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Sandra Lee as a frugal chef?

K

KYHeirloomer

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Have y'all seen the ads for Sandra Lee's new show. It starts next week and is called Sandra Lee's Money Saving Meals.

Say what? By definition, Sandra's cooking style is expensive. Processed and convenience foods always are. So the idea that she's expert at saving us money is, at best, ludicrous.

Oh, wait. Maybe this means she'll only change her kitchen once a month instead of for every show? And that her "tablescapes" will involve stuff you already own?

Nah! I don't think so. I think it's just another typical Food Network shuck, pretending that a show is something that it's not.
 
Every one of FN's celebrities is favored by some people. Some people love Ina, some hate her; some think Alton Brown is the cherries, others (like me) that he's the pits. Some think Bobby Flay is the throwdown king, others that he needs to be thrown down.

But lately they seem bound and determined to feature shows and people (that is, when they're not constantly airing repeats of shows that are two, and three, and six years old) with no rhyme or reason.

Shall we look at some of them:

1. Cooking For Real. Here's a show with a "star" who was promoted as being "a real Air Force vet; a real DJ; a real food lover." Oh yeah, those are soild credentials for having a cooking show. Turns out if you watch her, her credentials are that she's a black version of Racheal Ray---only not as creative.

2. Five Ingredient Fix. The premise here is that you can make simple but elegant meals using "only" five ingredients. Problem with this one is that the "star" doesn't count things like salt and pepper as ingredients, and counts blended ingredients as one in order to force things into the count. And, of course, the basic premise is BS. Simple or complex in the cooking world is not based on the number of ingredients. It's based on the techniques needed to manipulate those ingredients.
Just for perspective, in case (as is likely) you've never bothered counting ingredients, Mac & Cheese made with just one cheese would not qualify for this show if all the ingredients were counted.
I've also never seen a cooking show host who talked down to her audience more than this one.

3. Quick Fix Meals. This one had potential. The premise is, you can "cook" only one or two days a week, and recycle the protein into a different dish or two. Basically, planned use of left-overs. The show is a take off of the once-a-week and once-a-month cooking trends that were in vogue a few years back. Problem is, with some notable exceptions, if chicken and salmon disappeared from the earth so too would this show. After awhile, everything she does seems samee-same.

And now comes the new Sandra Lee show, whose premise is 180 degrees from the way she prepares food (note I said "prepares." I don't consider what she does to be cooking.)

What amuzes me most is that Food Network keeps *****ing about it's downward slide in viewership. Hmmmmm? Let's see. They can all the people who built the network. Fill the air with about 90% repeat shows. And when they do provide something new, make it either something like the above three or a "reality" show that has nothing to do with reality.

Ya gotta wonder about FN executives who can't figure out the problem.
 
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Throw Down with Bobby Flay......That show ***ses me off to the fullest extent. He goes out and challenges people with award winning recipes. Cook the recipe with a twist of adding a chili pepper or goat cheese and everyone slaps him on the back. Bobby Flay couldn't even fry chicken with out burning it. I don't know where the judges come from but for some strange reason the ones not from the area of the throw down always vote for his dish.
As far as the food net work shows, there are several that I enjoy catching recipe ideas off of. Tyler Florence, Ina Garten, and the Nealies (the black couple that cooks what I consider normal type meals). Even the winner of that reality type show Big Daddy has more to offer than some of the stars that have been on there since forever. The Bam lost it wayyyyyy back.
I think that the food network should go back to the PBS type format and start producing cooking shows that the public actually wants to see. The line up that PBS has been running for years on the weekends and has always kept me interested. I think that Cooks Country went a little hoaky with the banjo music and all when it transformed from being Americas Test Kitchen but the show is still basically the same. I do wish they would come back with Chefs Class though because I really enjoyed the recipes that were prepared by the Chefs in front of the students.
 
I want to see people cook.
I don't enjoy cake challenges, bbq cook offs, vacation shows where they show all the places I'll never go and all the places I could never afford to eat at. Showing people cooking was what made the FN popular and they do seem to be getting away from that. After 7pm on the weekdays the channel stinks and after 2pm on the weekends it stinks. Back around the holidays you could catch a few holiday episodes where they were actually cooking in primetime but not much.

Like IC I don't care for Bobby Flay. I hate that Ace of Cakes. Boring as can be to me. I like Ina Garten, Giada, Paula Dean, Sunny Anderson, The Nealys, Jamie Oliver, Nigella Lawson, Michael Chiarello & Emeril. For some reason I have a hard time paying attention to Tyler Florence and Guy's recipes are just not my thing. I don't think I have ever made a Sandra Lee recipe and I do not care for Bobby Flay. Rachael Ray may make a recipe I want to try occasionally.
 
Funny how different we all are, and yet so alike in many ways. Janie I love to see shows where they travel and eat, for me it is like a taste of their vacation as I watch, I can just more easily visualize where they are at by watching it! I love when Rachael Ray travels and tries to stick to a $40.00 a day budget, which is a fortune to me I just know I could do it under $40.00:D

Believe it or not 1/2 the shows you mentioned I have never seen, I have not watched Sandra Lee :confused: have no earthly idea who she is, I do not know nor do I even care to know. From all I have read here she would fail to hold my interest!

I also love some of the cake challenges, and cook-offs (except for Bobby Flay's shows his are all rigged for him to win, and if I had to eat the crap he puts out I would die it all looks way too hot for even a lover of hot foods like me). Also Bobby Flay's pure egotistical, pompous personality sickens me.
I love all Iron Chef's wether it be American or the original. I can not watch it though when the slaughter live creatures like the night they did turtles...I turned that off before the slaughtering began and it was about 3 yrs later before I would watch Iron Chef again! The very thought of watching that disgusted me that much! I know I have had to do such slaughtering before but it is not for entertainment purposes, and I sure as he** am not going to watch that on TV!

Like you I really love the good ole' pure cooking shows from of old! I always loved the "Galloping Gourmet" when I was a child, and I guess all the modern shows that feature just good cooking hold my inetrest about as good as anything can. And I love humble down-to-earth for real people the best!!!:)
 
I just cannot get into the cake decorating shows. I have a short attention span I guess lol.
 
I've noticed too many shows use either expensive specialty ingredients or ingredients I can't find locally. I'd like to see a show that uses ingredients readily available in the average grocery store where most people shop and that don't bust the grocery budget.
 
The problem, in that regard Bubba, is that the celebrities live and work in big cities, with sophisticated food outlets.

The result is, that when one of them says "available in every grocery store," what they mean is "any grocery store here in New York." Or, as I used to say, "everywhere, unfortunately, doesn't include central Kentucky." :(

Those working out of the food network studios don't even have to shop elsewhere. Chelsea Market is just an elevator ride away.

Almost anything you might wish for is available on-line. But that means researching where you can get it, paying postage (as well as, usually, top dollar), and risking identity theft in the bargain.

This problem is not confined to TV celebrity chefs, however. Almost any chef-written cookbook has the same syndrome, because when it comes to food shopping chefs do not live in the same world as the rest of us.

For my own cooking I can usually make do. But, unfortunately, when I'm doing the research for a cookbook review I have to follow the recipes exactly. And that often leads to the problem you descibe.
 
"Funny how different we all are, and yet so alike in many ways."

That's one of the points I was trying to make, Cathy. Which is why I had hoped this wouldn't morph into a I like this one, I hate that one thread.

What I was looking at is the meaninglessness of many of the new FN shows. I mean, come on. Sandra Lee is going to show us how to save money by buying convenience foods? Gimme a break.

The other point, of course, had to do with the small amount of new anything aired on FN. Add it up, and I'd be willing to bet there isn't four hours of new programming in an entire week. It's all repeats of repeats ad nauseum.
 
I have to admit I watch much less of FN programming than I used to. Even being relatively new to an interest in cooking it's gotten to be either "seen that" or "Not another reality show". I really don't care how fast they can crank out an obnoxiously elaborate cake or how quickly someone can be bounced off a contest. I don't really dislike any of those hosts (though Rachel Ray's voice alone is like fingernails on a blackboard) but I learned more about the whys of cooking from Alton Brown than I ever expected. All in all, these days there's nothing new on FN that will teach me anything.
 
I’m also not interested in those cake decorating shows or the Pillsbury bake-off challenge or what have you.

I agree throw down with Bobby Flay has always honked me off. These are really people doing their thing and doing it well all across the country and he wants to see if he can tear them down. I hope every one of those people kick his freckled rear end!
 
I'm partial to the shows where all the hosts are beautiful and stark-nekkid and refer you to web-sites where you can point/click and redeam vouchers for free booze! (Oh wait- that's another channel, all together!!! Hee-Hee!)
 
I was reading an article a while ago that was talking about the change in food between poor people 100 years ago and now. It was saying that people with money these days now eat what used to be considered rustic peasant foods like paella, enchiladas, all sorts of pasta dishes, stews, gumbos, etc. Things made with what ever they could catch or grow. Today’s poor in America at least no longer grow their own food for the most part so they eat fast, frozen and processed foods because these are the cheapest foods they can get. If this is true then Sandra Lee’s idea of using these same products for short cuts falls in line with that thinking. As long as she isn’t using upscale prepackaged items. Still who would want to eat that?
 
If I were truly poor my meals would not be eaten out!!! I would COOK! And I would cook truly nutritious food not JUNK FOOD and Frozen Crap! I would eat a variety of dried beans cooked in many different ways. There would be rice and biscuits with meals as well. I WOULD have a garden and I would can and freeze vegetables, I would save grocery money by doing so, and have fresh sliced tomatoes and fresh greens, and many other wonderful vegetables with our meals. I could spend less on dried beans, rice, flour and all the ingredients to cook these into wonderful meals than I would spend eating off the Dollar Menu at McD's or the Burger King!!! And it would be a heck of alot better for me than their fast food offerings!

I know this would keep us alive, well-fed, happy and healthy:)

Unfortunately you see many that have not adopted this lifestyle, and, or.... are too lazy to cook or learn to cook! It is a sad but true fact that many do not even like vegetables and their taste buds desire nothing but fast food or junk food. It is sad that their taste buds have never developed, nor a desire to live a healthier life style:( I just do not "get it" and never will!
 
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