion, I did! But now I live in St. Paul, where I can't even find a Chinese restaurant that delivers! Only pizza delivers, and the good ones don't even deliver to our area. I miss my stack of delivery menus like you wouldn't believe!