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Her recipes are SLop thus the nickname. She has very little talent. When martha went to jail she did a piece for TV Guide magazine calling herself the next martha. I laughed that was very funny. Martha could take her on in a diver's suit with lead boots on.
Her shows are train wrecks. Zero talent. Read the reviews of her books on Amazon. The tablescapes are terrorscapes. The woman is scary.

Martha could take her on in a diver's suit with lead boots on. >>
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@JerzeeTomato - I'd pay good money to see that.

JerzeeTomato--I bet Martha made better chow using her prison condiments than Sandra Lee does with an entire staff!

I don't have cable, but I think the SL hate comes from the fact that the last thing people need is to be encouraged to use more processed food.

Cool Whip frosted Angel Cake... Tablescapes... Cans and packages...

It's the cheesiest show on Food Network, and with the direction they've taken lately, that's saying something!

Ugh.

If you have to ask what is wrong with Sandra Lee, watch a show and think about what she's making and the taste. That should answer your question.

Off topic, but is Anne Burrell Mario Batali's sous chef? The one he calls "darlin" on Iron Chef? If so, yea! She seems calm and humouous at the same time.

@chiff - very nicely put! I had to run a couple of laps myself before I even looked at this thread:-). You expressed so eloquently pretty much everything I had in mind!

The usual argument "for" Sandra Lee is that not everybody can/have time/wants to cook everything from scratch and working Mums need her. Indeed, she claims that she will help you to save time AND money (her emphasis). But, as chiff0nade pointed out, she lies. If you look at her ingredients, they are quite expensive. Surely, everybody can figure out that if you have somebody else do the work for you (wash and cut the vegetables or fruit, trim and slice boneless chicken breasts, etc.), you will have to pay for it, it's as simple as that. I won't even talk about her ridiculous tablescapes (the other day she proudly showed off her "really cheap" stone place mats, that retail for $12-14 a piece), which, apparently, is also something working Mums desperately need. So no, her "recipes" save no money by definition.

Amazingly, she manages to spend so much time "dolling them up", that it ends up not saving any time either. If I don't feel like cooking and decide to buy ready-made food, I'll do just that - buy ready-made food. I won't add a bunch of seasoning packets to them, spend some more time "cooking" them, and then pretend I cooked them from scratch (why would I even want to lie to my husband or anybody else about it, is beyond me). I have said it before - in effect, her show is not for working Mums on a budget. Her show is for lazy and rich housewives who have nothing to do with their time and money, like to "entertain" and figure that they have to put some "food" out there to go with their cocktails.

Oh, and by the way - I do not hate Sandra Lee. I despise her, she puzzles me, she makes my mind boggle... but hating her would be too personal.

@chiff.........."Sandra Lee is the Culinary Anti-Christ."

Pulllllease, can I borrow that grrrrrreat phrase as the title to my new li'l book I need (long pause) to wrrrrrrite? Fullllllashing grrrrrreat big summmmile. ;-)

@Perkinator - Of course you can! (That's actually my tag line on another board...LOL.)

@brooke - I so agree that working people need to use short cuts and there are so many really great ones out there that don't involve crap. Actually, as annoying as she can be to watch, Rachael Ray has better quick meals. The only thing I'd advise is when she says to get "bake off" biscuits, just get a nice loaf of bread.

I have a pantry stocked with lots of stuff that lets me springboard into great meals in a very short time. Now that I grow herbs, I have wiped one more thing off my shopping list!

I remember when I worked on Wall Street and had a small child (then about 7 years old). I'd use lots of weekend leftovers like stews and soups or grilled meats to begin weeknight dinners. Sometimes, I'd get a lamb shoulder chop - a large one - from the local butcher on my way home from work. I'd put it in a shallow pan with onions, garlic, wine, cut up whole peeled tomatoes, basil, S&P and simmer it for an hour while I did a household chore. Boiled some macaroni and boom...dinner is served.

Just a little pre-thought on the weekends to cook a little extra - or the next time you roast a chix, roast two. This kind of "cooking before you need it" goes a long way on a hurried weeknight.

And I'm not against purchasing a rotisserie chix every now and then, either! Nor grabbing a piece of pizza or sandwich stuff from the deli and go home to whip up a big old hero. It doesn't have to be fancy, it just has to be real.

Who's the one doing Cheap Chic or Chic Cooking or something like that? Totally missable.

Haha I just remembered when she dug out the center of a store-bought cheesecake and made mini cheesecakes out of it. WEIRD.

She spends more time throwing her crapass ingredients together than she would making the whole thing from scratch.

And she looks like Barbie on crack. Not good. She should not have a show - she has zero culinary talent.

I tell ya - this is like a morbid fascination - I am dying to see one of her shows - and Food Network in Canada does not carry her. I shall have to remember the next time I am visiting my future SIL in the US to ask her to fire up Food network for me!

Of course she's not a 5 star chef, and I can't say I'm a huge fan of her recipes either....BUT the reason she's on the food network is that people watch her show! She appeals to a mass audience. Some people are being way too critical.

People who post here are not in SL's fanbase. Other people are. It's a big world. Populated with some very odd people, some of whom are us.

Well it's "Cocktail Time"! and I just put the finishing touches on my "Tablescape" and have a few minutes to join my most favorite SE pals. So, having been away this past weekend, I have much catching up to do! I once again found myself yelling at the television when this Mary character showed up! I kept telling my husband TVFN was hijacked by yet another useless bimbo. He said I was right because she didn't even have boobs. (Sigh). Anyway, Here we go again!!

@Maureen - go to YouTube and search on "Sandra Lee." There are TONS of clips you can see including the one with the Kwanzaa cake. There is a clip where Lee is dressed as Cher, complete with exaggerated facial and tongue movements. She always manages to wear a costume with long dangly sleeves to cook. (Sandra Lee = Safety First! ... NOT.)

My sides are splitting from laughing!

@chiff - you got it all wrong! Aunt Sandy is the person to rescue you on a busy weeknight, you just need to know how to do it!

First, you make a cocktail (3 parts any alcohol to 2 parts any other alcohol, and a splllash of llllemon-llllime soda...you could garnish it with a cinnamon stick or a frozen peach, if you wanted to), accompanied by a little dance & song ("it's cocktail time, the best time of the da-ay!").

Then, you go to the craft store (if you're too cocktailed-up by then, you can just go online), and start buying everything in sight to match the colour of your cocktail - for your tablescape, of course. If you couldn't find anything that day, just find some rain boots or bird cages and put them on the dining table, that'll work too.

Then, you open your very own pantry and start taking out tins and packets in no particular order...in fact, after a couple of cocktails, I don't think you'll even care, as long as you can still open the tins, mix in a couple of packets, and don't forget to add a tablespoon (or a teaspoon, or a cupful...whatever) of raspberry champagne aigstract to get rid of that prepackaged taste - and valla! You are now rescued and can continue your journey to France, the city of lights!

It always seems...I dunno, funny? ironic? that SL proposes using processed foods to "save" time and then proceeds to demonstrate some elaborate "tablescape" that more often than not, requires a trip to the crafts store as well as time to construct. It would seem more to the point to take the time to purchase/prepare real food and then perhaps buy some simple fresh flowers, or in the event of a special dinner for guests, spend a little extra time and money on both the food and the decor.

I remember when I was a kid going to someone's house for dinner with my family. They fed us shake-n-bake pork chops and there were crepe paper flowers on the table. Hello, Sandra! We weren't food snobs (not too much, anyway) but we didn't eat processed foods. It was pretty appalling, but in the final analysis, if you're eating in good company, that's the most important thing.

I think she is awful. One of my main gripes, among many, is that she takes the semi homemade gimmick way too far. If I'm going to eat something pre-made that is fine, but it is ridiculous to add french onion soup mix to canned soup or vanilla extract to Betty Crocker prepared cake frosting. It just seems so unnecessary. Furthermore, don't we all know how to do this stuff, does a show really need to be devoted to it?

My girlfriend jokes that she wants to pitch a new show to Food Network called "Semi Fast Food," where she goes to a drive through and jazzes up some Big Macs, fries, and Filet o' Fish with ingredients at home. Sad thing is, FN would probably love it.

@Brooke - This is the first time I have laughed so hard that I cried in a long time!!! I'm waiting for her to get so nailed that she accidentally switches "Briceter's" kiddie cocktail with the real thing.

She has no culinary expertise, or for that matter, any expertise. Remember about 10 years ago there was a paid tv advertisement for some wire gadget that you could use to make draperies? All you needed to supply were bedsheets and you could whip up a window treatment in nothing flat. That was Shamdra. Too bad she migrated from bad home design to bad cooking.

Come on ya'll. You are missing out on serious entertainment here. What you need to do is pretend that you are back in college and turn this viewing experience into a drinking game! Every time Sandra said "Nice" you have to drink. And each time she says "Super Simple" you have to drink twice. Talk about cocktail time! Whoo Hoo!

Wow I thought I was the only one, I just cant the fact that she gets all dressed up and put together to cook at home, it almost looks as if she didnt belong in the kitchen, and lets not forget how annoying the decorations are, who has time for all that, its supposed to be time saving, money saving concept but everything looks really expensive starting with the recipes, I want to make chicken stew for example why do I need to buy 5 different little packets of soup mix, french onion soup mix I mean its ridiculous I cant imagine what it all tastes like when its done... I like Giada De Laurentiis's style she looks nice put together but always in a casual way which makes it look more realistic.. Rachael Ray is also starting to look like she doesnt belong in the kitchen.. Anyway, bottomline is I cant stand to watch Sandra Lee for 2 minutes, sometimes I try to watch when a recipe sounds good but as soon as she starts with all those ingredients I have to change the channel...

Oh you foodies are cracking me up right now!!!

I thought I would share a site I just found, www.FoodNetworkHumor.com - they are new but they dislike Sandra Lee as much as we all do.

Last week --- what was she smoking with all of those hot air balloons?!

She's a hack and a snake-oil salesman. Sometimes her "russipees" do have potential, but then she'll add something ridiculous to them, making them sickeningly inedible.

But I have to watch. I don't hate her per se - I just see her for what she is and watch her for the snark value. That's pretty much all her show is worth.