Cooking Channel

I went and visited my aunt over Easter weekend, and she has the Cooking Channel on her cable, so it was my first opportunity to check it out. (My cable company sucks and hasn't added it yet.) After watching it for a couple days, I've basically concluded that Food Network took all of their good shows and put them on Cooking Channel, leaving nothing behind on FN except old tired "personalities" like Paula Deen, who ran out of original recipe ideas about four years ago, and new "original" programming like a show about a team of ice sculptors.

Cooking Channel has so much more variety and a lot more new shows. While on Food Network we're stuck watching Ina Garten make the same French recipes over and over again, Cooking Channel has shows about Italian, Indian, Chinese, and French cooking. While Food Network is showing us reruns of 30 Minute Meals and Barefoot Contessa from five years ago, Cooking channel has reruns of classic shows that people might actually want to watch, like Two Fat Ladies. Cooking Channel has Nigella. (Enough said.) While Food Network is still trying to make Melissa D'Arabian happen with the boring $10 Dinners (never mind that none of the meals could actually be made for $10), Cooking Channel gave Next Food Network Star runner up and should-have-been-winner Jeffrey Saad his own show, United Tastes of America. Bitchin' Kitchen is totally over-the-top and ridiculous but also totally entertaining, and even the food truck show is more interesting that watching Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives for the millionth time.

To sum up, I'd straight up trade in my Food Network for Cooking Channel at this point. Does anyone else who has seen both channels want to weigh in? I'll be busy trying to think up bribes for my cable company to get them to add this channel.

Merry Christmas!

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.

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.

Semi-Homemade Wordless Wednesday: Broccoli Pie

Okay, I lied, I do have one word...WHY?!

[Photo from Food Network Humor]

Paula Deen's Lasagna Sandwich

Oh, Paula.

Semi-Homemade Moment: Baked Potato Ice Cream

Let's all watch as Sandra Lee makes her Baked Potato Ice Cream.



"If you've ever wondered what to do with the top of your butter dish...".  Actually I never have wondered about that, Sandra.  Silly me, I always just thought that the top of my butter dish was meant to cover my butter.  Thanks for showing me the light.

This recipe is classic semi-homemade.  I'll actually give Sandra a few points here - it's a cute idea, the final product doesn't look that bad, and kids probably would get a kick out of it.  But as usual, the problems pop up when you start to think about how someone would actually eat this.  First of all, that's a LOT of cocoa powder dusted over that potato, and I can't imaging that would taste too good after a couple of bites.  I get that she wanted it to be brown on the outside and white inside like a real potato, but maybe chocolate ice cream would have been a better choice.

Then there's the frozen icing "butter".  She freezes an entire butter dish top full of icing just to use only one slice?  Do I smoosh the rest back into the icing container, or just keep it in the freezer for the next time I decide to serve ice cream potatoes?  And Sandra doesn't say how many this is supposed to serve, but because it's just one big potato, I'm guessing that some people are going to get end pieces that are extra cocoa powdered, and one or two people are going to get the whole "butter" slice to themselves.  Not that I'm that excited about the idea of eating a big slab of frozen lemon icing, but I feel like it might have been better to make some smaller individual potatoes instead of one big one.  Or maybe make use caramel or some other light colored sauce and call it melted butter, just to add more flavor.  I guess that wouldn't be "super simple" enough for our Sandy.

And finally, how truly sad is it that she refers to Reddi-wip as "the fancy spray stuff".  Oh, Sandra.

Semi-Homemade Moment: Brave Recipe Tester

Sometimes people who aren't that familiar with Sandra Lee and her semi-homemade cooking approach wonder why she's so hated by so many people. One of the biggest reasons is that most of her recipes just don't seem to be very good. And the frustrating thing is that with some of them, a couple of simple tweaks would improve the quality by a lot, which leaves people wondering if these recipes are the result of ignorance of laziness or both.

Here's some proof - a very brave person from EvilShenanigans.com tried out Sandra's recipes for cherry pie and king cake.  Her shocking conclusion was that they are not good at all.

Semi-Homemade Moment: It's Delicious!

This video compilation captures the essence of Sandra Lee in about two minutes. Make yourself a cocktail and enjoy.

Some of My Favorite Sites Right Now

Here are ten sites that are favorites of mine right now.  This list should give you some idea of the topics that I'll probably be blogging about a lot.

1. Food Network Humor - I love to cook and watch cooking shows, but I also think the Food Network can be pretty ridiculous sometimes, so I spend a lot of time checking out Food Network Humor.
2. Design*Sponge- This is "a daily website dedicated to home and product design". I could spend hours looking through all of the cool stuff that the Design Sponge team posts every day.
3. Decor8 - Founder Holly Becker says, "I created decor8 to catalog beautiful finds and to inspire others."  Mission accomplished.
4. Orangette - Food blog written by Molly Wizenberg.  I love her column in Bon Appetit and I love this blog. Wonderful recipes, beautiful photos, and great food writing.
5. Cake Wrecks - Yeah, I know, who doesn't love Cake Wrecks?  But that's because it's hilarious.
6. Regretsy - Where DIY Meets WTF
7. Fred Flare - I could spend so much money shopping this site.  Cute clothes and extra super cute home accessories.  How have I lived without an ice cream cone lamp and a cheeseburger phone?
8. Coconut & Lime - Another awesome food blog.
9. The Semi-Homemade Cooking forums on TWoP - Sandra Lee's Food Network show tops my "love to hate" list, so reading this forum is like hanging out with a bunch of like-minded (and hilarious) friends.
10. Better Living Through Design - Features a wide variety of cool, interesting, and sometimes just plain wacky items.  Fun and inspiring.