Sandra Lee's New Shows

New York Semi-First Lady and Datalounge's favorite functional alcoholic "Aunt" Sandra Lee would love to have your eyeballs on her TWO new delightful food-related programs. "Sandra's Restaurant Remakes" airs on Food Network, Sundays at 10AM, and features Sandy going across the country to visit classy restaurants with amazing signature dishes, and then figuring a way to dumb them down into a not-very-good facsimile for hoi polloi. "Sandra Lee's Taverns, Lounges, and Clubs" airs on Cooking Channel Wednesday nights at 10:30. Sandy continues her travels, this time focusing on the most important part of the day, Cocktail Time. She'll learn how people get loaded from sea to shining sea, and share fun pub-food recipes for our own cocktail parties.

The Voice of the Night
• I know her food is bad but she is so engaging and entertaining.

• Trust me, I'm way past "love to hate" her and really feel quite affectionate for her. I was in New York on Sunday, and I was on the subway going out to see a friend of mine in Brooklyn and at one stop, a bunch of people got on who had been at a Food Network event at the New York Food and Wine Festival which was benefiting No Kid Hungry, a charity she's an incredibly vocal supporter of. I bet she was there, and I wish I could have gone and met her. And in the final segment of the first episode of Restaurant Remakes, she visited a Vegas ice bar to try their signature cocktail, and she looked like a kid in a candy store. When the bartender pulled out alcohol-infused whipped cream in a can, her face lit up like a Christmas tree. It was endearing and awesome, and one of those moments where I remember why I love her, despite the shitty food.

  The Voice of the Night

• I do miss the tablescapes. Perhaps she can convince HGTV to give her a third show.

  The Voice of the Night

• Because the food network needs more restaurant makeover shows?

• She's not making over the restaurants. She's taking their dishes and semi-homemaking them. It's definitely tacky and declasse, but she did a fair amount of actual cooking, so in that sense it was closer to Money-Saving Meals than Semi-Ho. But at the same time, during the airing of the first episode, they ran her PSA where she talked about growing up on food stamps and how ending them is inhumane, and my heart just kind of broke for her. She may be a disaster in the kitchen, but she seems like such a good person.

  The Voice of the Night

• "She's not making over the restaurants. She's taking their dishes and semi-homemaking them." NO!!! You mean she doesn't get to redo entire restaurants to match the outfit she's wearing? It's just not a Sandra Lee show without the matchy-matchiness!

  http://foodnetworkhumor.com/img/sandra-lee-53109-1.jpg

• To her face, Sandra's known as "The First Girl Friend." Behind her back there are special words in Italian that describe what people really think of her.

• I love her, she made herself from nothing.

• This ALWAYS makes me laugh!

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLMNZ6xY6YY

• "We wish you a Merry Christmaaasss...COCKTAILS?!"

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4A7kZBrrqU

• lol but I do respect the broad...she had a hard life growing up and she BS'ed her way into a great life now. Her cooking, food, table scapes all suck though.

• I'm saying this without a hint of irony: "Taverns, Lounges, and Clubs" is a great show. She was relaxed, having a great time, cracking jokes, and totally in her element. She should have done a show like this years ago. She had a great self-referential moment when behind the bar at Rockin Reilly's in LA. The bartender was showing her how to make one of their cocktails, and tried to pass off some peaches she was muddling as fresh. Sandy grabbed the glass and insisted she knew canned peaches when she saw them.

  The Voice of the Night

• Won't she and Andy have to get married if he's running for President in 2016?

• I think I've suffering Stockholm Syndrome. Everything she made this morning on Restaurant Remakes looked really, really good. Also, we looked her up on the FEC website, and she's given $75K to Democrats this election cycle, including $40K to the Obama SuperPAC. And THAT deserves an "Aunt Sandy rocks."

  The Voice of the Night

• R11 I totally agree. She wanted more shows though because in addition to more $$$ she was tired of critics saying she can't cook from scratch lol.

• I thought you were joking when you posted these, but I caught "Restaurant Remakes" today and it was actually pretty good.

• 'Cause she's drunk, honey...

• I wonder how she's getting Gov. Cuomo through the hurricaine? Is she keeping giving him anything edible, is she keeping him warm with high-proof sugary cocktails? Of, because she's (sort of) the first lady of NY state, is she down at the soup kitchen handing out quesedillas with jam in them and nipping at her flask?

• I really want to see her "Tavern, etc." show. 10:30 pm is way too late for me and it's not on demand yet, but I'll see it when I can.

• I'd like to see her try and give that Kwanzaa Cake to the Obamas.

• If Cuomo runs in 2016, do you think Republicans will make a big deal out of her booziness?

• Have you seen her Hannukah cake from the Kwanzaa cake episode? She uses canned icing with blue food coloring. Is she anti-semitic?

  http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DmlXMGdRFgac%26feature%3Drelated

• baked potato ice cream is the shiz.

• [quote]I really want to see her "Tavern, etc." show. 10:30 pm is way too late for me and it's not on demand yet, but I'll see it when I can. It repeats Saturday at 7:30 and Sunday at 4:30.

  The Voice of the Night

• Do the New York schools have lunches made with Cool-Whip, seasoning packets, and mocktails? Does the governor's mansion have tablescapes?

  Ina Garten and her gays

• No, R21, why would her drinking be an issue?

  Laura Bush

• I've tried to reach out to her

  Paula%20Dean

• That faux frittata she made Sunday was patently nasty looking!! Melted cheese AND lumpfish? WTF, that looked nasty!!! The original dish was a lobster frittata with some expensive caviar on top. No way could you dumb that down without making it gross or at best, mediocre. Sandra is a hack, albeit a smart one.

• Last week's show was a classic. She ended up with a 20-serving trifle in a punchbowl. The ingredients? Four loaves of zucchini and banana bread, two whole pecan pies, instant butterscotch pudding, caramel sauce, and whipped cream. I have a sweet tooth, but I actually started to feel sick to my stomach when I was watching her take huge chunks of pecan pie and smothering them in instant pudding and caramel sauce.

• I never bothered to open this thread and seriously thought VOTN's original post was a joke until I found out that "Taverns, Lounges, and Clubs" show actually exists. I hope each installment ends like an episode of Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives, with Aunt Sandy cheerfully drunk-driving away from her latest conquest in a vintage car

• Anyone who's planning on running against Andrew Cuomo in the 2016 primaries will have SO much material to work with.

• She will marry Cuomo if he runs in 2016. There is no way they can "live" together if he wants to run for president. The WH will be perfect for her. She loves the color white and I am sure she will remake the private residence and it will be a vision in white!

• I think he'll have a problem being a divorced Catholic.

• I'm sure he's got more than enough money to purchase an annulment. The bigger issue is that Sandy isn't Catholic, is a divorcee herself, and her ex-husband is Jewish.

  The Voice of the Night

• I remember when Julia Child, Craig Claiborne and James Beard ruled and gay men were actually interested in cooking good food. Sandra Lee isn't even camp. She's just more of the same tired mediocrity that prevailed before Julia.

• Have you ever seen her Halloween specials? Those things are high camp. And as I've said, not for nothing, but "Taverns" is a great show, and she's having a great time making it.

  The Voice of the Night

• She was visibly drunk (or at least very, very tipsy) in the final segment of the most recent episode of of "Taverns."

  The Voice of the Night

• R37 She's auditioning to be Kathie Lee's replacement when Kathie wins the Pulitzer for "Scandalous" and ditches Hoda.

• r35 is the dreariest old queen to ever stink up a room. Go like Bourdain's diseased taint, you loser.