Sandra Lee is so easy to make fun of; she simply has awful taste. Literally and figuratively. I know that's a judgment but I stand behind it, and submit Exh A; the video link in question, please note the floating pearl centerpieces. For someone who spends so much time on this stuff and who cares about it, she never picked up any real design sense and her taste is mired in Dollar Store impressions of class.

A lot of people made fun of her home, which seemed to sell very cheaply IIRC, but then again it was sort of a meh-50s structure to start, which she tarted up. The best part was it was near downtown working-class Mt Kisco, and they referred to it as Chappaqua, which would have been significantly more valuable. Semi-madeup.

OTOH, I understand she had a very difficult upbringing, and she certainly achieved success. More recently, she had a bout with cancer and a bout with a breakup. I feel for her personally, but I would rather see someone demonstrate being simple or economical without being so fake.

Gorgeous little lush lagoon ….

I’m feeling tipsy just watching that. :D

Her recipes were terrible, no doubt. A lot of her aesthetic seemed to be a cartoonish idea of "fancy". I don't know that much about her personally. She's gorgeous and seems like a decent, hardworking human.

She is the WalMart of cuisine and design, so she obviously appeals to a pretty big audience. I have the same impression of Ree Drummond.

Wait ... what? Who is she? You mean this isn't a parody? 🤔😒

I don't know who she is, but I do know who Ree Drummond is, and I can't watch her. She strikes me as very inauthentic.

I've never heard of her....but....have you ever tried using canned crab? It has bits of shell in it....it's HORRIBLE! I tried it "once"....and never again. 🙃 I wonder if she cooks with canned soup...? It says she claims to use 70% ready made in the info I found....

She is VERY pretty....I do love her staged bookcase. Nice pleasant voice and a great menu....I didn't watch it all. I Googled her net worth...$20million....wow.....nice! Working from home making cooking videos sounds pretty good now.... 😁

I forgot about her Kwanzaa cake fiasco. Corn nuts. Yikes.

Much of the criticism of Lee has coalesced around a recipe for "Kwanzaa Cake" that she demonstrated on a 2003 episode of Semi-Homemade Cooking with Sandra Lee. The recipe consisted of angel food cake topped with icing, cinnamon, apple pie filling, pumpkin seeds and corn nuts (which she referred to as acorns), all of which were store-bought, with seven Kwanzaa candles then inserted into the cake.[62]

I've never heard of her either. Agree on Ree.

The thing about Ree is that she tries to come off so homespun and simple working mom, but she is married to a large landowner (443,000 acres) alleged personal worth $200M, (in addition to her own net worth of $50M from doing what she does.) It's not about the money, it's just the disigenuousness, imo, about it.

Ree Drummond lost me when she did a home schooling demonstration with her kids on volcanoes. It was cute to look at, but it actually taught the kids NOTHING about real volcanoes, and in fact when she quipped, "And that's how volcanoes work" it was laughable. Actually, no, that's not how volcanoes work in any way shape or form. I'm not even sure if she was accurately demonstrating how volcanoes LOOK. Good demo of an acid-base chemical reaction though. Teaching is more difficult than just pontificating.

She lost me when she pretended to care about wild horses, yet backed horse slaughter to send meat to other countries. They get millions of taxpayer dollars every year to keep wild horses on the ranch, and act like they take good care of them … when exposes from insiders showed they didn’t.

That’s the condensed version of it from years ago. I don’t know if it’s still this way.

Well, I'm completely shallow. I mostly can't stand her phony smile.

I am certainly no cook…but OMG, that menu looked so processed and unhealthy! ”Add heavy cream to this canned bisque! Add a 1/2 stick butter to these store bought pre-mashed potatoes! Salt, salt everywhere!” I could not get over how she left the store crust in the aluminum pan😂

And I would’ve been horrified/distracted watching that poor Betta swim around in that glass while eating. 😂

i had never seen her show before. My future grandmother in law taught my mother to cook for company. Her instructions were buy the most expensive cut of meat you can afford, that cooks the easiest. Then add gourmet store bought sides. Hide the evidence. That's what I thought semi homemade meant ;-)

nicole___

5 hours ago

last modified: 5 hours ago

I've never heard of her....but....have you ever tried using canned crab? It has bits of shell in it....it's HORRIBLE! I tried it "once"....and never again. 🙃 I wonder if she cooks with canned soup...? It says she claims to use 70% ready made in the info I found....

She is VERY pretty....I do love her staged bookcase. Nice pleasant voice and a great menu....I didn't watch it all. I Googled her net worth...$20million....wow.....nice! Working from home making cooking videos sounds pretty good now.... 😁

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These shows/clip are from her Food Network show a few decades back

She originally came to fame with w/a window treatment 'gizmo' Kurtain Kraft

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQgaU-hyNVY

She married Chairman and CEO of KB Home who was a major home builder across the US

Later she was former Gov Coumo's partner

My MIL used to love to watch her show. Bought me her cookbook, I never tried any of the recipes, just did not appeal

to me.

Never heard of Sandra Lee and she obviously doesnt have a grasp on how much a jigger holds. She poured about a half a cup of vodka into that mix, not thatnthere’s anything wrong with that.

As for Ree Drummond, i swear she is Paula Deen’s evil spawn. Maybe she forgets that the rest of us do not work as farm hands. As Pal mentioned, she married into an incredibly wealthy family.

The ”volcano” recipe of baking soda and white vinegar with some dish soap added helped unclog our kitchen drain a few weeks back, LOL.

Why doesn't she just drink Everclear from the bottle and be done with it?

I confess I watch Pioneer Woman if I'm around a TV on Saturday mornings, only for her recipes. I made her cinnamon rolls and other things and they're pretty darn good. The Drummonds do have a reputation of sorts here in OK, all on the business side.

Jinx, look at how much money they make for letting wild horses on their land. I was going to c&P Tulsa World's article but you have to pay.

One thing I do NOT like about the Drummonds is they actually let their daughters go to college in Texas and Arkansas. Turncoats they are! No offense Jinx. :)

The one that drives me absolutely insane is Giada De Laurentis. Too pretentious for me. Can't tolerate her at all.

Barefoot Contessa is always good but I can do without Ida and Jeffrey's syrupy lovie dovie stuff.

I like Giada's recipes but I don't for one second believe that she eats anything other than breathmints and kale, and probably kale breathmints.

I like Ina, and I love her story and her relationship with Mr Ina. I find their role modelling of a supportive,compatible loving couple, still romantic in middle age, refreshing and salutary. It reminds me too, of the Childs.

My thoughts from watching Rae (years ago now) are that her food is awfully heavy unless you are a teenage male ranch hand. I don't think her food is cr@ppy like Ms. Lee's' it's just not of much interest to me. If I just want to make something tasty, I can make mac n cheese like anyone else. If I am going to a lot of trouble it should be tasty, interesting, AND relatively healthy. Show me how to do that and I will watch.

My like for Oakley's comment was for her dislike of Giada. It is too bizarre having someone so exaggeratedly skinny selling recipes. Plus I find her mannerism grating beyond belief. The Italian pronunciations are the cherry on top of the parfait of ridiculousness that she is.

The Ina & Jeffrey story, I love and can't get enough of.

The Rae person, I have never watched. Saw a recipe for mashed potatoes that involved cream cheese- how on Earth is that possible?

Adding cream cheese to mashed potatoes goes back decades from what I remember - most often it was to dress them up when entertaining

"Saw a recipe for mashed potatoes that involved cream cheese- how on Earth is that possible?"

umm, YUM! I wouldn't have believed it either but those make-ahead mashed potatoes with cream cheese are pretty darn good!

I've watched cooking shows since The Galloping Gourmet was on. I have seen a few bits and pieces of Sandra Lee over the years. She's sheer entertainment if you can stand her fake fake fake. Favorite Funnies were her table scapes and costumes. She introduced me to that label "table Scape". I always thought of her as a parody of Martha!!! She faded into history when she married a politician and had to give up her show, I thought. Now you have me racking my brain for one of my favorite cooking shows and it's not to be found...female, not a young girl, sophisticated, of the era of Graham Kerr but she's not showing up in my searches ARG!! Before Martha or Ida or Lidia even...this will drive me nuts trying to recall her name.

Natalie Dupree!!! That's the cook I learned the most from. How did she not appear in any of my searches!!?

I used to get a kick out of Sandra...especially the way she changed her whole set for each show, color coordinating her outfit to the tchotchkes and her table setting. I always wondered what size warehouse they had to store all that carp! Her cooking style reminded me of the old Peg Bracken and her "I Hate to Cook" book....make it down and dirty and get something on the table type cooking. The antithesis of foodie, which not everyone needs to be.