Michael Ruhlman: ...Why Sandra Lee is not Evil Incarnate

[supernova]

R'uh R'oh Raggy!

:hide: Don't hate me, but MR brings up an interesting point.

The other day, out of the blue, my wife Donna said to me, "Remember when we used to make fettuccini Alfredo using that Knorr powder?"

She could have hit me on the head with a Griswold and gotten the same effect. "My God, she's right," I thought. For someone who urges people to make BLTs from scratch (cure your own bacon, bake your own bread, grow your lettuce and tomato, make your own mayo), someone who rails at a country that buys into food companies' insistence that cooking is too hard and you're to STUPID, this is an admission. I'll repeat it: For years, I used Knorr powder to make Alfredo sauce for pasta.

I began cooking in the fourth grade because I was home alone after school and hungry. If I wanted food, I had to make it myself, and starch out of a bag (pretzels) and hot buttered starch (macaroni, a bagel) get tired after awhile. The first wholly independent creation came after a Julia Child TV show gave me the inspiration to make a fruit tart (truly awful, but my father, arriving home from work, registered astonishment sufficient to warrant my disregarding the actual flavor and register the pasty pastry as an accomplishment).

....

Which is why I don't rail against even the worst of the dump-and-stir cooking shows; why, yes, I would not try to dissuade you from watching Sandra Lee and making her Semi-Homemade goods. If that's your thing, so be it. True, my evil cohort, Tony Bourdain has called Ms. Lee the "frightening hell-spawn of Kathy Lee Gifford and Betty Crocker seems on a mission to kill her fans, one meal at a time"--and not without justification.

more http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-ruhlman/becoming-better-cooks-or_b_535413.html

I'm pretty sure Bourdain will not let this pass. Will be watching his posting haunts the next few days. :-)

[Warpy]

1. I respectfully disagree

simply because Lee has no idea when to stop and her recipes are just awful. She takes what would be plastic but inoffensive and throws in a few unnecessary and/or clashing ingredients and turns it into something gag inducing. Anyone who tries her shit will have his head in the toilet in hours and probably never try to cook again.

This is why she is Satanic and must be stopped.

There has to be a better dump and cook person out there, one who can take the processed stuff a lot of working mothers rely on and turn it into something special. Although I graduated from the cream of mushroom soup school of cooking in the late 60s and moved on, I did manage to disguise it so that no one suspected I hadn't made my own mushroom flavored bechamel. It can be done, in other words, but Lee is utterly incapable of doing it.

Rachel Ray is better, using common sense shortcuts like bottled mayo and precut veggies, but her promise of a tasty dinner in 30 minutes is only half fulfilled. An ordinary home cook can duplicate the tasty part easily, but usually in an hour rather than 30 minutes. Some truth in advertising might help there.

Lee either needs to find someone who can actually cook to hand her the recipes for dump and heat cooking or she needs to be replaced by the same.

[MajorChode]

2. I really don't understand what the controversy is

I never watch Lee, but obviously enough people do that her show remains on the air. Bourdain's Food Network show flopped so he blames Lee. It all seems so petty and ridiculous. Obviously Bourdain hasn't gotten over his jealousy. He should learn to get over it and move on.

[The empressof all]

3. Ruhlman's right ....Bourdain is wrong

Sorry Tony but we all should lighten up a bit with the food purity challenges. There are far too many better battles out there....Milk vs Dark? Drip vs French Press?

I love the little hot dogs in the jelly chili sauce ....

I say...COOK WHAT YOU WANT ....And if I want to eat Kraft Dinner made with Rotel and Boca Burger Bits who the frig cares?

[TreasonousBastard]

4. He says "I don't care where you start, only that you start" and those are...

the wisest words in all of this verbosity and food snobbery.

I am convinced Bourdain loves the sound of his own voice far more than any food he has ever tried. Nothing is good enough for him except those rarifed delights only he and the chosen few can find or afford anyway.

Lee cooks like real people do, and that is why she is so much more popular than Bourdain could ever be. She doesn't insult her audience, implying they don't have the taste or talent to do things right. What she does is show people that the big, hulking stove in your kitchen isn't just wasting space.

What she doesn't tell you is that once you have dipped your toe in the water you just might want to jump in. Sneaky, that.

[hippywife]

5. I don't like her one bit.

Oh, sure she might encourage people to get into the kitchen and make something themselves, but she doesn't encourage wholesome, real food really. She encourages shortcuts that aren't necessary using processed foods that are laden with too much salt and many unpronounceable ingredients. People watch her and think that is okay.

And I am not a gourmet cook so I don't base my comments on that. I base them on the fact that she does nothing to make people realize that eating canned and processed crap is totally not good for anyone.

YMMV. :hi:

[The empressof all]

6. Have you seen her new show?

Her new show is based upon cooking budget meals. A great deal of what she makes is from scratch. She does a pretty good job in explaining cost savings of scratch vs convienience foods (or vise versa)

She's far from my favorite FN cook but The Sandra Lee hate I see on the internet sometimes just doesn't always seem in proportion to what she really does. I'd be the first to agree the Kwanza cake was a bit far out there but if you don't cook she explains how to prepare basics and her focus is on fairly familiar products and meals that people want to eat on a regular basis.


When you don't cook there's something valuable in having someone open that box of Bisquick with you...Instead of going to McDonalds for yet again another Egg McMuffin.

[pengillian101]

7. Good summation.

"When you don't cook there's something valuable in having someone open that box of Bisquick with you...Instead of going to McDonalds for yet again another Egg McMuffin."

I think she is teaching the newer cooks, that are just learning. We all started at some point, eh?

I found my love of cooking in 7th grade junior-high home economics class in the '60's. Wow, the joy of making cinnamon-caramel rolls/buns that I could make those wonderful yummy delights myself, whenever I wanted them.

That was my torch of love in cooking/baking. And accolades from my family back then - helped in my joy of the kitchen.

My sis and I cooked many family meals, as both our folks worked.

[tigereye]

12. yes, and it really isn't that hard to make good food from scratch - there are

so many wonderful, fairly easy and healthy recipes out there. Maybe it's that people 1. don't know any more what fresh fruits, veggies and ingredients are or where they come from, or 2. never learned that foods don't have to come out of a box, can, bag or tube. It still amazes me that people make cookies from a tube when it's so easy to even make them from the back of a chocolate chip bag! And the processed stuff has so many chemicals, salt, fat, lard, what have you and usually tastes awful.

I think the slow food/organic resurgence is one of the best things that could happen to cooking, and eating. I love Kingsolver's recent book, not that everyone has to move back to a farm and only eat what they can grow! We joined a CSA (community share buying from local farmers) and it's been a revelation with greens, heirloom tomatoes, blueberries, etc. all grown and eaten in season. It's not that expensive and so benefits local growers.

Scrap those damn cans and processed stuff, I say, some of the time. Your body and local farmers will thank you! I have to say that there are so many more recipes now I have been willing to try that are SO GOOD and not so hard.


:hi:

[Phentex]

8. It's her voice that I can't stand...

I could forgive her tablescapes and the way she'll add brown sugar to store bought cookie dough, but I cannot stand her voice. So I think I've seen 3 or 4 episodes. She seems like a nice enough person. I just wish she didn't duh-raaaaag out her phu-rases when she's buh-lending her mar-gar-eeeeetas.

:P

[supernova]

9. lol!

It wouldn't kill her to maybe take an acting class focusing on stage presence. Actors learn how to do that without sounding so artificial. :-)

[supernova]

10. I tickles me no end

that Michael Ruhlman used to make alfredo with Knorr seasoning packets.

:rofl:

It takes a big chef to fess up to that. :D

Disclaimer: I did too. Hey, it was the 80s! I learned better over the years.

edit; I don't make it anymore though, since it's a heart attack on a plate. :P

[The empressof all]

11. I make a halfway decent lower fat Semi- Alfredo

I use fat free evaporated milk and egg beaters but I don't skimp on the real cheese. I just use half the amount I would ordinarily use. I add a bit of sauteed onion, mushroom and whatever other veggies I have around the house. It's pretty good with Asparagus. I use Dreamfields or one of the other "Healthy Pastas". By no means is it as delicious as the real thing but when you "NEED" a fix of creamy pasta it will satisfy that itch.

The Fat Free Evaporated Milk is one of those products that gets a huge :thumbsup: I've heard that it's possible to even Whip it if you get it really cold but I haven't tried it.