SLop Strikes Back (Sorta): An inside look at the Food Network's Sandra Lee
Ubiquitous
BY ELISA UNG
Sandra Lee is not who you might think she is. Yes, she is very thin and
very blond and brimming with ideas for flowery curtains. Yes, she really
believes in her "semi-homemade" cooking strategy, which involves combining
shortcut products such as packaged pizza dough and cake mix with fresh
ingredients for recipes such as foie gras pop tarts and almond joy layer
cake. And, yes, the set of her Food Network show is blindingly white and
involves KitchenAid mixers in every conceivable color.
Even Lee concedes: Some people watch her show, "and they think it's very
Samantha Stephens, Stepford-y, for the sheer fact that I'm blond and
everything matches."
But know this: Under her frothy, carefree televised persona lies a sassy,
world-wise and very sharp businesswoman who has built a virtual empire
around providing shortcuts for the busy homemaker. And her famous
semi-homemade strategy was born from an impoverished, abusive childhood in
which Lee essentially raised her younger brothers and sisters, trying to
create nice things for them while stretching every dollar.
In her recent memoir, "you learn that my mom got pregnant at 15, didn't
abort because we're Catholic, my stepfather's brother got blown up by a
foxhole in Vietnam, and I went to live with my grandmother and my mom
left," Lee said. "That's, like, the first two pages."
As Lee recently prepared to tape the 200th episode of "Semi-Homemade
Cooking With Sandra Lee" on a set in Brooklyn, she recalled how she wasn't
always so confident articulating her vision on camera. "Every time they
yelled 'Cut!' I would cry. I had to get waterproof mascara because I didn't
know what I was doing." She had had little experience cooking on camera
until signing with Food Network.
"For some reason, I always have to do the hardest thing first ... get it
out of the way, and then life gets easier. And it's been that way my whole
life. It's just what it's supposed to be for me."
Lee never wanted viewers to know this much about her life. "There was
really no reason for me to talk about it. The show is not about my life.
The show is about my being able to provide a unique platform for those
overextended homemakers to benefit from."
But all that changed when the Food Network asked her to be the subject of
"Chefography," a biographical series of some of its personalities.
Reluctantly, she agreed, recalling in her memoir how her background shocked
Bob Tuschman, the network's senior vice president for programming and
production. "Nobody knew I grew up on food stamps," she said. "They thought
I had it super easy and always had money."
Personal struggles
Tuschman says that before "Chefography," "even people who loved Sandra had
no idea of what she had struggled with growing up. It explained where she
came up with the very clever ideas she had," because she grew up "having to
be very smart with very little money while putting food on the table for
her brothers and sisters."
Then came a book contract to write her memoir, "Made From Scratch"
(Meredith, 2007), which she wrote in six weeks and was released last year.
It tells of her mother beating her, her stepfather sexually abusing her,
and turning to fried corn cakes and corn dogs to feed her siblings cheaply.
While promoting the book, she said she wound up softening its content to
shield her younger fans.
What they can read instead are Lee's 17 cookbooks. Chefs Wolfgang Puck and
Tyler Florence, among others, have written introductions. However, Lee's
love of packaged foods filled with preservatives (and, often, fat and salt)
has prompted criticism from others. Celebrity shock-chef Anthony Bourdain
once called her "Pure evil. This frightening Hell Spawn of Kathie Lee and
Betty Crocker seems on a mission to kill her fans, one meal at a time."
Not so fast, Lee says. "If you think about the great women in food, Julia
Child was using ... butter. It wasn't a tablespoon. She was drinking her
wine and she was pouring it into whatever she was making. And it was fine.
And all of a sudden now that I'm doing it ... [BITCH! How DARE she compare
herself to Julia Child!]]
"Whenever you're at the forefront of something ... you're going to take the
criticism, the hit. And that's OK. Look how many people it's helped."
Lee recalls crafting a stacked Twinkie cake recipe for her now 6-year-old
nephew, Bryce, to cook on her show. But at the last minute, she called her
producer and said, "I can't put that in his body. He has to make a bran
muffin with a yogurt sauce, which is what we made." [What REALLY happened:
Hostess called her producer and said "We don;t want our fine products
associated with that hack."]
Lee has no children of her own, but her siblings, nieces and nephews are
frequent guests on her show and in her books. Divorced from former KB Home
CEO Bruce Karatz, she has been dating Andrew Cuomo, the New York attorney
general, for nearly three years. His three young daughters (whose mother,
Kerry Kennedy, is daughter of the late Bobby Kennedy) have appeared on
Lee's show and in her "Semi-Homemade Cooking 3" (Meredith, 2007) cookbook.
Reggie Southerland, a runner-up on "The Next Food Network Star" who has
cooked on Lee's show, describes her as generous. "She is so fun, and very,
very silly," he said, "and I don't know that people get the chance to see
that. And she's got a little bit of a potty mouth, which is fascinating and
so hysterical. I wish she could use all that stuff on her show."
Lee notes that her show has a wider focus than any other Food Network show
-- and she feels that's why it's succeeded. "When you do 200
'Semi-Homemade' shows, you've got 200 window treatments, 200 tablescapes,
200 plate patterns, 200 outfits that match, 200 colored KitchenAid sets."
In order to keep it accessible, the show cannot spend more than $1,000 for
props on a single episode. [One THOUSAND dollars per ep? How the hell is
this in any form "accessible? Also, I call "shenanigans on that price when
those four plates in "The Plates Have Eyes" ep cost $250 apiece!]
Lee once quit Le Cordon Bleu, finding it too rigorous. But, she said, "I
can look at a recipe from scratch that has 25 ingredients and break it down
into five to seven ingredients and cut the time in a quarter. We all have
gifts -- that is one of mine. And I can see it in everything."
[Conveniently failing to mention she bailed after two or three days in
a week-long cooking seminar]
Anim8rFSK
Ubiquitous <web...@polaris.net> wrote:
> my stepfather's brother got blown up by a
> foxhole in Vietnam
um
say what?
--
Star Trek 09:
No Shat, No Show.
http://www.disneysub.com/board/noshat.jpg
Pete B
ANIM...@cox.net says...
> In article <ft2blg$jsg$1...@news.utelfla.com>,
> Ubiquitous <web...@polaris.net> wrote:
>
> > my stepfather's brother got blown up by a
> > foxhole in Vietnam
>
> um
>
> say what?
A derogative term for an attractive Viet Cong
Ubiquitous
> Ubiquitous <web...@polaris.net> wrote:
>> my stepfather's brother got blown up by a foxhole in Vietnam
>
> um
>
> say what?
Ditto.
I just love how she describes her oh-so-Dickenson life and ends it with
a perky "And that's just the first three pages!". Her comparing herself
to Julia Child reenforces my impression of her as a hack with delusions
of grandeur or someone who knows all she knows about Julia came from
watching that classic SNL sketch with Dan Ackroyd.
1bit...@gmail.com
No SKANKDY, most people just think you are a talentless hack.
Stepford Wives know how to cook.
Mare
> ANIM8R...@cox.net says...
>
> > Ubiquitous <web...@polaris.net> wrote:
> >> my stepfather's brother got blown up by a foxhole in Vietnam
>
> > um
>
> > say what?
>
> Ditto.
>
> I just love how she describes her oh-so-Dickenson life and ends it with
> a perky "And that's just the first three pages!".
Hey Ubi, is that "Dickenson" as in Janice the SuperModel from hell
spelled incorrectly, or did you mean Dickensian?
Mare - either way it works, since Janice had some bad ass father who
*could* have ended up in a Dickens story
bat_flip
> No SKANKDY, most people just think you are a talentless hack.
> Stepford Wives know how to cook.
Touche'. Somehow, I don't count opening prepackage food, stirring the
resulting mess with a spoon, and
reheating it counts as "cooking". Hell, half SLop's ingredients BARELY
qualify as food in my book.
Bat
Ubiquitous
>> > Ubiquitous <web...@polaris.net> wrote:
>> >> my stepfather's brother got blown up by a foxhole in Vietnam
>>
>> > um
>>
>> > say what?
>>
>> Ditto.
>>
>> I just love how she describes her oh-so-Dickenson life and ends it
>> with a perky "And that's just the first three pages!".
>
>Hey Ubi, is that "Dickenson" as in Janice the SuperModel from hell
>spelled incorrectly, or did you mean Dickensian?
As in "Charles Dickenson", author of "Lowered Expectations", etc.
Dennis
Word is "Dickensian" not "Dickenson".
Fatboy
Dennis
Not a fan of "Lowered Expectations".
Pete B
nw...@yahoo.com says...
Not if its Lowered Expectations ;)
1bit...@gmail.com
bio???
I love how today both Ina Garten and Giada took little digs at
tablescapes and pre-packaged food. Get that bitch -- GET HER!!!
Anim8rFSK
<a94c260c-d859-4adc...@8g2000hse.googlegroups.com>,
1bit...@gmail.com wrote:
> Why hasn't anyone called her on her lies and inconsistencies in her
> bio???
We do, all the time. Beyond that, I think it's basically that nobody
cares.
>
> I love how today both Ina Garten and Giada took little digs at
> tablescapes and pre-packaged food. Get that bitch -- GET HER!!!
--
1bit...@gmail.com
> In article
> <a94c260c-d859-4adc-ac4e-8e19023e7...@8g2000hse.googlegroups.com>,
>
> 1bitt...@gmail.com wrote:
> > Why hasn't anyone called her on her lies and inconsistencies in her
> > bio???
>
> We do, all the time. Beyond that, I think it's basically that nobody
> cares.
Well, if Andy Cuomo ever runs for another office, hopefully her true
story will come out. That is, if her food and booze haven't killed
him.
> > I love how today both Ina Garten and Giada took little digs at
> > tablescapes and pre-packaged food. Get that bitch -- GET HER!!!
>
> --
> Star Trek 09:
>
> No Shat, No Show.
:)
Ubiquitous
>Why hasn't anyone called her on her lies and inconsistencies in her bio???
I suspect Food Network has some sort of clause in their contract that
prevents them from doing that, otherwise I am sure we'd have heard
from their other "personalities" (Emeril,Flay,Tyler, Mario, more?) whose
food she has slandered by now.
Not that you can find a lack of others dissing her, tho...