Didn't take much time writing that description, did they?

OK, she's giving away bottles of vodka as gifts? That's no surprise.... but why does one of them have AUSTEN's name on it? Austen is... her nephew? Her UNDER AGE nephew?!

That broccoli slaw "dressing" looks suspiciously like something I once saw a dog upchuck onto the sidewalk and then eat. I'm sure not even he would eat this shit though.

Does anyone else think those burgers look severely undercooked?

Hey y'all, apple cider vinegar is Kimber's little trick for ev'rything savory! Snads prefers cyanide - it really makes her guests go "hmm, what is that?!" before they lose consciousness.

In case there isn't enough likker in the koktails - let's put vodka INto the dessert too!

Yum! Fifty tubs of packaged icing with a capful of coconut extract! It takes away the store bought taste and who doesn't like putting that many chemicals INto their bodies?

I won't even comment on the "nice flat top to work on" comment. Too easy. Much like Sandy!

The cake looks like it has the consistency and texture of baby shit. But with that much vodka in it, who's gonna notice?! The swirls in the icing makes it look homemade?? Obviously she took a few swigs of the berry vodka before adding it.

Koktail time = HEAVEN! I'm glad I'm Jewish. A blue-tini? Ugh. I'm looking forward to the day she finally just gives up and has a Whole-Bottle-Of-Booze-tini. Since adding the suffix -tini to any concoction of likker and choking hazards makes it a koktail in SandyLand.

What's with that headband/ribbon thing? Is she so drunk she thinks it's 1969?

So the koktail? One part booze - one part booze - and one part booze! Toss in some blueberries for the little ones! Those glasses are pretty cool, though.

HAHAHA! Her "party dress"! She is such a moron. It's not a party when it's just you and your booze, Snads!

Aww she's so thoughtful. She's giving alcoholism as a party favor. That's our Sandy - always the giver.

Wow. What a cute outfit Sandy is sporting. However, I was disappointed she wasn't wearing a poodle skirt. That would've been f'ntastic.

She called her seasoning packet "ah jus" not "o jus."

Did I hear correctly when she called the broccoli slaw "shredded stocks" not stalks?

I never knew putting slaw INto the fridgerator would make it wilt, but then I learn something new from Sandy all the time.

Heh. The first commercials are shilling for Cool Whip™ and Ziploc™ bags. Who would've thought?

Coming back from the second set of commercials, Sondra is positively giddy as she enters the kitchen clutching her bottle of blueberry vodka. You can substitute blueberry joose for the kiddies instead of vodka. I don't believe I've ever heard of blueberry joose.

"Speaking of heaven, cocktail time is coming up." What a sad, sad, little sot.

And another commercial for Ziploc™.

"It's cocktail time! The best time of the day!" Man, she couldn't get that cocktail down fast enough.

My God. She's giving liquor bottles and shot glasses as party favors. Whoot!

She made a placecard bluetini favor for Austin!? Isn't he her underaged nephew? She was insufferably pleased with herself in this episode.

One of the things that makes me the world's worst guest is that I have no poker face. I can only imagine my expression when I bit into that fluffy white cake and came away with a mouthful of lumpy, disgusting, wretched tapioca pudding.

I do, actually, kind of like the idea of giving a mini kocktail kit to your guests as a favor. If I ever have a party where I send my guest homes with favors, maybe I'll do that. Maybe for my next Sandra potluck. . . hm . . .

But I'm flummoxed by the fact that one of the kocktail kits was labled "Austen." Isn't Austen one of her never-seen-nephews? She's crossed the line! She's plying the kids with booze! You knew it had to happen eventually!!!

Oh, and blueberry vodka, vanilla vodka, and ornj likkoor (included only for it's bloooo color?)? Gross.

Oh thank you, Aunt Sandy, for telling me to put the yogurt INto the bowl. And here I was going to dump it on the counter.

And you add honey for sweetness? Who knew? All this time I have been adding it to things because I liked the cute little bear container.

Sheesh!

Yep, I was thinking just the same thing, amnewsboy! Maybe she thinks the little bottles are kid-sized?

So I did like her martini glasses, but wouldn't something NOT blue look prettier in them? Contrasting color? My pomegranate martinis would look great in them . . .


It's Bear Jooose!

The whole time I was watching this episode, I kept thinking that this was the Sandra Lee's last gasp before Food Network pulls the plug on this shit.

I guess the under-agers are going to get an empty box. Oh Snads. None of us would have noticed the alcohol (well...we're inured) if she had just suggested bubble makers for the kids at the table. I like how she had her own place setting.

My fave look ever is that blue and white navy-style look/color match. She just ruined it with too much crap. Those kinds of settings work best with a minimalist look.

I think the hot glued daisy just screams class.

Her dessert looked vomitous. Tapioca pudding? Three layers of that??? Who can even taste the cake anymore? You'll just taste (if you dare to) coconut, blueberries, and pudding. The cake would have disintegrated by then.

"I know you're thinking it's cocktail time, but it's actually dessert time!" Oh Snady, you know us too well. :)

I was curious about this thing called "ah jus" gravy mix. Based on the ingredients, it's as nootrishus as it is delishus.

That cake was so strange: tapioca pudding, coconut, blueberries, and white cranberry. She never fails to amaze.

So I guess Austen's drinking Blue-tinis these days?

Sorry about the delay in snark ... I was off seeking some insulin to help recover from the gaktastic sweetness of that coconut-coconut-sugar cake with vodka blue sauce. 3 tubs of frosting, sweetened coconut, blueberry jelly, and the white cranberry juice (Filtered water, white cranberry juice from concentrate, sugar, high fructose corn syrup, natural flavors ... with 23% fruit juice and 29g sugars of the 29g carbs)

No wonder she had a placecard for Sandy (in addition to Cindy and Austen - calling Child Protective Services!) in her BLUE skape. The Sandy-best party favor ever - your own takeaway box of vodkas!!! Although I do wonder if the guests get unopened, full bottles or if they've been refilled with colored water ....

Random thought: SLop shouldn't use "breathtaking" when referring to her skapes (or food or drinks) - it is too llllliteral.

Favorite line: "When you use my secret packet". I'm 12.

Speaking of choking hazards - she was SO adept at pouring handfuls of choking hazards ONto the cake, INto the tini. She obviously gets lots of practice.



Obviously shrike-minds have similar current hot fashion taste. My comment was: OMG, what a so-1970s sleeveless dress worn as a tunic (looked so like the ones I used to sew back then)


Another example of her hearing a cooking technique and missing the point. Snads, it's not the fridge, it's the vinegar and jalapeno joos!

That mess of chemicals she called a cake solidified my hatred for tapioca pudding. Yick. Make a map of toothpicks, indeed.

I checked the clock after the "burger" and the "stocky" slaw (CC confirmed it, rosie) and when I saw that it was only ten after, I realized that watching her make this kake was going to be a hoot.

The favors looked like my mom's bottle of Navy perfume. I'll never smell that perfume again without thinking of Aunt Sandy. Thanks for that, bitch.

If Sandy was my aunt, I'd drink at a young age too.

Okay, if my math is correct, each serving (1/2 tsp.) has 310 mg. of sodium. The entire packet has 3,720 mg. of sodium (at 12 servings) and if she used the entire packet, that would be 930 mg. per hamburger.

Well, how else are you gonna get sodium INto those pesky kids. Monkey business, I tell ya!

SLop added celery to her ground sirloin for some extra crunch, but sauted it first to soften it up.

Cake recipes call for greasing the pan, so of course she's clever and uses butter-flavoured PAM instead. Uh, what?

When she goes the get the wilted slaw from the fridge, she misses the door handle and starts to grope around.

Quote de jour: "These burgers tast just as good as those expensive goormay ones!"

After mixing the meatloaf burger meat, she does her "Me Washie Handsies!" routine.

New quote de jour: "Think about things you have laying about your house that you can add to things to give them extra flavour!"

SLop staggers in clutching a bottle of blueberry vodka, but (pysche!) tells us it's not "cocktail time!", but "desert time!". Bitch needs an intervention last year. Oh yeah, use blueberry juice instead of the vodka if you got kids around.

As SLop empties the tubs of frosting into a bowl, some Dukes of Hazzard "wacky hi-jinx" music swells in the background.

SLop annouces that the blueberries and blueberry jam in blueberry vodka solution is ready, followed by a cut to the contents of the pan at a hard boil.

SLop recomends using a "toothpick map" to help even up the top of the cake. Speaking of which, someone reminded SLop about that wax paper trick we haven't seen in years.

As SLop frosts the cake, heavy whisps of steam/smoke begin to whaft in front of her. Is she going to dump that stuff on top of the cake? Instead of telling us, she empties the pan into a gravy boat. Oddly enough, the mixture is cold (no hint oif steam can be seen). The closest to telling us what to do with the dipping sauce is that she likes to use it as a pancake topping.

Better the ah jus mix than KETCHUP, evil KETCHUP!!!

Bwah!

I sense a new Creativity thread coming on here.
Although judging from today's episode, those "things" must have sodium, preservatives, and/or alcohol to work correctly. Oh - or blue things.

- Word to the booze for Austen. Awwww, she's giving out nips of her new favorite likoor - how cute!

- She is really mailing it in these days. Looks like we're really the "end times" of SHCWSL.

-Whenever SLoP makes a cake, the motion of the whisking and her swinging "girls" threatens to start harmonic vibrations. And I think we all know what happens during that phenomonon.

How in the world does she come up with this stuff? A cake with cranburry juice, coconut, blueberry and tapioca? huh? Many seasons ago I figured out she lived just on sugar and booze, but that cake seals the deal. Yuck!

Oh yeah, butter flavor Pam is your secret Sandy. No one has ever thought of that one before. What happened to her old idea of dusting the pans with the cake mix? That was her super sekrit special trick, now it's butter flavor Pam. Wow, this show has gone downhill.

Why does she have to do such horrid things to cake? It just kills me.

Surprise! Snads uses vodka blueberry sauce on her breakfast foods. Is there any time of the day that isn't vodka time for Aunt Boozy? Maybe next episode she'll give the russipe for her mouthwash using vanilla vodka + peppermint schnapps.

Who do you know that walks about with a bottle of apple cider vinegar and says it's their favorite ingredient. Can you imagine her going behind everyone and adding cider vinegar to the pot? Talk about things that make you go hmmmm, what is that? This would be a 'buuwah <shiver>....what IS that?"

I liked her outfits-both of them were something I would wear....I think I need some help!
Now, the food, on the other hand, I did not like at all. No way did those burgers taste like the ones from the 21 Club, or Ruby Tuesday's, or even BK's Angus burger. Meat loaf on a bun (untoasted, at that).
The cake-I hate tapioca pudding. Hate, hate, hate! Those icky little lumps-oh, wait, in Sandy's version that's probably coconut lumps with the tapioca lumps-barf!
The slaw dressing would have been tolerable with fresh diced hollowpenose in it, but not pickled, canned peppers. The low-fat yoghurt is something I do keep in my fidgerater at all times. What else was in the dressing? I forget.
The table-rape? Whoot!! Keep it with daisies (fresh or silk!)!!11!!
All in all, kind of depressing for my first episode back after the initial stage of the move <back> to St. Louis (via Killeen, Texas from San Angelo!).


Good job with the "Galloping Gertie" reference, bizook!!

I just KNEW that would be the link! Now I will think of that whenever Aunt Sandy whisks!

I know there's a bra joke in there somewhere...

Because why waste normal mouthwash when you just have to spit it out?! We know how Snads loves to swallow. Ask Bobby Flay. And the FN executives. And half of Queens.

Damnit - I'm in NY this weekend with no access to FN (unless I wanted to be rude to my hosts and change our schedule today so I could see Snads).... this SLopisode sounds like a keeper. I'm sure my TiVo has diabetes just from recording that kake konkoktion.

Did she really have placecards for Austen and MissingSisterCindy?

Vedddddy interestink.......

Well, she's come full circle. In a previous culinary crack-up she foisted a bottle of beer with an opener attached on unsuspecting guests. Then, in the vineyard atrocity, she plunked down a cheap mini bottle of wine with a cork attached in front of her imaginary friends. Now its vodka in a box. Intervention anyone?

I'm beginning to think that she tosses fllllllavors/packets/extracts/colors etc INto a hat and then picks a few or twelve and wall-lah! You have arrussipe.

I want to know what fabric store she frequents. She always finds rumnents, this time enough for her window covering and tablecloth.

Those twunny-wun burgers would have actually been homemade if she didn't add the au jus seasoning packet. Did she make 4 burgers from 2 pounds of meat?

Sandy cannot think about things like this, it would impede her "creativity." What's a little hypertension?

I don't think anyone is going out on a limb when saying there is no way those burgers taste like the burgers at the 21 Club. And who puts celery in a burger? Is it to fool someone into thinking eating 1/2 a pound of chopped meat in one serving is made healthy by the addition of celery? I do a special burger when I entertain with a cookout, they wind up being 1/4 pound a piece, they're hard to finish - 1/2 a pound? That's a lot of meat. (Though my special burgers are less special than Sandy's - I use real ingredients in mine. What a loser I am.)

And, you know, I like cocktails, if I go though the trouble of cooking dinner, I will almost always have a glass of wine with it so I'm not going to go around dinging Sandy for her love of cocktails, but I am having trouble seeing how blueberry and vanilla vodka and blue curacao are in any way a good flavor combination, it sounds a bit much for me. Just like the blueberry sauce, frozen blueberries, blueberry jam and vodka is just too much blueberry and lack depth. Something very simple, like adding a bit of sugar, lemon zest and juice in lieu of the jam and vodka would have made a better sauce and no more work than what she did.

21 burger? How about, bastardized Lipton french onion soup burger? Seemed awfully similar to me.

About time she opened up a Wilton yearbook (or took a cake decorating class) and found out about the toothpick levelling and frosting dam tricks. What new innovation will she show us next?

"They dye this bitter orange liquer (I just know I spelled that wrong) blue, I have no idea why." Um, because they know that Sandy can't resist a blue craptail, which ups the odds of getting their product some free air time. This is only what, the 785th one she's gagged us with?

I love my friends.

We're going to 21 Club tonight.

I'm totally having the burger.

And, fuck you, Sandy.

Yes, she did! I was thinking "Aren't those rather large?" when she started making the patties. Not to defend SLop or anything, but is using that seasoning packet much different than kneading in a package of onion soup mix to the meat? Of course, there is no way in hell those are going to taste like a burger from an expensive restaurant.
Indeed!

Beef fat, hydrolyzed gluten, corn syrup solids, and sodium carboxymethycellulose. Ah, there's the level of integrity I've come to expect from the Food Network.

Let us know how the REAL 21 Burger tastes, FormerlyAmish. I think the color blue and the blueberry should sue SandyPants for slander. Though I did like the scarf in her hair...

FormerlyAmish, for the sake of those who will likely never make it to NYC, please be our online guide and tell us of all the places that we should go if we could? I can dream, can't I?

Sorta on topic: [small voice] I kinda liked her top and scarf when she was cooking [/small voice]

I named todays' tablescape, "Sandra Lee's salute to the early 90's". For some reason all those blue and white stripes reminded me of fashions and packaging when I was growing up.

Blech! - big ol' slabs of artificially meat-flavored meat?
She likes to use butter-flavored cooking spray because it gives a "nice, buttery flavor". You know what else does? Butter, stupid.
Nice tip on using a serrated 'edge' on my cake to make my life easier; all this time I've been using a serrated knife. But she's right! So much easier running my cake down the serrated edge of a cling film box. Aside from the likker (of course) I think the only thing she actually ingested today was a fingerful of canned frosting, declaring it, "deee-licious!"
Okay did anybody else see that little WTF look that flashed across her face after she tasted that horrific bluetini? Like it was worse than even she expected? She recovered quickly, though. I actually rewatched to make sure it wasn't just my imagination, and for those of you without Tivo can I just tell you, slo-mo Sandy is a sad (yet frightening) sight.
And speaking of frightening, what is up with her face? She's on like the Meg Ryan expressway to plastic surgery hell.

Oh PHEW! I was kind of worried by all the scarf-hate, as that's a look I do on a fairly regular basis on days I don't shampoo (a nice change from the usual ponytail) or closing in on needing a new haircut (it's a great way to keep strays and "baby hairs" out of your face when working).

I will say that my sartorial intentions when I scarf it up are more Jackie O than Sandra L.

I have to say I liked the scarf look as well. I would like to wear the top + scarf that she wore while cooking. The tablescape dress? Pass.

OK, I'll have to admit her first outfit wasn't all that bad, if not a bit retro. The party dress, however...

So what's the deal with SLop changing outfits lately?

lgrant2001- yes! As I was watching live, it was her ending face that made me play the DVR and skip ahead to slo-mo through the "sipping". There definitely was a small grimace, and the eyes were not pleased.

Not sure there is enough for some screen caps, though.

I do wonder what the production assistant will do the time she inhales some of her choking hazards and turns blue, gasping while sipping. It might take them a bit long to figure out it isn't her normal drink preparation/followup.

And then she didn't wash her hand and went right on with her "cooking."

She has no idea how to use cornstarch; you're supposed to bring the liquid to a boil and then add a slurry of cornstarch and cold water (or stock, etc).

She said to test the cake with a butter knife. Hey, she could have used the toothpicks that she didn't use when MV cut the kake for her. That's my secret tip.

Those burgers: She said she was going to go into the oven with them. I wish she had. Cooking them at 400 for 15 (?) minutes after they'd been in the skillet for probably 5? Sawdust!!

I caught the grimace, too.

Her outfits looked very 1970 country club to me. And did she choose the menu and daycor on the basis of her outfits or vice-versa? She's such a mystery.

I was in the subway today and what did I see? A ton of ads for --wait for it-- blueberry vodka. Smirnoff, I think.

"Gertie" was a suspension bridge that failed spectacularly in 1940. If SLoP does indeed wear a bra, it's doing about as good a job suspending things as Gertie did.

I just loved watching her pretend those burgers that came from that oven were hot, going as far as to pretend to act like the pan with those silently-sitting meatloaf-burgers was hot. I wonder how many times she grabbed them with her hands because she forgot they had had just (allegedly!) come out of the oven?

um...*hiding behind computer*...I kind of liked the party outfit. Of course I wouldn't call it a "dress", and on someone like me who isn't tall and skinny it would look like something you could camp out under...but I thought it was kind of cool. I also think my friends would make fun of me for the rest of my natural life for matching my day-kor, too, come to think of it. So - nevermind.

I'm not too familiar with tapioca, but the texture looked awfully odd for a cake layering schmear. Wouldn't you take a big bite of cake expecting a smooth, creamy layer of icing? Wouldn't you sort of roll it around in your mouth wondering if the cake got dropped on the floor of a birdcage - frosting side down - before the cake was finished? But how would I know - I've never had tapioca pudding.

Yeah, the burgers looked a bit warmed over and almost burnt on one side (?). I like to see my flavored sodium-preservative burgers sizzle, dammit!

Oh, and the thought crossed my mind that since we're all watching her show she must think she has great ratings. Shouldn't we stop watching so FN gets the idea that she shouldn't have a show? Or maybe it doesn't count if we TiVo/DVR it...

I love tapioca, but on a cake? I guess this is another case where SLop likes to toy with people's expectations of what they're eating -- "Hmmm, what IS that.
It only counts if the Neilsons say they're watching it (and obviously some are).

She in no way deserves her own show - but dammit, I just Can't. Look. Away! It's like she hypnotizes me with her bad cooking and drunken monkey business ways.