Semi Homemade with Sandra Lee

The show is half an hour and has three parts. Her kitchen is always redecorated to match her theme of the show (always). She does the cooking part, then the cocktails part , the Table scapes, where she shows you how to over decorate your table using things you have "around" or have gone nad spent a fortune for at the craft store and various places. She made a Kwanzaa cake one year that featured corn nuts.

Evidentally she was at CIA for 3 weeks and then quit becuase it was too hard.

She regularly talks about buying a pie at the grocery store, (say an apple or pumpkin), and then scraping out the filling and using that in some other shell. "and you can use the crust over ice cream!"

Oh and she's made cheesy corn. She took fresh corn, pulled the sliks off, left the leaves to be grilled. Sounds fine right? No, then she slathers it with margarine, and then takes a packet of cheese from KRaft Mac and Cheese, and rolls the corn in the cheese powder, folds the leaves up, wraps in foil to be grilled.

And why would you have powdered Alfredo sauce around and not have Parmesan cheese around?

the woman's tablescapes are the stuff of nightmares

Her "concept" is taking 70% store bought and using 30% fresh to make meals.

And she seems to believe that store bought and processed is always better than fresh even when it's cheaper and easier.

Plus the woman likes her mixed drinks waaaaay too much.

And why would you have powdered Alfredo sauce around and not have Parmesan cheese around?

Because you spent all of your money on liquor.

I think my eye brows are a little on the thin side, so I am trying to grow them a little fuller. Especially since my friend told me that her mom plucked her eyebrows thin for years and finally they stopped growing back. I also have lots of pale, pale eyebrow hairs, that, had they any pigment, would make me Brezhnev, and I am never sure what to do with them. (Actually I have a fine down all over my face which makes me crazy at times.)

I get my eyebrows waxed. My skin is way too sensitive for plucking -- I end up with a face full of broken blood vessels.

I am the exact opposite, waxing makes them red for days, but plucking is only a temporary redness.

That cheese corn is pretty much the same thing. Why would you used powdered cheese from a mac and cheese box when you can just as easily use actual cheese? Buy it already grated, and it's the exact same amount of work.

I just asked T's dad if she could take care of the cats and if she wants to go to the Inauguration with me. Thank god for email (talking to him on the phone is... well it is long and random and really random and tiring!)

Plus the woman likes her mixed drinks waaaaay too much.

Which would explain the recipes o'fake food. I have never heard of this woman and I think I am glad. I mean, even the cookbook, From the Backs of Boxes, Bottles, Cans, and Jars encourages the use of real food.

So, I'm using Cheater BBQ's Pulled Pork recipe, and, I had heard him on Lynne Rosetto Kasper's show talking about this exact recipe which calls for a half cup of liquid smoke. I think 4 oz of liquid smoke is crazy. But I'm trying it.

I'm fascinated by liquid smoke and how it's made and how it isn't actually a chemical. CRAZY.

Oh, in random convergence news, I'm re-reading Murder Must Advertise, and I realize that's probably the 1930s the woman in Sophia's article wants to live in. Not even Wimsey's world, but the world of the ad agency people. Also, there's a female copywriter, which makes me think of Mad Men, thirty years (and one world war and ensuing backlash, at least in the US) later.