Semi-Lame Ass Cooking

For those who know me best, cooking has not been one of my strengths.  I always understood the concept of cooking.  I just never understood how it applied to me.  If I couldn't boil it, microwave it or order it from a nearby eatery you could forget about a fussy meal.  A few free afternoons, remote firmly in my hand , I wound up on the Food Channel.  Imagine my surprise, weeks later, to find out that I am officially now a “foodie” who times her day by the Food Channel programming.  I buy kitchen gadgets and take classes from Williams-Sonoma.  I enjoy reading the forwards of cookbooks.  I watch The Barefoot (rum makes everything better) Contessa everyday at 4:00p.m.  How can you not love someone who says "the cupcakes are just a vehicle for the frosting"?  I marvel at her casualness in the kitchen as well as her dedication to her husband of 38 years.  Dear Jeffrey.  Mind you they live apart during the week.  That may have something to do with it.  Now I only buy "good" vanilla and "good" mayonnaise.  I no longer am afraid of roasting winter vegetables.  I have learned that garlic is my friend.  But most of all, I have learned the importance of lemon zest.  How empty my life was until now.  Dear God, perfect ice cubes again!

 

I grew up in the comfort food generation.  Every good Midwestern mother tailored her cooking skills by picking up recipes in women's magazines while waiting for her children at scouting meetings.  Staples at our house were macaroni and cheese, baked spaghetti, tater tot casserole, chicken and rice and the dreaded meatloaf.  My brother should have been a surgeon.  He could dissect my mom's meatloaf on his plate into three separate piles:  meat, onions and the mystery pile.  He could stuff her brussel sprouts under the table into a secret crevice until they dried out and fell to the linoleum.  I can still hear my Dad shouting "Bobby, do you know why the dog won't come out from underneath the kitchen table?"  Mind-bending and appetizing at the same time.  But I digress.

 

 "It's sooooooper simple..."

 

I  have become addicted to the food shows in the afternoon hours and just when I get used to the idea of really cooking and creating good meals, comes Sandra Lee, Miss Thing, with Semi-Homemade cooking.  My first thought was that she had a sugar daddy who bought mama a time slot on cable.  Bingo.  Just when I get clear focus on cooking techniques comes a show that teaches us how to trick our friends into thinking the meal was home-made.  God, I've been doing that for years.  Teach me something new.  My mind is going and I hate doing Sudoku.  I need visual stimulation.  Everything Sandra teaches is "super simple."  I need complicated now.  Is that so wrong?  I need tips that are more elaborate than "use a hot pan, it helps the food cook quicker."  Furthermore, I don't want to hear one more time that she "loves butter and sour cream."  No way.  Not with that size 2 figure.  Except for the figure, I honestly think I could do a better job with this time slot. 

 

And what about the tablescapes?  Besides putting together a crappy dinner, we are then supposed to coordinate it with a hideous tablescape and some sort of exotic "tini" to drink.  Every episode showcases an alcoholic beverage to go with the lame-ass, I mean, semi-homemade dinner.  Hope the kids can do the dishes while mommy takes a power nap after dinner.     

                                   

 

                                                                                              

 

I can see it now.  Housewives across America serving boxed food for dinner, drunk off their butts with hideous tablescapes that are so overdone.  Kids!  Don't touch the Eiffel Tower display!  It goes with our frozen, I mean home-baked French Fries.  Anyone care for a "Eiffeltini?"  Bien sur!  Mais oui!  Ooohhh la la lame ass....

Give me The Barefoot Contessa and a bottle of Rum anyday.  Please.

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