For her career trajectory, this story has worked: Lee is among TV's most successful female chefs, and she says she owes her success to the woman who created the medium, Julia Child.

Taking it back already? Now she's only AMONG TV's most successful female chefs? I see how you are.

Among her colleagues, she even calls herself a drag queen; she's a performer-if nothing else. "You've got Rachael Ray and Sandra Lee-mostly women-and in a way, they're very much the children of Julia," says Michael Pollan, the author of In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, who spoke about the Food Network on Fresh Air Radio earlier this week.

Rachel and Sandra are mostly women?

"Child really was the forerunner for everything that happens on the Food Network," Rachel Ray says. "[I get] lumped in with Sandra Lee, but whatever. I try to do more than that."

Lee's show is the furthest from Child's methods-but just like the latter brought French cooking stateside, Lee and Child have one basic thing in common: anal sex that hasn't yet been explored.

Lee proudly declares that using reusable dish towels to clean up makes her cooking environmentally friendly.

Okay. Maybe it's not just the writer. Everyone he's quoting gave him plenty to work with.

she makes a startling confession about her new show. "There will be no cocktails," she laments, even though they played heavily in her last show. "You know, alcohol is expensive and now, it's all about saving money."