For my Mother...

70% Store Bought, 30% Fresh Produce and Creativity Equals 100% Successful

Cooking shows have become a popular television entity to males and females of all ages. Through the food, language, and format of each cooking show it is highly evident who their particular target it. Sandra Lee's tag-line is said at the end of every episode of her cooking decor show. "Please remember; keep it simple, keep it sweet, keep it smart and keep it semi-homemade."  It is clear that this pattern of speech is considered quite appealing to many women. Sandra's hook is her theme; each episode actually consists of two themes. First, the shows consistent theme of using seventy percent ready made products and thirty percent fresh ingredients and creative touches; which give every woman one hundred percent flavorful, fabulous, and fast meals. The second theme seen in every episode is the inspiration for her meal; this theme varies for every show ranging from "Take Outs to Eat In" to "Holiday Cocktail Parties" Sandra uses her girlfriend like charms, elegant table-scape, and verbal emphasis to appeal to many women ages thirty to forty.
    Sandra Lee's show Semi-Homemade with Sandra Lee always opens with the same format. First we are introduced to Sandra in some "exotic" location aside from her kitchen, for example outside walking in a snow covered forest or walking in the sand along the beach. Next, the audience is presented with images of the soon to be meal in vivid camera shots. While this montage of mouthwatering morsels flash in front of us we are guided through the food by Sandra's voice, this voice over explains the theme in more detail and presents the food she will be preparing in the episode. Once these two minutes of hunger inducing film have past we are then given the pre-shot, pre-edited informative two minute biography of Sandra Lee. At, this point the audience now knows what they will be watching, and they know some facts about Sandra. She is seen in this television intro shopping in the grocery store, smelling fresh produce, creating beautiful table-scape’s, and sitting in a giant, comfy, and welcoming chair telling her life story. Sandra is not a trained chef; she identifies herself as a young Wisconsin girl who loved to help her grandmother in the kitchen. She explains that she grew up learning the "old fashion" time consuming cooking methods, while dabbling in decorative ideas for themed parties. After watching the full six minute introduction of Sandra, the audience feels very comfortable and similar to Sandra. This non-threatening feeling is one of Sandra's keys to success, anyone who sees this introduction knows she is not a trained chef; therefore, viewers feel less intimidated about trying to cook her food.

         Sandra's persona is reflected in her audience, she has that long time high school girlfriend quality. It is as if, every time you watch her show you are re-joined with an old friend chatting about family, friends, and food. One of her standard linguistic choices it to elongate certain words such as, "all, yummy, one, and perfectly." Also, she consistently uses three or four descriptive words per sentence, words like, "nice, festive, beautiful, lovely, simple, easy, and super." Along with describing her decorations, food, and friends; she takes the time to mention the food network website approximately three times throughout the entire episode. Sandra takes her audience through a certain pattern for every show, she begins with one or two appetizers, followed by a dinner selection, dessert, and always, always a cocktail. The tittles she deems for her food continually reflect her themes. Such as her winter cocktail party, she made three cocktails called, “Frosty, Gingerbread, and Candy Cane Cocktails.” Once she has cooked the entire meal, she moves to her table-scape design. Sandra always has a highly decorated table filled with themed nick-knacks. For example, for her winter nutcracker episode she had a Christmas tree filled with nutcrackers, in every episode she includes a personal goody, so a miniature nutcracker with engraved names is placed on each guest’s plate. When she discusses her designs she enjoys certain phrases such as, “Always pay attention to detail.” One of the most noticeable Sandra styles we notice as an audience is the kitchen itself. Her kitchen reflects her persona to the last detail, the accessories such as plates and glasses, along with the appliances change every episode to match her outfit, which of course always matches her theme. When she has her pink meadow party everything in the kitchen is shades of pink, when it is an Asian inspired party everything is deep red and gold. This is probably one of the most ridiculous and comical aspects of this show that may split the audience's opinions.

When cooking her food she gives the audience several descriptive words that can make your mouth water. She is a highly adequate cooking instructor; she talks with moderate cooking level terms, making it easy to understand. Also, she is informative and instructional, when she uses certain herbs she like to explain why and what they pair well with. It is interesting that the camera shots used in the show are not necessarily focused on the food. Most shots are wide angles of Sandra cooking and preparing, then seconds before the food is finished they use a close up shot of the food. The guests that appear on her show are usually seen towards the end of the show when the actually party begins. When it comes to guests actually cooking she will usually have a girlfriend help her, but on most occasion her kitchen helpers are her nieces and nephews.

As much as she is always in high spirits, Sandra has some downfalls. Due to her recipes calling for seventy percent store bought products, she advertises certain products. This tends to become annoying; also, her ridiculous pride in her decorations can start to frustrate the audience. One of the things she does that has the most irony it her use of fresh produce; most of the produce she tends to use is as garnish. Such as, making frozen meatballs and placing them into a bowl that is layered with lettuce leaves first.

Even when her bubbly over-descriptive personality can make an audience member cringe, it is obvious that her show is popular. Anyone can YouTube her show and watch most of her episodes in fragmented sections, and many of them have a great deal of viewers. The appeal of convenient, easy-to-follow, and inexpensive food has captured the attention of many women, appealing to their hectic schedules and wallets.   

W7 Imagination is the Secret

Riddles are most appealing when unsolved, the success of any mystery is what puzzles our mind and makes us imagine crazy things. So it is easy to understand that anything with, "special sauce", "secret ingredient", and "vault family recipe," would draw in attention from hungry patrons. This thought of secrets holding power starts at such a young age; for example, Sponge Bob Square Pants provides children with Mr.Crabs keeping the Crabby Patty Secret Formula locked away in a safe, while Plankton is constantly attempting to steal it for his own restaurant.
My family has many "secrets" in their recipes. I find the largest one is my father's BBQ sauce, that is one recipe that remains tightly sealed in his mind. Although, I'm slowly learning the secrets to some of our families most satisfying treats. I think the appeal to these delicious secret treats is in the mind. It's a guessing game that we love to try and defeat. For many families I think a sense of pride is taken in their secret which makes those salivary glads whirl off into a tizzy of excitement.
As for brand names such as, Bush's Baked Beans, Dr. Pepper's 23 flavors, and  KFC's 11 herbs and spices they use their "secrets" in order to sell more product. It is not the secret that is appealing it is the meaning of the secret because honestly, in this day and age anything can be dissected and determined. Therefore, it is the notion that when the eater is enjoying that tall glass of Dr. Pepper and eating their KFC that they are apart of something bigger. It is as if they have joined in with this big secret that is so enticing to the public.
And in this respect it is similar when a family is eating. When I'm enjoying the delicious sweet and tangy BBQ sauce that my Dad has created I feel like I'm in on the secret. All in all, the "secret ingredients" are a seductive mind game that entices people to eat such foods to join in on the mystery. 

W6 A film that has all the right aims...

Food, Inc was a very influential film, some of its most compelling arguments in my opinion were; the inside views of the treatment of the animals, the story about Kevin and the information attached to it, the treatment of the workers, and finally the farmers being pursued for patent infringement. Using these captivating images and facts Food, Inc strongly-pursues the underbelly of America's food production.

From the first  assembly line we see living breathing baby chicks murdered in a heartless and mechanical fashion. This image was string enough to send some viewers including mine's gag reflex into a tizzy. What's worse is the images of the cows too fat for their own capacity to carry falling over and being pushed with a fork lift. Due to the corn and animal scraps these animals are fed they are unable to carry their own body weight. The chicken's are kept in dark windowless crowded shacks trampling each other. Most can't even take more than two steps before collapsing under their unnaturally high body mass. With the use of hidden cameras we see how these poor defenseless sickly creatures are captured and sent to their horrible deaths. They are kicked, beaten, carelessly thrown around, and scared into heart attacks.

The image that Kevin's mother leaves in our minds brought me to tears. To in-vision a small boy a few years old on dialysis in the hospital begging for water is a devastating thought. She said that he was so thirsty that not only was he begging for water, but he was so desperate that he bit the head of a sponge off to try and get all the water out of it. (As he was only aloud to have a little water from a sponge every few hours) All of this happened because of diseased meat. The worst thing that Kevin's mother informed us is that the company not only never apologized for killing her baby, but they didn't recall their meat until 16 days after Kevin died.It seems that the company has obtained absolutely no penalties for their poor hygiene. Kevin's mother and family are still fighting for Kevin's law; which forces companies to be more informative about their products with labels. It doesn't seem like much to ask now does it?

A third argument that left a displeasing taste in my mouth was the use of employment. Hiring illegal immigrants who can't afford to ask for benefits, more money, and days off are used in this highly dangerous job environment. The sickest thing we see is one of the largest companies that America uses has a contract with the police. The police don't arrest all of their employees but every week they arrest 10-15 people. Drag them out of their homes, cuff them and take them to unknown places. These workers have very poor communication skills and do not understand their rights or how to be smart in these situations. These companies are taking advantage of people who have no options and of Americas ignorant citizens, who blindly let this happen for cheaper and quickly produced meat.

The last stand I would say that had impact on me was the farmers. Trying to make a living but being caught by government laws corporate pesticides (things which do not go with agriculture and farming.) A man is sued for simply cleaning seeds. The corporation considers him an enabler of patent infringement of soy bean pesticides. This man has lost his business of over 40 years, his friends, and his lively hood as he had to settle because he couldn't afford his bills. That is what these companies do, buy out or scare out the local workers with fancy suits and cheep product. Once these smaller local companies and farmers are gone they up prices and experiments with less precautions and attention to safety all the while being negligent about informing America what exactly they are consuming.  

Food, Inc was smart, they triggered all of our emotions in this documentary. Our compassion and sympathy and humans and mothers, sisters, fathers, brothers. While enabling our anger while injustice and disgusting behaviors. They even tug on our logical notions of life, with regards to what we choose to eat and why and how this is affecting us. And simply what we can do to change it. They show that we as a society have the power. I for one have learned new things from this documentary and will always try and make smarter decisions when shopping. I hope you all do too.

W5 The Power of Food

For many people food is a form of communication. I know that I talk to my own family about food eighty percent of the time. Do you ever notice what kinds of foods you eat or associate with your emotional state of being? I do, because lets face it so many times when a woman is upset what does she crave? Chocolate or some kind of hearty comfort food. Even men crave things when they are upset, I believe it is usually something with an alcoholic twist to it, but non the less they have them to.
Having those cravings when upset does seem to have female negative connotations to it, doesn't it? Why is that? Why do we not associate eating out of stress or boredom to men as well? I'm thinking it is because men don't feel as guilty or make a big fuss when they eat something a little more gratuitously hearty that healthy. Anyways, back to those questions of what we crave when. I believe there is a pattern to this culinary puzzle. For example, when someone has been up eating nothing but greasy cheesy food, there is a breaking point, for some it may come at different times but it does exist, and what is it we turn to after those muffin top moments? Salad, fresh produce, WATER! Whenever someone feels fat or gross it is always water that gives the person the satisfying cure they were in search for.
When we are sick we have specific foods we prefer to have as well. I think the number one contender would have to be soup. But why is this? People may argue it is because that is how they were raised, but why were your ancestors raised to crave hot liquid with floating bits of meat, beans, and vegetables? No one may know this answer but the make-up of soup is a hot liquid soothing a stressed throat, and the hot stream loosens and breaks mucus. (Wow how disturbing to be talking about mucus and food in the same sentence.) So is it the composition of the food itself we crave as opposed to the taste? Or is it the memories attached to the food itself? I think its safe to say its a mix of both.
When your feeling good about yourself what is it you crave most? I feel a lot of people aren't that hungry when they are in a good mood. Do you ever ask yourself why? It appears that food is more of an emotional attachment and necessity than it is basic instinct for survival. I feel that sometimes food feeds your soul more so than your body. I know this sounds ridiculous and may be diving into psychology a bit, but it is still something to think about, because it is apparent what we want to eat in correlation to our personal temperaments.
Food speaks to us, when we see it, when we cook it, and we speak back, our saliva, our mmm's and ohhh's. We even use food as gifts of love or sympathy. Even the foods we give to people we have to contemplate thoughtfully our choices. If they are sad or a broken heart it is a gooey casserole or ice cream cake. If it's to celebrate it is something fancy like pasta, grilled meats, or pizza. Why do we choose these foods? The next time you get a craving, decipher what kind of mood your in, see if this is a pattern with you and think about why. Your food choices will tell you something about yourself you may not have recognized before.