Food Network...It's a love/hate thing.

I decided that I felt so strongly on the subject, that I had to get it all out....enjoy.

I LOVE cooking, I LIKE baking, and I am ALWAYS up for trying my hand at a new recipe. If you come to my house, chances are good that I WILL TRY TO FEED YOU. I prefer cooking to baking, because my chances of being able to "fix" the dish are higher if I mess it up a little. You cannot, however, do that with baking. You hope and pray when you put your creation into the oven that you measured everything just right. Because once it comes out of the oven, it's either good, bad or ugly, and there's little you can do to fix it. Needless to say, I have taken numerous things out of my oven, and transferred them straight to the garbage.

Now, onto the "meat" of my rant/rave. I typically really like to watch Food Network. I have spent about 2.5 hours watching it today already. Here are some of my observations about the shows I watched today....followed by my feelings on other shows/cooks.

Cooking For Real with Sunny Anderson: I watched this show first this morning. Truth be told, I had never watched this show before. It was about average. She made some meatloaf stuffed tri-color peppers and mac and cheese. I love mac and cheese any way I can get it, so...WIN. Her recipes looked great. She was a decent host, and not too annoying. I would definitely watch her again.

30 Min meals with Rachael Ray: Of course I like RR. I love all of her recipes, as they are fairly easy to make, and look delicious every time. She's cute, quirky and i like that she's shaped like a real woman. Her and I have similar baking issues, and I can respect that. I sometimes get annoyed with certain sayings that she has, or certain pronunciations, but I really like her Big Chill fridge, so that makes up for it. I also like her talk show on daytime television. I think she has the right amount of cleavage, and I enjoy counting how many wrap dresses she has....cuz damn, homegirl has about a million. My cousin Erin watches her, but on mute, because she can't stand to hear her talk (or say Parmesan for that matter).

Semi-Homemade Cooking with Sandra Lee: Hates it. FAIL of epic proportions. Faults; I don't even know where to begin. She's too skinny (I don't trust a skinny cook), her sleeves appear to drag in her dishes (she never pushes them up, and real cooks DON'T wear long sleeves), she uses mashed potatoes she got from the deli (which, are always powdered, gross), her outfit always matches her set (puke), she does "tablescapes" (vomit, your food should be good enough on its own so you don't have to hide it behind matching table linens, chargers and centerpieces), she seems afraid to get her hands dirty, and her voice annoys me. There, I will stop. Positive points......she used a slow cooker, which I liked, because I love getting new ideas for things to make in my crock pot. Overall, I don't know how she even got her own show. I could do better.

Paula's Home Cooking with Paula Dean: I just want to hug Paula Dean. I love how she finds a way to put butter into EVERY DISH THAT SHE COOKS. Each recipe usually looks like it has 65,836 calories, but I don't mind one bit. That's how home cooking should be. She does say ya'll a lot, but that's part of her charm. I trust her, because I can tell that she eats her own cooking. **edit** I also noticed that she had a Macbook Pro sitting on her countertop. WIN Paula, WIN.

Rescue Chef with Danny Boome: Mildly annoying, because of the way I feel he plays up his British accent, but ...he made Shepherd's Pie (an old favorite of mine), and showed a lady how to hide more vegetables in it, which I am always trying to do with Matt. I would watch it again I guess, but not on a regular basis.

Down Home With the Neelys: UGH. I think I throw up in my mouth every time I watch it. The recipes usually look great, down home southern cooking, delicious. But they kiss approx. 734 times on each episode, and he is always asking for "some brown sugar". Sick me out. As far as I'm concerned, I DO NOT want my husband in the kitchen with me. Nobody I know has that much fun cooking with their husbands. The kitchen is MY domain, and I tend to be very territorial. If he is in the kitchen, that's fine, as long as he is on the other side of the counter, and out of my way.

That's all of the shows I watched this morning. Thoughts on other hosts.....

Giada De Laurentiis: She's hot, which is why Matt will watch this show. He will watch her and RR, that's it. Giada's food is delicious, and she was actually born in Italy, which gives her a few points. But....homegirl is too skinny. put a good 10 lbs on her, and I would trust her a little more. There's no way she really eats like she cooks.

Bobbie Flay: Great recipes. Like watching him. His food is very manly, and I think Matt would eat most of it.

Emeril: Great recipes, very energetic. Uses lots of bacon because PORK FAT RULES. I add bacon to things whenever I can, so I'm totally down with Emeril.

Guy Fieri: LOVE his recipes, they are easy and Matt would eat most of them. His hair does scare me just a little, but other than that, love watching him.

Good Eats with Alton Brown: Alton seems to be very factual. I feel like I learn a lot when I watch him. Not just HOW to do things, but WHY they need to be done a certain way. He's a little geeky, but I kind of like it.

Ace of Cakes: HEART THAT SHOW. So creative, so amazing. It's something I could NEVER do, but I still love to watch it. Duff is a wicked genius, and he curses sometimes, which adds some much needed color to the Food Network.

That's all the further I'm going to go. I haven't watched the rest of the shows enough to comment too much on them. Oh, except for one more, Unwrapped. Gotta love the OCD Marc Summers. I like to see how things are made, but I really just wish he would start up Double Dare again. Fo shiz.

Ultimately, I think I would do a great show on Food Network. It would at the VERY LEAST be better than Semi-Homemade. no doubt.