Hale Kilinahe: Pith of Pop: Semi-Homemade Cooking With Sandra Lee

Hell, nothing is even a tiny little bit homemade. Sandra's schtick is to buy a bunch of overprocessed crap at the store and slap it together. And there's nothing wrong with that. Lots of people don't have the time or inclination to bake or cook from scratch. They wouldn't sell cake mixes if people didn't buy 'em.

I think my main problem with Sandra is her presentation. A bit of context: Sandra is a bleached blonde who can't possibly eat any of her own creations because she wears approximately the same size as my six-year-old daughter. Her sets change for every show to match her outfit. She has seven or eight Kitchen Aid mixers that she never uses. Her husband is a very old real estate developer. She's probably never used an electrical kitchen appliance in her life and if she doesn't have a personal cook I'd be very surprised.

So why does she have her own show? And more importantly: why is she making a Kwanzaa cake?

She made a Kwanzaa cake on one episode. It was filled with canned apple pie filling. frosted with blue frosting, and had Corn Nuts on it. Corn Nuts, people.

She has a multitude of bad ideas. Tons of 'em. Like, for her football show, she made something called a beergarita. It's a margarita with beer in it. Yum! On the rare occasion she does something clever, she talks it up like she'd thought of it herself. Strips of waxed paper underneath the cake to keep the frosting from ending up all over the plate? Julia was doing that when you were in diapers, sweetie.

This is one of those shows that makes me scratch my head because so many other talented people have had shows on the Food Network but have either moved on or been cancelled. The Tamales could eat Sandra for breakfast. Heck, I'd watch an all-day marathon of the Two Fat Ladies before I'll watch another episode of this overgrown sorority girl.

What's interesting about this show is that there must be people out there who get a kick out of it, and I mean a practical kick, as opposed to a lecherous kick or an ironic kick. Ya gotta admit, though: some of the stuff she pulls here is at least creative. A lot of people pick up cakes baked at Safeway, but most of them take them to their gatherings without even removing the barcode. This lady turns hers into a volcano, with plastic palm-trees and something edible for lava. That's creative. Man, that "Corn Nuts, people" line had me choking on my Diet Pepsi. Thanks for the laugh! M
Posted by scrivener at October 27, 2004 02:11 PM

Back when FoodTV had forums, there was one devoted to this show. They discontinued the forums at the end of Septemper 2004, and I think the Sandra Lee forum was the reason why. For some reason, she seemed to generate a huge amount of hatred and had earned the nickname Queen of Slop or something like that. I never saw such rabid fanatical haters in my life. I confess that I don't mind watching Sandra for entertainment, but I have never made any of her recipes. However, if one doesn't like her, the solution is simple, don't watch her.
Posted by LeV at December 8, 2004 11:07 AM

I loved the Fat Ladies. They could have cared less about being glamour pusses, which was probably just as well. They showed great passion for cooking and life. I know that Jennifer Paterson has passed, but enjoyed life til the end. The only thing they feared was the occasional vegetarian. I dug out my Fat Ladies videos after trying to watch How to Boil Water this am. What was I thinking? Jack was sooo goofy today that Chef Frederic proved that even the French can be diplomatic. I think the Food Network should show The Two Fat Ladies occasionally. They just went to beautiful places and cooked with old pots, pans and utensils. Not once did I see a Kitchen Aid appliance of many colors. It was kinda' like Travel Channel meets the Two Fat Ladies.
Posted by Miriam at December 18, 2004 11:37 AM

Shame on Shamdra Lee. I find her to be the smelly treadmark on the underpanties of FNTV. Not only is her food basically inedible, it is flat out unhealthy. The Two Fat Ladies at least made food from real food with humor and little extra expense for decorative crap. They didn't assemble processed stuffs (I refuse to call it food) into craptacular Scapletapes and color match food and drink ala SHAMDra. Her themes are atrocious, she picks a color; finds food and fabric to match and semi-ho's a show. It is truly disgusting. Thank you for the opportunity to express my disgust. Rock on!
Posted by Wandra Lee at January 31, 2005 04:14 PM

In the interest of honesty....the Kwanzaa cake did not have blue frosting. It had poop brown frosting. The blue one was inexplicable called a Star of David Food Cake. (What a star of David eats, I guess...) and it was so insulting and vaguely anti-semitic (although I think Lee was ignorant of how insulting the cake was) it was pulled off the recipes online at the Food TV website. It was my understanding that the Food TV forums came down because people were using profanity and starting to go for personal attacks on other posters, not because a whole lot of people disliked one of the shows. (It's not like there's much to like in this show, anyway...)
Posted by peasantwitch at January 31, 2005 06:34 PM

Thank you for writing about what I've been screaming since this show first aired. Her "ingredients" are expensive and often hard to find. Her cookbooks have name brands listed next to EVERY ingredient. Who does that? The "recipes" I've tried have tasted awful and ended up in the trash. My poor garbage disposal almost died tried to chop up the 30 cloves of marinated garlic from her spaghetti "recipe" because they were hard as rocks. The words of my mother screaming in my mind "there are starving kids in China" and here I am throwing food into the garbage. Thanks Sandra. There are so many worthy cooks/chefs out there that could really help a busy Mom like me cook for the family. I do NOT feed my kids food loaded with preservatives and sodium. I do NOT stuff angel food cakes with garbage and try to pass them off as something "special". Sandra Lee is a big joke, a flash in the pan. Five years from now no one will remember her name.
Posted by April at February 1, 2005 04:31 AM

This show is responsible for some of the biggest guffaws on TVFN. Serious cooks will not watch Semi-Homemade for valuable food information, because there is none presented. Instead, we watch for the comedic value. After all, where else can you see a gaunt, anorexic woman with humongous breast implants shake her money makers and handle canned icing at the same time? I recommend watching at least a half hour of Barefoot Contessa after viewing Semi-Homemade. It's the anti-venom.
Posted by Chiffonade at February 1, 2005 07:52 AM

Children under the age of 13 might ask embarassing questions after watching this show. Every once in a while, Lee seems to have an orgasm from tasting her own food. This (a) makes me wonder what ELSE flips her trigger and (b) makes me want to know the brand name of her favorite angel food cake. It doesn't make me want to cook like her, however. I prefer to avoid that kind of distraction when handling sharp knives.
Posted by gypsy at February 2, 2005 10:42 AM

I think we can all see that there are two reasons she's on TV - they're usually pushed up in a tight sweater.
Posted by okiedokie at February 26, 2005 06:32 AM

Whether or not one likes this woman's show, we have to admit the china and serving dishes used on the set are lovely. I'm wondering if anyone knows how to find out what some of the patterns are. If so, please let me know.
Posted by ILM at March 17, 2005 10:22 AM

Thanks for letting me know I am not alone in finding Sandra Lee's Pop show more than annoying. I thought her use of "pop" might make a great drinking game, but you would drunk as a skunk within 4 minutes. I don't know who she paid off or something more personal to get air time on what is usually a good network. I find her use of canned frosting to be especially nauseating. I'm sorry the network doesn't have a forum to complain about this lame excuse of a "cooking program".
Posted by susan at August 1, 2005 04:08 PM