All You Need Is Aunt Sandy Claus

Christmas comes but once a year, but it's always "Cocktail Time"!

And of course, who could forget the Green Icing Monster "Heirloom" "Noel" "Cake"? You know: the one where she buys pre-bought cake as an ingredient for her cake!

Now don't that just SCREAM "Christmas"? Seriously, I can hear Christmas screaming right now. Merry First Day of Christmas, y'all!

ANOTHER Crazy Halloween with Aunt Sandy

Last year was, to the best of my knowledge, the date of Sandra Lee's most recent Halloween special.  We all know how she loves to dress up in ridiculous costumes and make her, ahem, food and cocktails for her dozens of adoring fans.  I missed this Halloween special - and this one was a whole hour long, doubling our pleasure and doubling our fun!  I did catch the 3 1/2 minute compressed version one person posted on Youtube (since pulled down), though I've made my own photographic compilations of her previous Halloween specials before (favorite one here).

Well this year I finally got to see it, while waiting for work to re-open after Hurricane Sandy hit (Coincidence?  I think not).  And this special was just as all cray-cray as I had anticipated.

So this is the world through Lee-colored glasses?  Trippy.

"Did somebody misplace my cocktail?  Ah hell, I'll just make another one."

"Here I threw in some raspberries with some 'magical swampwater juice' and a few things in the back of the fridge."

"Really, anything at all will do.  Just add vodka."

Leave her down there, Food Network!  Leave her down there!!!

"Meringues with Sugar Dots icing-glued on.  And on sticks!  What fun!"

Yes people, there is a horse in the background.

There's just something about watching a drag queen on a cooking show.  Hey, why hasn't Logo been called for this?  RuPaul's Drag Race Cook-Off!  UN-TUCKED!

"Because I'm Cher, bitch!"

"No - I'm Cher, bitch!  Now how about that drag cook-off, Ru?"

Is it just me or is naming this cocktail "fire water" not the most racially sensitive idea?

TIME FOR GOOFY VALUE CITY DANCERS!!!

Oh no, THIS cannot be good.

Don't worry, little bird,  Aunt Sandy only uses poultry from the supermarket case.  Non-frozen.  Saves time (though you could just make a cocktail while you're waiting).

Cocktail Time.  Because every cocktail should be 90% milk.

WAAAAAAAAH! (from the audience, not from the grape-stomping barrel)

In case you didn't know, this is maple syrup.  Guess what she used it for.  Go on. 

That's right, kids!  She used it to rim the glass with cinnamon, or was it pumpkin spice?  Oh hell, who knows?  I stopped paying attention after she climbed out of the grape-stomping barrel.  With perfectly clean feet, I might add.

"What, you don't like my maple-pumpkin-spiced cocktail?  More for me!"

Just try picking up these pumpkin Jell-O shots from the stem.  Won't work.

"WAAAAAAAAH!" (Yep, Aunt Sandy this time.  That's what you get for that maple-pumpkin-spiced cocktail, Sandy.  Or maybe that's in anticipation for Sandra's Restaurant Remakes?)

Um, Ms. Lee, you do know this is a Halloween special, right?  Right?

And guess who's hiding inside this adorable little checkerboard-colored gingerbread house?  That's right: AUNT SANDY CLAUS!

"I love Halloween because it reminds me of Christmas.  Anyone for some wassail? >>HIC<<"

"Now for my Christmastime-at-Halloween segment, I'm making soft, crunchy Rice Krispie pops, dripping with white chocolate!"

O_o

(Where are Molly Shannon and Ana Gasteyer with their Delicious Dish shtick when you need 'em?  Oh wells, guess I'll just have to fill in for 'em.  Ahem.)

"Mmmm, look at all those gorgeous, sticky balls?  I just can't wait to get my hands on 'em."

"Don't worry, a little poking never really hurts your balls."

"God, I just love dripping, wet balls in my mouth."

(So do I, folks.  So do I.)

"And you know, you don't have to just leave your drippy balls alone.  Play around with them a bit."

"I like my balls with sprinkles.  Lots of people love 'em with sprinkles."

(Okay now THAT is some kinky shit I am just not into.  But to each their own.  Now please let's just get out of here.)

Oh God, is this starting all over AGAIN!?

Once more we descend into the deepest tablescape-y depths of the Sandyverse.  Or maybe this is some sort of meditation thing?

Nope, she's probably just buzzed.

What. The. Hell?

Oh, just another crappy tablescape.

Hasenpfeffer?  **EXASPERATED SIGH** When will you people learn? Sandy doesn't gut her own food!



"I've been considering F-words, you know." (She actually said this)  Would it be too easy to list a few I thought of myself while watching this special?

"No more cocktail? WAAAAAAAAAAH!"

Yes, another fun-filled, embarrassing Halloween special from Aunt Sandy.  Now where is my book of hangover cures?  Ah, fuck it.  Let's just watch Cher again.



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Cafe Hon, Revisited.

I admit that I'm probably the last food blogger in Baltimore that has not yet seen Gordon Ramsay's epic visit to Cafe Hon - or read about his recent return.  But color me one of the teeming Charm City masses that did give up on the place a while back.  Yes, I admit it was the whole trademark thing and other small business controversies that ultimately did it.  And of course, there were problems with the food.  But with Whiting dealing head on with her Kitchen Nightmares, I thought it was finally time to check out Cafe Hon again, to see what has changed.  And so I did last weekend (Yes, it took this long to write about it.  I have a day job, y'all).

It is more cheerful than it used to be, and not in the annoying "Hey, hon? Hal y'all doin' hon? Hal baot dem O's hon?" kind of way.  Elvis is still there, of course, as well he should be.  A private party was in the bar area and at first it looked like there weren't many patrons in the main section.  But more than a few were tucked into the booths, a good sign for an early weekend night.  I was seated quickly and - thankfully - did not encounter any obnoxious beehive hairdos (revoke my Bawlmer citizenship card, alright?  Everything in moderation, even beehives).

Glancing at the new menu, I noticed a lot of the old standards, including the crab cakes, the meatloaves, the burgers and so on.  This time however I aimed for the specials menu, whose tuna caprese sandwich caught my eye: for about $11, I don't exactly recall, you get two pieces of tuna - small enough for both to fit side by side in the sandwich - covered with mozzarella and sitting on top of chopped olives, on a bun.  The sandwich is served with potato chips on the side (Utz?).

I didn't wait too long for it while sipping on my beer.  My first reaction to the sandwich: it looks good.  Then I tried to pick it up, and the sandwich easily fell apart.  The physics of the sandwich just made it difficult to hold, I guess.  This was a minor annoyance, but I put it back together and held the bun more tightly around the tuna.  It was pleasantly salty - again, the olives - and the tuna was not dry at all.  It was a sandwich I easily could plow through, but I did take it slowly.  I'm glad I did because I bit down almost full force into an olive pit!  No broken teeth, but this I was not expecting.  It does suggest that they're not getting their olives from a can, but using the good ones.  Still, ouchie.

I figured at the end of the meal the only problems with the sandwich were not flavor or texture related but purely logistical, which isn't a bad thing.  Perhaps the tuna caprese would work better as a wrap?  It certainly wouldn't fall apart.  The only other suggestion: let people know there might be olive pits in the sandwich.  Maybe they did offer such a warning and I missed it, but if not there should be one.  But I will note that it was, overall, a good sandwich.

I did order a slice of mile-high devil's food cake after.  I could not finish it, but I did enjoy eating the rest of it the next day.

In all though, I think Ramsay's visit to the House of Whiting worked well.  Would I go back to Cafe Hon, hons?  Well yes, I would go back.  But I'd eat anything with olives a little more carefully.  Advice for any olive dish anywhere, really.  Maybe I'll tiptoe back to the meatloaf next time.

Dancing Queens!

Sometimes you just gotta be ridiculous.

 

Things we probably won't see on the Food Network... but should

When I first saw current Doctor Who Matt Smith's inaugural episode, I was bemusedly disgusted with his request for fish fingers (fish sticks to us) and custard from a little Scottish kid that should have been more confused than she was by the strange man invading her kitchen.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago and you have the Youtube cooking show Feast of Fiction, which takes culinary scenes from popular televised fiction and transforms them into actual recipes!  For those who always wanted their own fish fingers and custard: they made this for you!

The Supersizers Go On and On...

photo courtesy of The Guardian UK

I don't have cable at home, but Mom does!  So I typically get my Bitchin' Kitchen, Walking Dead and Ghost Hunters fix there (I typically head to the Hippo for my RuPaul fix).  One show that has been on the Cooking Channel lately but that I haven't caught is the British show The Supersizers Go...  The premise behind this BBC Two series from 2008 is the following: journalist/food critic Giles Coren and comedienne/broadcaster (TV host) Sue Perkins spend a week trying to eat, dress and otherwise live - but especially eat - like people from a specific time period in British history (with TV cameras and a smart-alecky disposition).  I love getting all academic about food, so this TV show is right up my alley.  

The one episode I've seen thus far, The Supersizers Go Wartime (Coren and Perkins spend a week living on rations like a WWII couple, and I'm loving Nancy Banks-Smith's backstory of the episode from when it first aired) is inspiring me not just to appreciate the fact that I have more than enough to eat, but also to explore some of the wartime recipes.  Yes, I am that crazy.  And were I not currently working my way through the foods of the United States I might try out some of the foods from this episode, based on the rations that the British were subject to during wartime, which was meant not just to save money for the war effort but to keep Brits as healthy as possible: all the vegetables you could grow and eat, and presumably whatever you could hunt, but a very limited amount of the rest: a little lard, butter and margarine, meat and just one egg - but lots of American powdered "eggs"!

Some of the dishes that particularly stood out from this episode: paraffin wax cake (since Coren only had a tablespoon of lard left for the week), wartime trifle (potato starch cream, mmmm), scrambled powdered "eggs" (Perkins described the smell as "rank" though the flavor was not so bad) and the snails that Perkins found in the yard (You should've seen her with a mouthful of grass in her mouth.  Things were desperate.)

I wanted to find a little clip of an episode to link to, but really all the episodes are floating around on YouTube.  And they're not all illegal.  They have their own Supersizers YouTube channel (last activity almost two years ago but still), so I can catch up with them all.  The Roman Empire one looks particularly interesting.

Look at the funny chef!

Ever since I caught a Thanksgiving marathon of Nadia G's Bitchin' Kitchen at my sister's house, I I have been fascinated by this hilarious show.  Those of you who have seen Italian-Quebecois chef Nadia Giosia (Nadia G) and her band of merry men may understand why I have taken to calling her the "anti-Sandra Lee": because she has edible food with a heavy dash of humor that is actually funny.  Plus, none of those irritating "tablescapes".

Which explains this all-star Christmas video from her recent Christmas special.  Watch for the rockin' guy in the Ravens jersey. Yeah you know who I'm talking about.

Parce que c'est la Fête Nationale (de la France)

Today is Bastille Day, and hopefully we are having a better one than the French Women's World Cup team (congrats to our own Women's World Cup team, who play Japan in the final round on Sunday).

Back to Bastille Day: find some good French eatin' around town this weekend - anything from crepes to escargot (Urbanspoon has the lowdown on all the French food around Baltimore). Or you could just pack up a Chinese food container with profiteroles lovingly made in your kitchen in the Hamptons, like Ina does. Because nothing screams "Overthrow the monarchy!" like the Hamptons.

Doctor Who RECIPES?

In gathering links for my previous post about Elisabeth Sladen (still very sad), I discovered a "Recipes" section on BBC America's Doctor Who website. The funniest: the Sonic Screwdriver, named for the Doctor's ubiquitous extra-terrestrial "jackknife" of sorts, but with alcohol. The most disturbing: erm, Dalek mini-cakes? "Exterminate" isn't quite the word I would use to describe it.

Happy Hanukkah, Bobby Flay!

For the Jewish Festival of Lights, a most unusual brisket - with a barbecue twist!?

Say it ain't so, Duff!

Somewhere in America, a small battery-operated motor embedded on top of a massive police car-shaped cake, has died. The Food Network is canceling Ace of Cakes:

The network says in a statement that the show's upcoming 10th season, which begins airing in January, will be its last. "Ace of Cakes" debuted in 2006 and has run for 116 episodes.

I am sad. Very sad. Especially since the Duffman, Mary Alice, Geoff and all the rest of the Charm City Cakes gang are really one of the only reasons I have left to even tune into the Food Network anymore (when I'm in front of a cable TV anyway). Sure, Bob "Tuschie" Tuschman says the Food Net is developing "new show opportunities" for Duff, but it just isn't the same.

Stay awesome, Charm City Cakes, stay awesome.

Bad kitty, this is mah pot pah!

I don't know how the Food Network avoided the South Park treatment for so long.

Ep. 1414: "Crème Fraiche". Picture from 37prime.com

Sabbatical Flashback 5: Sandra Lee Halloween-a-Go-Go

One of my favorite sports on TBS is making fun of Sandra Lee. Girl is nuts. I think I've linked to her now infamous Kwanzaa Cake video at least three times - no wait, four:

And you should see her meatloaf. It'll turn you vegan right quick.

A really special time of year for Aunt Sandy is Halloween. My first post about her strange Halloween specials was crawling with chocolate scarabs with pretzel legs and eyeball meatballs with olive irises. One can only imagine the "tablescape". Though her next Halloween menu was more, shall we say, staid, her show was a royal pain in the Cocktail Time.

This woman should not be on television. Really. At least not cooking anyway.

✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿

Semi-Homemade Halloween Craziness 2008

(originally posted Monday, October 27, 2008)


It's Halloween, and that means Sandra Lee is on the Food Network wearing silly costumes again! Yes lords and ladies, the queenie of the 'tini is in fine fettle, this time dressing up as our favorite queens from Western European history. Actually, I was a little disappointed this year, since she wasn't as silly as the last few years. Anyone remember this?

I also have to admit: her food wasn't that goofy this year, either. No more chocolate blobs shaped like "scarabs" with pretzel "legs" sticking out from all sides. In fact, I dare say it looked edible.

But it was still pretty goofy. Forsooth:

You're wearing that? To cook!?!?

Sandr... er, Anne Boleyn, is making fried apple and ham balls. Hey, didn't the royal family have somebody do that for them? It seems highly improper for a queen to be caught flitting around with the kitchen wenches! She must have lost her head or something.

Beheaded at such a young age - just for pilfering Henry VIII's apple-ham balls. What a pity.

It's Ren-Fest Sandra Lee! Here Our Grace giveth a nod to Vlad Tepes with her steaks on a stick. Medoubts that Guinevere would have ever seeneth a canteloupe 'afore. Especially one with a ramekin jamméd into it.

Oh Annie, Dreamboat Annie! Little shipofdreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeams!

Doesn't advertizing your Christmas album on basic cable usually mean the successful part of your singing career is over? Just sayin'...

Next in her "Beheaded Queens of Europe" collection: teen queen Marie Antoinette. Yes, she made the "Let them eat pumpkin brioche trifle" joke. Hah hah. 'Tis to laugh.

Actually, it doesn't look that good.

Seriously though, when she said she was coming out as one of the most fabulous queens of all, I really was picturing something more along these lines:


Work it, girl.

Nyah nyahnee boo boo, it's my-y killer rose-tini, and you di'in't get none.

Really, steak on a stick impaled in half a canteloupe doesn't look any less ugly when it's nestled amidst the ultimate "Regal Tablescape"

Oh, My. God.

Gee, skulls and crossbones always make me think of Queen Elizabeth I!

This has been another ripping installment of the "Sandra Lee Makes a Fool Out of Herself for Halloween by Dressing Up and Cooking in Silly Costumes" show. Stay tuned for 2009, when she comes out dressed like a banana!

Or like this:

Work it!