The best recipes combine fresh ingredients with the

convenient ease of packaged products. While watching Food Network last week, I

was surprised to find that many of its shows didn’t follow what I thought was a

basic rule of cooking. Sure, there are helpful programs like 30 Minute Meals

with Rachel Ray, which has her preparing quick and easy meals that are worth

both eating and making. But for the most part, Food Network cooking shows

feature recipes that are either too easy or too difficult to make.

Enter Semi-Homemade Cooking with Sandra Lee. In the opening

credits, Ms. Lee promises that all her recipes can be made with 70 percent

store bought ingredients, 30 percent fresh ingredients, and as she puts it “you

take 100 percent of the credit." However, making crab ravioli is not as

easy as placing a spoon full of packaged crab into a wonton. To make matters

worse, every episode is themed and Ms. Lee always goes over the top; beads,

ribbons, layers of fabric — she even matches her wardrobe with her appliances! I don’t know what sane person would want to make anything from her

pseudo-pretentious show.

Sara Moulton of Sara’s Secrets, on the other hand, tries to

convince viewers that a rack of lamb paired with a red wine tarragon reduction

makes the perfect weeknight meal, which would be great except that all of her

recipes require more than 25 ingredients and at least two hours of preparation before you can actually sit down to eat. I don’t know about you but no one I know has a whole lot of time to

waste on making dinner, and a rack of lamb ain’t cheap.

For those of you looking to try out flavorful meals that

won’t break your budget, I suggest Everyday Italian and Barefoot Contessa. Both

of these programs showcase recipes that can be adjusted to fit any size family and

the hosts are engaging and entertaining, which makes watching Food Network a

little more bearable. I have to admit, though, that Ms. Lee and Ms. Moulton are

entertaining in their own right, but for entirely different reasons. Perhaps

they should test out their recipes on another show. The Sweet Smell of Semi-Success,

anyone?

—Weekly Planet Intern C.J. Tropp

This article appears in May 24-30, 2006.