Sandra Lee is a Master Huckster

Every now and then, in the afternoons, I put The Food Network on as background noise while I'm accomplishing great things. I usually pick up the schedule with Sandra Lee, the brilliant mind behind "Semi-Homemade Cooking with Sandra Lee" which happens to usually be a misnomer as this show is light on cooking and heavy on what we in the academic world call plagiarism. So it's with food...same difference.

In one half-hour, Sandra Lee will manage to make thoroughly unappetizing and, according to the ratings on www.foodtv.com, nearly impossible to re-create recipes using her "30% fresh ingredients, 70% store-bought" formula. She's also the woman who single-handedly forced the word "table-scape" into the public lexicon and re-invented the common usage of the word "embellishment." With her bizarrely proportioned figure (she resembles a Barbie Doll--no joke) and just as equally bizarre kitchen that always matches the type of food she's making, she is the First Lady of semi-authentic cuisine. Which is where I start to go all academic on the Food Network.

More so than ever, especially the rise of the network's own show "The Next Food Network Star," this network is less about cooking and more about some "hook" used by hosts who are not really cooking stars at all but really saavy business men and women who can sell the public an idea. Rachael Ray cooks dinner in 30 minutes, making sure to abbreviate EVOO and GB (garbage bowl) to "save time." Paula Dean (oh lord) makes down-home Southern cookin' y'all, whippin' up desserts and dishes that all include 5 pounds of butter and friend pork fat. Now her sons, Jaime and Bobby, travel the country and...well, eat. We can really be sure what they're contribution is (Bobby's only reasonable connection to food is that he's nice eye candy). Ina Garten desperately wanting to be French, makes inappropriately heavy lunch and dinner combinations and then asks her poor-but-rich invited guests from the Hamptons how good everything is, following up the inquiry with a weird squirrelly laugh. Robin Miller dresses up left-overs for five days. In my family, that would equal a mutiny of seismic proportions. And in the end how many of these fine chefs actually have a culinary career? None...because they're not chefs. In fact, they're not even experts. Their just people with a schtick and a knife (and Sandra Lee doesn't even have a knife.)

Where are the chefs? Bobby Flay, Michael Chiarello, Mario Batali, Giada DiLaurentiis, Alton Brown, Tyler Florence, Dave Lieberman, and Emeril (god love him) are legitimate. Most, however, have been consigned to time-slots that appeal only to those who are on break during the third-shift (Dave Lieberman doesn't even have a regular show...he's now only on the web). A glaring exception: Giada gets a lot of air time and for what I and my male friends insist are two very good reasons (just watch her show once and you'll know). Even if they get decent air-time, they're selling out: Emeril thinks he can sell toothpaste (BAM!) and act on a sitcom. Just the idea is not funny. Tyler Florence now makes quasi-delicious, mediocre and oft-recreated-on-the-line things for Applebees of all crappy chain restaurants.

I pine for the days before Marc Summers (cloying and cheesy host of "Unwrapped") got his grubby paws on the Food Network; these days were ruled by Ming Tsai, Sarah Moulton, and the Two Hot Tamales (Sue Finneger and Susan Millikan). Even Anthony Bourdain was on the network for about five minutes. They weren't catchy, they didn't have little copyrighted or mass-marketed sayings, and they didn't wear low cut t-shirts to make Arugula pesto. When these people told you why you were doing something, you believed them. Why? Because they're professionals, they own their own restaurants, and they KNOW about FOOD. They've earned the right to their authority on the topic of food. Sandra Lee belongs on the Apprentice or QVC...not the Food Network. Why? Because she just made and proclaimed the deliciousness of a drink involving peach schnapps, club soda, and ice cream that just happened to match perfectly with her Asian-inspired tablescape. I don't think Peach Schnapps has anything to do with Asia and making me believe that it does...well, that's the work of a saleswoman...not a chef.