This time I watched my first episode of Down Home With the Neelys. Where do they find these people? Now I get it that they're not professionals and that's most likely supposed to be part of their charm--accessible, not all precise and scary. And they're certainly affectionate and have the two most important qualities for anyone on that Network: they're glib and good-looking. You, the audience, are supposed to be totally entertained watching them without ever feeling like you have to make their food. Further proof that this is not meant to be intimidating TV is that they only made two things, shrimp cakes and a "tri-color salad". Now I didn't see the beginning of the show so not sure what went into the shrimp cakes, but I'd have probably eaten them, oh yes, even though I'd have preferred three smaller cakes to the single pork-pie hat sized patties she made. But that's a quibble. The weirdness started when she started helping him with the salad. He had already chopped peaches, red onion, green and red bell peppers, and was chopping a yellow one. So she opened the can of black beans, and put them in a colander. I thought she was going to rinse the thick gunk off because wouldn't that slime totally screw up their salad, but no. She did that "to drain off the sodium" like the beans weren't impregnated with it. Then she dumped the beans in his bowl while he was still flailing away on that yellow pepper, and commented on the "pretty" black, green and red colors. This, she said, is "why it's called tri-color". I almost rolled off the bed laughing.
This couple makes Rachel Ray look like an encyclopaedic overachiever.
After this, Paula Deen came on where she was set up outdoors near some fishing docks lining a bowl with lady fingers for a charlotte, which was so assinine a combination of thing and place I flipped back over to Cable news, where I feel safer.
Especially when the stock market's up.But not before noticing, via a commercial, that Sandra Lee has a new show. I can't remember the title, but it was something like "Saving Money On Your Cooking With Sandra Lee". Can you believe it? This woman has based her entire career on conspicuous consumption! She lives on packaged food and packaged food is anything BUT economical, and she redecorates her kitchen every day. Anthony Bourdain tunes in just to watch her boobs swing! We're supposed to tune into her for ideas on how to survive this recession? I don't think so.
