If you grew up in the 90's...

......Chances are, you owned a delicious pair of these.

Paula Deen

I couldn't possibly do a piece on Food Network Stars without including Paula Deen. There is a soft spot in my heart for Paula, I truly adore watching her shows. Although she gets a lot of critiscm for being really unhealthy (I just saw an episode where she used 4 sticks of butter in a dessert dish) and she is, you don't make Paula food when you're on a diet. I think I'm such a big fan because she has a great story. Single mom, suffering from agroaphobia (fear of leaving the house) for many years. She started her business from scratch and her boys have always played an integral role in her restaurants and t.v. shows. No, you can't make your primary diet from Paula Deen recipes but if you're looking for a great comfort food experience definitely give one of her dishes a whirl.

Ina Garten

I have a love/hate relationship with Ina Garten. Although she consistently says things that totally make me crazy, I am loyal about tuning into her show.

The Good:

• Ina knows her stuff. She had a very successful catering business in the Hamptons and she continually is spot on with most of her recipes. I
• She takes the simplicity approach and makes some relatively 'fancy' meals seem doable. She loves French dishes and because of her I tackled my first French course at home.

The Bad:

• She usually has very long ingredient lists. I like to think I have a well stocked pantry, but you can usually find 5 or 6 ingredients not on hand. That's a problem, especially when she calls for an exotic ingredient you will only get one use out of.
• You must be able to tolerate her mentioning her husband Jeffrey at least 3 times in every episode. Within no time you will know everything you could ever want to about Jeffrey.
• Ina constantly has friends over and they are either A. Flaming Gay Men or B. Over the top Jewish. She has no happy medium. I have nothing against either party, I would just like to see a little bit of a change up every so often.

The Ugly:

• Here is my biggest beef with Ina. She is NOTORIOUS for using over the top expensive ingredients in 'simple' dishes. She also constantly reminds you that if you don't use the best ingredients your recipe will be ruined. (ex: If you don't use FREE RANGE beef in your hambuger patties you might as well throw them away because regular ground beef won't be as good. OR Unless you can find the top of the line saffron for this dish, you shouldn't make it because it won't be as good). C'mon Ina, I'm all about using quality ingredients, but I just can't suck up spending $7.99 a pound for free range ground beef!
• We know you are rich. We know you live in the Hamptons...you can stop driving us around in your Benz! That's just plain annoying and you do it like 3 or 4 episodes per month.

Although I have some gripes with Ina, overall she has a great show (in my opinion) and I will continue to watch her....even if it means I'm yelling at the t.v.

Anne Burrell

Anne Burrell. Where do I even start? This woman is possibly the most annoying human beings on planet Earth. I have no idea how she secured her own show (she was Mario Batali's sous chef on Iron Chef) let alone keep it on the air. I think that she tries to be edgy. She says words like 'crap' and 'party' all the time (ex: beat the crap out of this chicken) but it doesn't work. She comes off as an old broad trying to be cool/hip. Even if you can get past her non-funny jokes (that she always laughs at) the sound effects will drive you crazy. She makes this weird 'grunting' noise regularly and it makes it all that more painful to watch her. My friend Vinnie summed it up perfectly. He said "she looks like Miss Piggy" and you know what....he's right. I've got no love for Anne Burrell. Luckily I don't think this post will bother anyone cuz I haven't met a person yet who thinks she's funny.

Bobby Flay

Dear Mr. Flay,

I got a bone to pick with you. I like to consider myself a 'foodie' so when the opportunity of meeting you in Las Vegas came along, I jumped at the chance. A friend and I bought tickets to several Bon Appetit events that were being held throughout Vegas. As you can imagine they weren't cheap. We didn't mind, we were stoked at the fact that we could meet some of our most favorite chefs while sampling their food. Everyone was nice but YOU. In fact, you were a pompous ass! You refused to sign any autographs (even though folks shelled out over $75 for your cookbook), you refused to take pictures (even though the 2 hour event cost almost $200) and you even refused to cook (you sent in your employees from Mesa to cook for you). You, Mr. Flay are an asshole. Your attitude sucked and you left a bad taste in quite a few peoples mouths. You need to remember that it is your fans that made you (and keep you) famous, acting like a tool isn't a cool thing to do.

Sincerely,

Dawn Barron

P.S. I never would have realized you were so small just by watching you on t.v., it took me standing right next to you. Perhaps it's a Napolean complex?!

Sandra Lee (Aunt Sandy)

The next chef I'm going to talk about is the lovely Sandra Lee, or Aunt Sandy as she sometimes calls herself. Sandra wrote a book about her troubled childhood. She never knew her father and her mother was addicted to nose spray (no lie). Her grandmother raised her and her sister and you can often hear her mention them both on the show. She is also LOVES talking about her nephew Bryce (whom she affectionately calls Brycer).

I'm not a big fan of Sandra Lee. I've tried really hard to 'get into her', but it just doesn't work. She has this weird Valley Girl type of talk that just drives me crazy. She also has a habit of matching her outfit to the design scheme in her kitchen (she above picture). That's just ridiculous in my book. Who does that?! Her tablescapes also push me over the edge. Some of the ideas are cute, but I just don't have the time to visit a craft store and assemble place cards for my dinner table.

But to be fair, this is a Food Network show, so her cooking technique should be the focus here. With that being said, I'm still not a fan. Sandra is big on the shortcut idea (and so am I), but alot of her recipes are things I would never even try. For instance, she once made a birthday cake by purchasing 3 different size sheet cakes from a grocery store. She piled them on top of each other, surrounded them by more store bought cupcakes and frosted it. Blah, no thanks. Her money saving food show caught my eye briefly, but the amounts of ingredients she uses is so ridiculous I have a hard time taking her seriously (0.39 cents worth of vodka, 0.84 cents worth of oatmeal), c'mon Sandra....where can I buy 39 cents worth of vodka?!

Overall I give her 2 out of 5 stars.

Rachael Ray

I'm an avid Food Network t.v. watcher. In fact, I probably watch this station more than any other. I thought it might be fun to revisit my blog and write a little something about my favorite (or least favorite) Food Network personalities.

I decided to begin with Rachael Ray. I couldn't help but resist using the pictures from her FHM shoot. Too funny.

Rachael is the Food Network queen. She is super perky, always smiling and she really likes to play up the fact that she is not a classically trained chef. She prefers to be known as an at-home cook like you and I. For the most part I like Rachael. Perhaps it's her strong work ethic. She's got a few shows on Food Network, her own talk show (that is doing quite well), a line of dog food and her own magazine. She also cranks out 3-5 cookbooks per year. Not bad. On the downside, Rachael can be a tad annoying. She loves to meld words (stoup=stew/soup, EVOO=extra virgin olive oil) and she giggles quite a bit. Her meals are pretty good and I own 3 or 4 of her cookbooks. Overall I like Rachael. Although she can be a tad bit PERKY her recipes have always turned out to be winners in my book and they are quick and simple...exactly what I'm looking for.