Instant gratification

Lost is probably a good third through the second season by now. My initial misgivings and fears appear to have been misplaced. I feel a little guilty for my lack of trust because the past two episodes have been excellent.

I notice that on a lot of the message boards these days most of us are very impatient with TV programs. A show has one bad or poorly written scene and that's it, we declare, it's jumped the shark. I'm not sure if it's because now you don't even have to wait till the next time you're around the proverbial water cooler to talk about a film or television show you saw. It could be very easy to find your opinion swaying after reading oh, 25 pages worth of comments saying that a program was awful. Or even if it holds true, you might not want to venture posting that you disagree.

I haven't done as much writing as I would like to, but from my brief experiences with fiction (nothing published--I just have a stack of legal pads on the bottom of a closet), I do know that sometimes there has to be set-up. You need exposition. Characters need to develop. And yet, knowing that full well and having been critical of media where this does not happen, here I've been griping when I don't get what I want immediately. Perhaps patience is in order...

That was HER?

The first of hopefully several seasons of Rome finished up with a bang. Aside from a few gripes with the historical accuracy (where for instance is Marcellus?) I loved this show. In particular, I loved Lindsay Duncan. As Servilia she is almost as clinically cold as Sian Philips' Livia, and gives an amazing performance.

I've seen Duncan in a few things, most recently in Under the Tuscan Sun. Curious to see what else she's done, I looked her up in IMDB. To my complete and total shock, I just discovered she played the ingenue in On Approval--the version with Penelope Keith and the late Jeremy Brett. I have a tape of it somewhere. I would never have realized that she was the same actress.

Wow. Talk about range.

Sandra Lee redux

Because I'm a masochist or something, I will keep watching the horror that is Semi-homemade Cooking with Sandra Lee. I just don't get this woman or why she's still on television. Of course, I don't get why I keep tuning in either.

Last episode I saw involved the use of a slow cooker. Now I will admit that risotto is something I have not yet mastered, but last time I checked it took about 30 to 40 minutes and not 3 hours. Chicken noodle soup is one of the easiest things to make--even if you want to cheat.

Cut up some onions, celery, and carrots (or if you're really cheating, buy them already cut up), saute in a pot with the teensiest amount of vegetable oil. Add chicken broth. They make really good organic low-sodium kinds these day. If you don't have cooked chicken lying around, you get a supermarket rotisserie chicken for about $4 and cut up part of that. Add in. Season with salt and pepper. Add your noodles about a half an hour later for ten more minutes and you're good to go.

What does this stupid woman do?

She throws it all into a slow cooker with cream of mushroom soup and cooked noodles for 3 hours. Then she suggests serving it cold. Oooookay.

The pot roast fiasco was truly scary. Yeah, a 1/4 cup of steak sauce. Go figure.

What makes it all worse is that she's possibly one of the more clueless and inefficient cooks I've ever seen. She measures wrong. She contradicts what she's doing verbally. She dirties every dish and spoon possible. She'll spend hours doctoring up cool whip when she could make homemade whip cream in half the time to better effect.

Why is she still on the air? Anyone?