Jordan Baker Reads the Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade Magazine ONE LAST TIME, So You Don't Have To

A few days after we last speculated about the fate of Sandra Lee's Semi-Homemade Magazine, this little gem from the lady herself staggered drunkenly forth from her Twitter :

After my first snort of laughter wore off, I wondered three things: 1) is "professional twitter consultant" an actual job you get paid for, and if so, how do I get in on that sweet gig?; b) does that explain why she hasn't responded to my very polite query about the whereabouts of my magazine yet?; And iii) . . .

. . . .I forget what iii was. It can't have been that important.

Anyway, a couple of days after that, our postman managed to carve himself out of the snow bank he'd been encased in for a week, and staggered up our steps, and after knocking the icicles off his moustache, grunted out something that sounded like "oil can!" from his chapped lips and frozen jaw, and thrust this into my hands:

It's here! It's here! The February/March Semi-Homemade Magazine is finally --

WHAT THE HELL?????

So Sandra Lee has cancelled the month of February. In Sandra Lee land, the year goes February/March; April/May; June/July; August/September; October/November; December/January; and then March/April.

On the one hand, it seems pretty high handed to single handedly cancel an entire month. I mean, without February, there's no Valentine's Day, no Arizona Statehood Day, no President's Day, no Black History Month.

On the other hand, with SNOWZILLA (raaaaawr!) and all, this February seems pretty much lost even without Sandra's handiwork. AND if there's no February, I don't turn 33 at the end of it.

Thanks for cancelling February, Sandra! You couldn't have done that a couple years earlier?

Anyway, after I'd laughingly discarded the card reminding me that this was my LAST ISSUE, and that I could renew for $21.98 if I responded by February 10 (in the first place -- $22? Bitch, please. And in the second, the 10th of February was long, long gone by the time I got my copy), I poured myself a large-ish vodka tonic with a twist of lemon to go with the extreme yellow-ness of the cover, and set about reading and taking pictures. . .

And then the power went out. For two hours. During which time I had little to do but sit in the dark and drink my drink, and read a book by candlelight, and when the power came back on I was drunk and tired and in no mood for Sandra's foolishness. And then I had a really busy week. . .

. . . but here we are now, for one last trip through the hallowed pages. And I have to say, it's a pretty shitty issue, and not really worth a month's wait. They've cancelled a lot of the most delightful features -- like my personal favorite "5 things you can do with a . . .," and there's no "From One Semi-Homemaker To Another" section, which is probably the result of this magazine having 0 readership (except me) and thus 0 people to submit recipes.

Or they heard some mean bitch might mock you on the interwebs if you submitted, and that scared them off. Fear no more, sedentary homemakers of America! After this month, you can resume sending in your ideas about how to roll a Smithfield pork loin in McCormick Season packets and French's fried onions, and then cook it in your slow cooker in a bath of Dr. Pepper (hm, maybe that doesn't sound too bad. . . ) without fear of mockery.

But there are a few tings that are delightfully whackadoo enough that I feel like they're little "goodbye" kisses to me. There's not enough to make me even think about re-upping, but there's enough to make me think fondly of the days of "you can hang your jewelry in a spare frame!"

So inevitably, we start with the 1) Letter From Sandra

It's the weird blend of fantasy and incoherence we've come to know and love. Basically, Chinese cherry blossoms make her happy because she had 8 in her backyard growing up. Interesting how she deploys the abusive parents/serial abandonment/poverty so poor they had to live on dreams and Bisquik version of her childhood when it suits her, but other times she's all "my sisters. . .and I would run outside when the wind was blowing and stand under the falling petals. The blossoms blew a fantasy of pink fluff all around us, as f it were falling from heaven."

And now she's excited because she's planting a bunch of them in her own yard "at Lilly Pond." I think the fact that shes named her country place "Lilly Pond" sums up everything I find most pathetic about her -- it's a name straight out of a little girl's My Little Pony Magic Castle Fantasies, and naming your house that when you're in your forties is a grade A example of arrested development, and pretty fucking sad.

2) Behind the Scenes celebrates the fact that "February 2010 marked the first birthday of Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade Magazine."

Apparently the way you celebrate the first anniversary of your magazine is by cancelling the month in which it was launched. I'm including the picture of this page mostly for Carol and spoonieroonie, so they can enjoy the gorgeous picture of her li'l nephew Brycer over on the right hand side.

3) Spring Fling is the normal assortment of crap you can buy. . . or rather, must-have products. This month, we must have some sort of Ice Cream Scoop & Stack that makes your ice cream look like the squared off scoops you used to get at Thrifty Drug in Arizona. Ok, I kind of must have that, actually, just for the Arizona nostalgia factor.

4) Shortcut Chic gives us our usual range of things that don't save you any time at all, like making corsages out of cupcake wrappers, and turning a normal deviled egg into some sort of multi-tiered pastry-piped nightmare. (I tried to get a picture of this, but there was way too much white on the page).

5) Five Money Saving Meals gives us our delightful meals for the week.

This week, your family will start off the week with Crispy Baked Catfish with Creamy Coleslaw (from a bag) and Spicy Baked Beans (from a can,but with even more sugar added), and Slow-Cooker Swiss Steak with pre-made mashed potatoes. Then on Wednesday, we take things South of the Border (ai-yi!) with Taquitos Casserole.


Taquitos Casserole is such a thing of beauty that Have to share the recipe with you -- it's like the Burrito Casserole from the first issue come back to life:

3 boxes frozen taco beef and cheese taquitos
1 can nacho cheese condensed soup
1 can cheddar cheese condensed soup
1 can diced tomatoes and green chilies [sic]
1 package shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1 container diced fresh tomatoes
1 can sliced ripe black olives, rinsed and drained.
Garnish: chopped fresh cilantro

Preheat oven to 450. Bake taquitos according to package direction. Reduce oven temperature to 400. Spray an 11x7 baking dish with nonstick spray

In a medium bowl, stir together soups and tomatoes and green chiles; set aside.

In prepared baking dish, layer half of taquitos and half of soup mixture. Repeat layers once. Bake at 400 for 20 minutes; sprinkle cheese over top, and bake for 5 minutes longer or until cheese melts. Remove from oven and top with diced tomatoes and olives. Garnish with chopped cilantro, if desired.

I know, right? Isn't that just amazing? I especially love the fresh cilantro garnish -- it makes me wonder if Sandra is a fan of Fancy Fast Food, where they'll often use fresh herbs "for garnish and a touch of irony."

After that gastronomic delight, you finish out the week with Pork chops with onion gravy (from onion gravy mix) and Home-Style Potatoes (Simply Potatoes) and Turkey Piccata over Pasta with Spinach.

6) Decadent Delights is the dessert feature. I'm not even going to bother with this, because except for one cupcake recipe that uses cake mix and a pie that uses pre-made crust, these are distressingly un-Semi-Homemade.

So let's move on to 7) Kimber's Heirloom Easy

. ..which isn't Kimber's Heirloom Easy anymore. I guess not enough people sent in recipes for her to bastardize. Huh. Anyway. Kimber's Family Favorites are chicken drumsticks baked in a glaze of brown sugar, balsamic, mustard and garlic. It doesn't sound half bad.

8) 20 Minute Meals, on the other hand. . .



I guess you could call this the replacement of the "5 things you can do with a . . ." feature, since it's essentially 4 things you can do with a pound of ground beef and an Old El Paso seasoning packet. You can make Easy Burritos (with beef)! You can make Nachos Verde (with beef)! You can make Taco Salad (beef) you can make Tacos!

Sigh.

9) Egg-Cellent Ideas is a bunch of egg based recipes. It's all Quiches and Frittatas and Stratas (oh my!), and it's just dullsville.

So let's throw a party! Let's see. . . what kind of party can we throw for March?

Great idea! We'll 10) March into March Madness. Because people love to have parties and watch sporting events. And what will we serve? Oh, not your ordinary chili and beer, that's for damn sure. We'll have Tip-Off Bloody Marias! And Time-Out Shrimp Shooters with Avocado Remoulade! And Sideline Tortilla Soup (because who DOESN'T love balancing a bowl of soup while they watch TV)! And Slam-Dunk Open-Face French Onion Pork Sandwiches (because again -- open faced = super convenient and tidy to eat on the sofa)! And Courtside Coleslaw! And Round Ball March Madness Cookies!

But wait. How will we make our March Madness Party extra special?


We'll have basketball themed place cards! And use whistles as napkin rings! And print off a bunch of brackets to use as a table runner! Because of course we're going to invite everyone over for a March Madness party and then make them eat at the table, at assigned places. What, did you think we were actually going to watch the games and eat in the living room?? How unclassy! That is NOT the way we roll at Lilly Pond.

11) Light Fare is a selection of stir fry recipes you can make using frozen veggies and frozen shrimp and ramen and Uncle Ben's rice mix.

12) One Box Four Ways is another sad attempt to replace the hole left in my heart by the absence of "five things you can do with a . . ." by giving me four things to do with a box of Minute Rice. You can make rice timbales. You can make Sesame Pork Fried Rice. You can make Mediterranean Rice Salad with Lemon-Garlic Vinaigrette. You can make Rice Pudding.

Sigh.

It's just not doing it for me, Sandra. After months of "you can put a fish in it in your vase! You can put a cake on your cake stand!" a tame little "you can make rice pudding out of it" just isn't going to keep me around.

That's how you lost me, Sandra. If you liked it,then you should've put a cake on it. If you liked it, then you should've put a fish in it. Don't be mad when you see Paula Deen's got it. Cause if you liked it, then you should've put some random beads on it.

Oh-oh-ohhhhh oh oh oh!

13) Sandra's Sensational 7 is her attempt to keep the lights on by shilling 7 products. This month,it's Pilsbury pizza crust; Progresso Panko Crumbs; Classico Tomato Basil sauce; Lindsay Olives; Kikkoman Stir Fry Mix; Mezzetta Roasted Sweet Bel Pepper Strips; and Ghirardelli Baking Chocolate.

14) Crowd Pleasing Casseroles presents "Smokin' Festive Food." It's a recipe for Sausage and Wild Rice Casserole, and one for Chicken and Sausage Cassoulets.

Time for the entertaining section! Let's start with a 15) Fun and Festive Birthday Bash
Doesn't that look fun and festive, children? In fact, looking at the bright primary colors and balloons and things, you'd assume it was for children, right? Actual children, like the ones on Project Runway last week. So what should we serve them?



Parmesan Caesar Salad, Lasagna Style Baked Spaghetti, Baked Buttered Spaghetti,and Polka Dot cake,of course.

Now, I am the last person on earth to be anti-carb, but even to me, two baked spaghetti dishes in the same meal seems excessive.

The polka dot cake is made with Funfetti cake, of course. I'm not going to make fun of that. I love me a Funfetti cake something powerful.

But let's move on to 16)Easter Celebration
Where we'll have an insanely yellow color scheme, and a fairly traditional menu: Rose Wine-Tail; Parslied Cloverleaf Rolls (made from Parker House Rolls); Goat Cheese and Strawberry Salad; Grilled Leg of Lamb; Roasted Asparagus; Garlic-Herb Fingerling Potatoes; Corn Pudding; and Buttercup Cupcakes:


.. .which is what Sandra is shown slaving over on the cover -- a bunch of cupcakes made with pound cake mix and buttermilk, iced flourescent yellow, and speared onto a florist's sphere with toothpicks.

Then we'll randomly celebrate Spring with a feature called 17) Celebrating Spring

This party doesn't seem to involve any food at all, but it did almost win me back with the centerpieces:

"Transform everyday sun hats and handbags into centerpieces using seasonal flowers and Oasis floral foam. Invert a sun hat into a traditional rifle bowl, placing a plastic liner insde the hat. Place wet foam inside the liner, and arrange flowers of varying heights and colors."

She put a hat in a trifle dish and put flowers in it. Sandra. Oh, Sandra. This is why we used to be so good together. You liked it. You went and put a hat in it. But it's too little, too late.

It's 18) Cocktail Time! The best time of the day,and the part I really never make fun of because the recipes look ok. This time we're having a Ginger-Mint Mojito, a Cucumber Vodka Tonic, and an Apple Manhattan. For our snackies, we'll have Mini Black and Blue Pitas (roast beef and Gorgonzola on mini pitas) and Bacon and Cream Cheese on Endive. I WILL mae fun of the Easy Cheese Straws,though. You use packaged pie crust mix and processed cheese spread to make these before extruding them through a cookie press.

19) When Girls Gather.. .
. . . . you can ply them with Lemon Drop Martinis and con them into mking the party favors for one of your other parties. A party these midlevel friends aren't invited too. Hahahahaahah! They're drunk! They'll never remember that you used them as some sort of alcoholic sweat shop!

20) In Community Sandra is "feeding Minds" by helping some children from Share Our Strength's Operation Frontline make Caramel-Peanut Butter Bars. They look pretty damn good. Not healthy, since they involve cake mix and Peter Pan Peanut Butter and Whole Milk, but tasty.

And we end the issue, and the entire project, with the 21) Paper Plate Feature, which is a Curried Chicken Salad sandwich on Croissant.

And that was all she wrote (unless she has a moment of weakness and sits in a Borders for a couple of hours cackling and typing and trying to covertly take pictures of the April/May issue. Or the May/June issue, in case there's no April in Sandy Land this year.

Bye, Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade Magazine. We've had some laughs, and a passable pink cake, and some pretty good mushroom hors d'ouevres, and some dog bones that made George's farts stinky.

And now we go our separate ways.