Ubiquitous wrote:

<snipped to get to the point>

> When we return from commercial, we see a montage of SLop lighting candles,
> setting up her table scapes, greeting guests, etc. It appears that she has a
> new family now, with the exception of Kimber. SLop enters stage left with
> Rafael, a cute young Italian man who reminds me of Joey from "Friends" for
> this week's "cocktail time!". Not surprisingly, she clumsily flirts with him
> the entire time. Shockingly, however, she dumps the liquor Rafael used to
> rinse out their glasses into the sink. Her choice of choking hazard this week
> are frozen cranberries. SLop apparently looted the set where Land of the
> Giants was filmed, judging by the size of the martini glasses she used.
> Mayflower Martini in hand, SLop abandons Rafael to make drinks in the kitchen
> while she shows us her tablescape. SLop gushes about the usual crappy table
> runners and stacks of plates, and shows us how she also put table runners on
> all the chairs and tied them off with ribbons. As usual, there is no room on
> table for the food, for which I am sure her guests are most thankful. She took
> the bundt cakes that Kimber took inside at the beginning of the show and
> stuffed "nose gays" into them. She also used those jello shooters she made
> earlier as place settings and put cards with everyone's name in them, and of
> course, she repeated the ol' "leaves wired to stemware" trick. SLop tells us
> she has to go get dressed before taking off and leaving us with a bucolic
> montage of food, her guests sitting down, and a guy carving a turkey. SLop
> introduces the man carving the turkey as Santos, who shoots her a withering
> gaze. For those who watch Emeril's show, you will recognize Santos as one of
> his sous chefs. Gee, I wonder what he did to receive this as punishment? SLop
> and her poor guests begin to eat, but "strangely" enough, we never see anyone
> actually put any of her Food of Shame into their mouths. SLop exclaims "This
> turkey is GREAT!!", followed by a sudden cut to a man staring at her in shock
> and awe. Busted, Sandie!

I was floored by Sandy's passel of Ina-esque generic Eurofriends. My
word! Who would have thought they she knew them, and that they knew her.
What on EARTH could they possibly have in common? Why, absolutely
EVERYONE on Food Network is emulating the Big Fat Contessa, and I don't
see any good coming of it.

Ina and Michael Chiarello have always had their Rent-A-Friends, but now
Sandra has them, Giada has them... next thing you know, Rachael will
have them. They are also borrowing production techniques from BF and
Chiarello. The background music and camera angles and close ups are pure
Ina, and they are all just passing them around.

I swear, if this starts happening to Good Eats, I'll boycott. I will!