Sandra Lee

I don't know if someone has already asked this question, but I want to know why Sandra Lee shows such poor knife skills when she told Mark Sommers on a special Unwrapped episode that she learned everything she knows from Le Cordon Bleu? I'm not expert on cooking techniques, but it seems she is rather uneducated or not practiced well in many simple procedures in the kitchen.

Most likely, she is not able to see her hand as she's using the knife.

Spiffy,
I read this a while ago on Wikipedia (not always the most reliable source, but it does makes sense now!)

Lee later attended a two-week course at Le Cordon Bleu, but did not attain any certifications or degrees during her time there, nor did she complete the course. "I was scraping beef tendons and I thought, 'I'm outta here!"' she says. "When you look at a recipe you want to know that at least four of the ingredients are available at your grocery store. It's more cost-effective and less time-consuming." She reportedly left after two days.

I cannot stand this woman. She needs to be taken off the air.

Sharona

I didn't know that Le Cordon Bleu taught pastry classes that encourage replacing real cream with Cool Whip.

I heard Court TV is going to have a do it yourself legal show with a guy who left Harvard Law after two days.

Much of SL's cooking "style" has to do with her upbringing and challenges growing up. Her bio was featured in Food Network's "Chefography" series and offered some reasoning to her madness. I don't particularly care for her techniques or even her kitchen creativity, however I do respect the woman solely on how she overcame her life challenges and managed to get where she is today.

foodie1 wrote:Much of SL's cooking "style" has to do with her upbringing and challenges growing up. Her bio was featured in Food Network's "Chefography" series and offered some reasoning to her madness. I don't particularly care for her techniques or even her kitchen creativity, however I do respect the woman solely on how she overcame her life challenges and managed to get where she is today.

I might've been able to swallow this if she didn't claim that her detractors weren't just taking shots at her, but also "at every woman who's just trying to get it done." I'm thinking she may want to review how much time and money went into the "tablescapes" before claiming the "women who are just trying to get it done" as her peeps.

I HATE Semi-Homemade with Sandra Lee. I get angry trying to watch it. I can watch 30 minute meals for the entertainment value, and the food at least looks edible half the time. On Semi-Homemade, you can almost guarantee that you are going to want to vomit at the site of what she comes up with. One of the last ones I watched she was making "the best guacamole ever" which was avacado, jar salsa, and sour cream! HATE THAT SHOW!

And she's always says "It's soooo nice and soooo good" and " 'lil" about 50 times a show. Stop talking like that! Sounds like she's already half drunk on her lame cocktails and drives me crazy! I don't watch her show at all anymore.

If you look at reviews of recipes on foodtv, almost all of hers have very bad reviews, with some people even saying they had kids end up crying at the results of trying out one of her family friendly recipes.

What the hell . . . I'll add to the petty fest . . . I can't stand the way she pronounces anything beginning with an "L." I llllllove llllemon.

As Tony Bourdain says, the entertainment value is in watching her massacre a dish. I'll never forget her Thanksgiving show where she gave her turkey a "rub" comprised of powdered packaged herb gravy mix. You could see the cornstarch/flour coating the turkey. Blech. I love Sandra Lee's useful "tips" such as "use your fork to lift food off a plate," or "I always use a steak knife to cut steak."

I might've been able to swallow this if she didn't claim that her detractors weren't just taking shots at her, but also "at every woman who's just trying to get it done." I'm thinking she may want to review how much time and money went into the "tablescapes" before claiming the "women who are just trying to get it done" as her peeps.

I particularly take issue with the implication that "women who are just trying to get it done" have absolutely NO hope of making meals that are not only affordable and reasonably easy, but also of semi-edible quality. There's clearly a market for such a show, but nobody seems to be able to fill that gap. RaeRay clearly comes closer than Sandra Lee, but still misses the mark. I just...don't get it.

sweetsalty wrote:

I might've been able to swallow this if she didn't claim that her detractors weren't just taking shots at her, but also "at every woman who's just trying to get it done." I'm thinking she may want to review how much time and money went into the "tablescapes" before claiming the "women who are just trying to get it done" as her peeps.

I particularly take issue with the implication that "women who are just trying to get it done" have absolutely NO hope of making meals that are not only affordable and reasonably easy, but also of semi-edible quality. There's clearly a market for such a show, but nobody seems to be able to fill that gap. RaeRay clearly comes closer than Sandra Lee, but still misses the mark. I just...don't get it.

Oh, right on! I wrote about exactly this a couple of months back. The biggest problem with SL is that she perpetuates the myth that real, fresh, good food is too hard, time-consuming and expensive for the average person to make. She doesn't encourage and enable her "women who are just trying to get it done." She plays on their fears

Yeah.... they play up her "Le Cordon Bleu" training.... they usually fail to mention that it was a two week course, in Canada, that she quit after two days for one of the following excuses (she can't keep her story straight): scraping beef tendons, something with veal chops, or making bouillabaisse.

While I'm all for shortcuts, quick prep meals and even packaged products, her stuff is just WAY over the top. There are convienience foods that are wonderful and great, and there are things that are just wrong (Cool Whip when you're making ice cream just for yourself or your family? Forgivable. Cool Whip used when you've actually trying to impress people? Unforgivable.) But with bad voice-overs, poor production values and her horrible kitchen skills, the show can be watched for amusement pretty easily.

perhaps this thread could be combined with this one?

http://lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=12545

YourPalWill wrote:I didn't know that Le Cordon Bleu taught pastry classes that encourage replacing real cream with Cool Whip.

That's the same class where they teach you to combine pre-made devils food cake, apple pie filling, corn nuts, and pop corn, among other special ingredients, into a Kwanzaa celebration cake.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes ... 03,00.html

I'm already swooning at the thought of all that sweet and sticky yet also crunchy, corn-nutty, apple and chocolatey taste. Its like all the good things in this world combined into one. If only you could somehow add in some peanut butter. And maybe a banana. And then sprinkle the top with Fritos!

That's the same class where they teach you to combine pre-made devils food cake, apple pie filling, corn nuts, and pop corn, among other special ingredients, into a Kwanzaa celebration cake.

I actually thought you had to be joking, until I followed the link. It reminds me of Jean Teasdale's special mint chocolate chip caramel peanut butter mocha cream cheese brownie recipe, for those who read The Onion...

I have a friend who is a camera man on her show (and a foodie) and he says it's even worse than you can imagine.

He said the camera guys actually speak up against doing baking segments because she has no clue and they know it will take forever to get it right.

I posted on her Kwanzaa Cake atrocity last year, here. Sigh...no responses...

Why oh why do I leave Food Network on in the background? Sandra Lee is doing a new series called "Sandra's Money Saving Meals" where she's comparing how much money she's "saving" by making semi-homemade quiche (you see, the frozen piecrust is $1.60, but from scratch it's $1.19 - but you have to waste all that time) "This asparagus and tomato tart will cost $.73 per serving and it is dynomite!" (contains ricotta, milk, eggs, bacon and (thank goodness) fresh asparagus - but it's topped with canned tomatoes mixed with balsamic vinegar and fresh basil. 'Cause you know that fresh basil is cheaper than fresh tomatoes!)

Recipe two is "apple spice glazed doughnuts" which she believes will put dougnut shops out of business. She's admonishing the audience to save money by buying only generic canned biscuits to cut holes in, deep fry and douse with pumkin pie spice, apple juice and powdered sugar glaze. Cheap cheap cheap!

I need new eyes now. I suppose I should be grateful that this show no longer seems to feature tablescapes.

She should stick with her old method: mix the cocktails strong enough, and your guests will eat the dang biscuit dough out of the can! And like it!

And think about it: being able to seat some of your guests directly on the table will allow you to both recycle furniture you found in the alley, and save space at your catered affair! Sandra has always known how to make do.

I cannot cannot believe FN gave her a new show. Seriously, she must have one (or more?) of the FN execs as a sugar daddy!!!

I can completely see why: the public is getting wise to the fact that you can make a good meal quickly from scratch using good ingredients, which makes the semi-homemade idea obsolete. Now they're hoping that the public doesn't know you can make a good meal quickly and cheaply and will settle for a bad meal if it's both fast and cheap.

YourPalWill wrote:I didn't know that Le Cordon Bleu taught pastry classes that encourage replacing real cream with Cool Whip.

I'm am laughing so hard that there are tears running down my face. Thank you so much for my morning pick-up!

I think that Sandra Lee is Food Network's replacement for Debbie Fields. Anybody remember her show? I used to cringe when I watch her show as well. I guess you just have to put a pretty blonde in front of the camera...

Ms. Ingie wrote:I think that Sandra Lee is Food Network's replacement for Debbie Fields. Anybody remember her show? I used to cringe when I watch her show as well. I guess you just have to put a pretty blonde in front of the camera...

I don't know what demographic she is coiffed to be attractive to, but it ain't mine.

Santander wrote:
I don't know what demographic she is coiffed to be attractive to, but it ain't mine.

The men of Stepford, CT ?

Not Sandra Lee, but I was enjoying the analog-to-digital switch by turning on "Create" today, and watched the Katie Brown Workshop. Not a show that's really geared for me, but in the past I thought I'd seen some recipes and gardening tips that at least made me think it was worth it to keep the channel on to see what's up next.

The episode was about getting kids to eat right by "making them comfortable with fruit." Clearly, Ms. Brown is under the impression that small children fear the fruit monsters in their closet, because only one of the four projects involved actually offering fruit to eat: she scooped out lemons (saving the interior to make lemonade or something) and filled them with store-bought lemon sorbet, she scooped out an orange, made a little aluminum-foil base for it, and filled it with a boxed cake mix topped with storebought frosting, (I may steal this idea, but I'm making the cake and frosting myself - and using the oranges in it!) she hollowed out an orange and made a birdfeeder out of it - and she used fruit as a base for "fruit people" whose features were comprised entirely of candy and frosting.

All of these projects were apparently designed to get kids to eat better.

Katie Brown is simply unbearable - a low-rent Martha wannabe with a limited skill set, and a voice like nails on a chalkboard. Geez, P. Allen Smith outdoes her hands down in every platform, including cooking, decorating, and crafty stuff - and his is a gardening show! I'm hoping Brown is rotated out of the Create lineup very soon. She's Sandra Lee without the snark value.

Listening to my wife rage about Sandra Lee really gave me a sense of how she must feel right after I witness yet another Cubs loss and have no one but her to tell about it. Between that and this thread, my curiosity is somewhat piqued to maybe catch an episode. I actually thought that Kwanzaa cake post was just a sarcastic dig until another poster mentioned it was real. Yikes.

Wherein Bourdain meets Sandra Lee.

I'm pretty sure, judging by the vestigial ectoplasm on my jacket that I was sideswiped by pure evil.

Sandra Lee: The Anti Julia. You can say that again, Newsweek, although Lee is an easy target if the comparison is to Julia Child. But apparently some refer to Lee as Julia's television daughter