Ubiquitous > wrote:
> SLop enters wearing a stereotypical tight red Chinese dress with chopsticks in
> her hair carrying a red vase with some jasmine in it. Oh great, I can tell this
> is going to be off to a great start. She tells us this is going to be a very
> special day because her "friend", "You Sigh" is coming out with a new cosmetics
> line, so she's going to have a girl's get-togther with terrific Chinese food.
> Yeah, terrific is a very apt word for anything SLop cooks, but I wonder why
> she's making such a fuss over her neighborhood Avon lady, and I wonder if she's
> married to Long Duck Wong or Sum Yung Gui? She looks around and tells us "this
> is what my house looks like right before a party" (too bad NO ONE EVER SHOWS UP
> AT THEM), but it looks more like she just hosted a house full of drunken
> debauchery and just rolled the last of her guests out the front door. SLop then
> reminds us that the star is not just You Sigh, it's her menu. How magnanimous
> of her. She gushes about her wonton soup, pork bowel buns (what?), "rich and
> delicious" (when ISN'T it?) stir fried beef, and almond cookies. With a short
> bow, she exits stage left off to the kitchen as the opening credits roll. My
> gawd, I hope they don't see this show in China; this could mean war.
>
> SLop enters the kitchen from stage left, which confuses the heck out of me for
> a sec but then I realize she must have staggered around a bit before stumbling
> across the kitchen and tells us this episode is all about GREAT Chinese cooking
> (I doubt it). She puts some oil into a pan, which sizzles loudly. We're
> starting with wonton soup first because it's her imaginary friend's favorite,
> even more than sweet and sour, whatever that is. As she slices some chicken,
> she repeats that she's excited about YS's new cosmetic line and how SLop made
> herself all up for her and the other guests. Who the hell gets made up for an
> Avon demonstration? I do wish SLop would watch what's she's doing as she speaks
> so she doesn't lose a finger. She repeats about how she's going to make this
> special, but for gawd's sake, it's only an Avon party. She puts the chicken
> into a pot to cook which starts to sizzle very loudly. Trying to speak over the
> sound of the cooking meat, she makes the filling for the wontons by taking some
> pre-ground chicken (pork works too), adding a package of onion soup mix and two
> huge tablespoons of sesame oil and oyster sauce, then starts trying to stir it
> with the SAME SPOON and decides to get something more suitable -- a fork! Hmmm,
> she has yet to wash her hands at this point. She adds some
> strangely-brown-colored garlic from a jar to the filling and returns to a
> silent pot of cooking chicken. She tells us she wants to finish the soup
> because the girls are due to arrive any minute now (yeah, right) and adds four
> cans of chicken stock she pilfered from Rachel Ray's pantry. Oddly enough,
> however, two are red and two are black (I guess to match her red and black
> oriental decor) and she only pours two of them into the pan and then the other
> two mysteriously vanish from the counter. SLop confides that she likes to make
> her soup at home because by the time she gets them home, the wontons are all
> soggy! I don't sppse that's because that's how it's COOKED, is it? Moron. She
> adds some low sodium soy sauce (how ironic) and a huge tablespoon of sesame
> seed oil and that weird brown garlic. SLop tells us to get the wonton wrappers
> in the refrigeration or Asian section at the grocery store and shows us a
> little trick: use water to seal the edges of the wonton. She then folds the
> edges over like a tortelini and puts it on a red plate. She announces that the
> soup is boiling and tells us how complicated and intimidating Chinese food is
> to make as she dumps them into the heavily boiling soup, where they almost
> immediately disintegrate into little pieces. SLop then strains some pre-sliced
> water chestnuts and "baboo shoots" into a strainer instead of decanting them
> over the sink and adds them to the soup, followed by half a package of frozen
> mixed vegetables. At this point, I have to add that she is using an already
> half-used bag. Anyhow, she recommends mushrooms, carrots, and snap peas, but I
> guess anything goes. Before we go to commercial, she tells us she's going to
> make beef stir fry and pork "bowel buns" that are so simple you won't be afraid
> of them. Believe me, that is NOT why I am afraid...
>
> We return from commercial with SLop entering stage right holding a bamboo
> steamer with a red pot holder. Dumb ass. She tells us that a bamboo steamer is
> a kitchen essential for Chinese cooking and tells us she has a fantastic trick
> for keeping food from sticking to it. Perhaps I am going out on a limb here,
> but wouldn't a wok be essential for cooking Chinese food? Anyhow, she starts to
> work on the bowel buns with a trick: use some BBQ pork from those strip mall
> quickie fast food Chinese places! Oh gawd! She lifts up a bowl to the camera to
> show us and the sound suddenly cuts out on her, followed by a quick jump to her
> going to the fridge to get more as we fade to a glamour shot of the bowel
> buns. I wonder what she was saying as she waved her hands around that bowl?
> She starts the sauce by sauteing some scallions in oil. Whoah! She's stirring
> the teflon pan with a WOODEN spoon! She adds a big heaping spoonful of that
> nasty brown jar of garlic and white jar of ginger. If I didn't know better, I'd
> say she got the two items mixed up. She adds some oyster sauce but all we see
> is a glamour shot of a decorative jar of it, followed by what she described as
> "Chinese BBQ sauce", or "Hoison". It also is available in the Asian section of
> your grocery store, in case you wondered. She takes the take-out BBQ pork and
> tries to chop it finer. This time she watches her fingers which are
> precariously close the knife blade as she tells us how she met "You Sigh" at a
> dinner party and they became fast friends because they both love Chinese food
> and get together every Sunday night for Chinese food, which I find hard to
> believe because I seem to recall her telling us she did something else on
> Sunday nights but I don't particularly care enough to look. She dumps the BBQ
> pork into the pan and stirs it until it becomes a reddish-brown tarry lump to
> simmer some more. SLop then tells us about her trick for getting bowel buns out
> of bread sticks which takes me somewhere very unpleasant. She tells us to
> double up on the bread dough so you get double layers of bread stick dough,
> whatever that means. She flattens it out and cuts it into strips, then rolls
> one into a ball and uses Brycer's toy rolling pin to roll it out.
> Unfortunately, she has trouble welding the toy rolling pin so she ends up
> stretching it out by hand, at which point she decides the tar filling need to
> be thickened with a mixture of corn starch and water. When she dumps it into
> the pan, it just pools on top of the meat tar so she tries to mix it by
> stirring it without much luck when we suddenly jump to a medium shot of her
> with no signs of the slurry in the pan telling us it takes "literally" 15
> seconds. I am pretty sure that's not enough to keep the mixture from tasting
> like corn starch is in it. She then tells us to take a tablespoon but uses the
> wooden stirring spoon instead, telling us to eyeball it, and puts it in the
> center of the dough disk and pulls up edges like a hobo sack and twists it
> closed. She puts it on a tray with some previously made ones and remarks that
> they are starting to raise now. SLop finally reveals her steamer trick: line
> the steamer with napa cabbage to keep it from sticking! That way, if you're
> making dumplings or bowel buns they don't stick to the bowl. Hee! As she crams
> them into the steamer, she tells us to keep them separate because they're going
> to rise. To steam the bowl buns, SLop takes a wok with boiling water in it and
> pops the steamer into the wok, then lids the steamer and tells us not to put
> the lid onto the wok. Do woks even come with lids, not to mention glass ones?
> She then tries her wonton soup. She takes the lid off the pot, revealing a
> debris-filled heavily-boiling liquid, asking "doesn't this look like you're in
> an authentic Chinese restaurant?" as she ladles the soup with beyond soggy
> wonton pieces into a red Japanese soup bowl and proceeds to eat it with a
> Japanese soup spoon. Before we head out to commercials, she threatens us with
> beef stir fry, almond cookies, and a fantastic tablescape to party by. Yeehaw!
>
> We return form commercial to a glamor shot of beef stir fry and SLop telling us
> that beef stir fry is easy to make at home and essential for an Asian meal,
> adding you can make it faster and still have a restaurant effect. She tells us
> to cut up some sirloin into bite size pieces but doesn't make them nearly small
> enough. She puts some oil into a wok and puts the meat into pan to cook. While
> it sizzles loudly, she cuts some red pepper by slicing the off the sides and
> slicing them into thin strips. It is hard to hear her speak over the sizzling
> sounds of the unattended meat in the wok. She eventually gets back to stirring
> the meat, which is clearly burnt as she tells us how quickly it cooks up. She
> strains some water chestnuts and adds a package of stir fry seasoning to water.
> She removes the burnt meat from the pan and adds a big heaping tablespoon of
> that brown garlic and ginger, and damn, those spoons are HUGE! She then adds
> some unspecified frozen vegetables, water chestnuts, and sliced mushrooms.
> After a couple stirs, she adds the peppers and onions, at which point the
> sizzling abruptly stops. She puts the meat back and adds some oyster sauce and
> red pepper flakes. She stirs in water and seasoning packet to the barely
> steaming wok and puts a pan of lumpy Minute Rice onto a plate "for service"
> with the stir fry on top. "And now for the bowel...", she ominously tones. She
> tells us how the bun's not sticking at all, then pulls off a piece of cabbage
> leaf. She rips one, revealing a pasty brown wad with an immobile brown lump in
> the center and proceeds to shovel it into her mouth as we go to commercial.
>
> We return from commercial break with a "Sandra's Tip" graphic where the
> "Cocktail Time!" one should be. What gives?!?! She tries to blame "You Sigh"
> (you remember her, the Avon lady who is now about twenty minutes late for her
> party) for those famous almond cookies by adding almond extract and crushed
> almonds to her ubiquitous roll of sugar cookie dough, topping each with an
> almond. She shows us a small red plate of the cookies and then puts them into a
> red oriental food take-out container and exits stage left to show us her
> tablescape.
>
> She enters stage left into what appears to be a bunch of models of red and
> black hot air balloons, telling us that red and black are the most dramatic
> colors to use when serving Chinese food from "take-out in or take-out MADE in"
> with this "ain't I clever expression". Whatever. I can't help but notice her
> table is littered with all sorts of half-full vodka and rum bottles with no
> food in sight. She blathers about the paper Japanese lanterns she got for
> dollars each that she spray-painted red and black, then tells us how excited
> she was to find the balloons and produces some Japanese fans she's going to
> give out as party favours. She then prattles on about how she covered a piece
> of plywood with cloth for a dramatic layered effect before briefly shilling
> some sort of "Oriental place setting kit" containing place mats, bowls, and red
> chopsticks. She plugs the Food Network site and gives her closing line with a
> drink in hand.

I don't have cable but I have seen this show on YouTube. Sandra Lee is
probably my most hated food murderess, other than NAACP Image Award nominee
Paula Deen.