It's a Semi-Homemade Halloween!

It's that time of year again - time for Sandra Lee to do a semi-homemade Halloween like only she can. FN was nice enough to put together a special video about her past and present costume craziness.




Sandra also gave an interview to PopEater about this year's Halloween show.

"It is hilarious. It's good TV. You'll never know you're watching Food Network," Lee tells PopEater of her Halloween episode.

You're close, Sandra. The reaction is usually more like "I can't believe this is on the Food Network!"

We know that you love to make cocktails on 'Semi-Homemade,' so what's on your drink menu for Halloween?

My Crystal Ball martini and my Queen of the Fairies cocktail. They're great. But I have to say for moms that are going out with their kids trick or treating, I highly recommend you have one espresso martini.

Oh Sandra.

Sticking with good habits

Guest post written by Caroline Waters

I don't know why, but it seems like good habits are always the hardest ones to keep. But it's those really bad for you habits, like eating ice cream out of hte carton every night after dinner, that are so easy to keep that it's like clockwork.

I started running a couple of months ago during the summer but now that it's getting colder outside, it's harder for me to get myself out of bed in the morning and make myself run before I take a shower and head off to work. I was on Facebook with my DIRECTV internet bundle the other night complaining to one of my best friends about how hard this habit is to keep when she told me that she likes running in the morning even mroe during the winter because after it she doesn't even need a cup of coffee.

She's a caffeine addict so I had trouble believing that until I actually went running on my first cold morning. It really did wake me up like nothing else and I think that I may like it better too. I just hope that that will help me stick to my runner routine even more.

Food Network Magazine: October

I picked up the October issues of Food Network magazine awhile ago.  It's actually the first time that I've bought it - I'm more of a Bon Appetit, Food & Wine type of person, but I'd heard good things about it from a few friends so I decided to check it out.  It's actually not bad; there are some cute ideas and some recipes that I would try.  (There's a caramel apple cake in there that looks awesome.) I'll probably buy it again.

There was one thing that made me laugh.  One of the pages in the Table of Contents is called Star Search, and it lists all of the Food Network "stars" and which pages you can find them on in the magazine.  I noticed that Sandra Lee was only listed for one page, so of course I skipped ahead to that one to see what fabulous semi-homemade delights awaited me.

I was bitterly disappointed to discover that the page was a piece about a Food Network stars' pumpkin-carving contest.  The magazine gave out "awards" to each pumpkin, like Most Nostalgic for Aida Mollenkamp's Pac-Man ghost carving, and Best Use of Power Tools for Ted Allen's blowtorched creation.  So what was Sandra's award?  Best Update on a Classic for her pretty basic design, which made me laugh cause it seems to me like it was a case of "Best Totally Generic Looking Pumpkin That We Have To Give An Award To".

It was really funny to me that they didn't let Sandra do anything in this issue except carve a pumpkin, especially since she goes so over-the-top about Halloween on her show and surely thinks she's the Halloween Queen of the Food Network.  Like I said, I've never bought the magazine before, so I'm sure that other issues have included some of her recipes, but I thought it was pretty telling that she was almost completely left out of the October issue.

Wordless Wednesday: Halloween

Basketball Season!

If you've been reading this blog, you might have the impression that I watch nothing but the Food Network and other cooking and home shows, but that's actually not the case.  One of the other things that I love to watch is sports.  So I'm excited that basketball season is starting, especially since baseball season is coming to an end.

I've been a basketball fan since I was a kid, and the Knicks are my team, so it's been a challenging few years.  It got to the point where I actually started to feel bad for those scalpers who hang around outside Madison Square Garden offering up New York Knicks tickets.  For the past few years I've felt like my money was better spent on concerts tickets or some other sport, but this season I'm feeling like maybe it's time to get out there and support my team again.

Maybe it's the whole LeBron James thing.  I'm sure that Miami Heat tickets are selling fast thanks to LeBron and company, but something about that whole thing just feels off to me.  Of course as a Knicks fan I'm already biased against the Heat, but I feel like in the end it's going to end up being a good thing that LeBron didn't end up on the Knicks.  I guess we'll just have to wait and see.  And I wonder how sales of Denver Nuggets tickets are doing with all of the Carmelo Anthony trade rumors swirling around.  If the Knicks do end up getting him it could definitely be an interesting year.

And while I'm at it with the whole rooting for the underdogs thing, maybe I'll even pop for some New Jersey Nets tickets.  Even though I've been a Knicks fan for years I've always had a soft spot for the Nets, and they could definitely use a little support after the, um, disappointing year they had last year. And if things don't work out...well, there's always football.

Wordless Wednesday: Cozy Coffee

5 Hour Energy for Busy Moms?

I've been seeing this commercial for 5 Hour Energy a lot lately.




So this mom needs 5 Hour Energy to get her through the day because she works so hard, both at her day job and her second job of taking care of the kids and the house.  She tells us this as she struggles in the door in her work clothes with two big grocery bags while the kids run around her, and then she tells us that 5 Hour Energy was suggested to her by her husband, who they show sitting around on the sofa reading a magazine.

I can't be the only one who saw this commercial and thought, "Hmm.  Maybe if her husband would put the magazine down, get off his butt and help her out a little, she wouldn't need an energy drink in the first place!"  Maybe I'm overanalyzing, but it seems a bit tone deaf to make a commercial targeted to busy working moms and include a not-at-all-busy-just-chilling-on-the-couch-with-a-magazine dad in there as the person who recommended the product in the first place.  "Hey, this stuff will give my wife more energy to do everything so that I don't have to get up and help!"

Of course, the main reason I've never tried 5 Hour Energy is not their advertising, but the fact that I've heard that the product tastes like cough syrup.  But ads like these don't really put me in a hurry to find out for myself.