TIME: STYLE & DESIGN
Spring, 2004

Who Will Be The Next Domestic Diva?
Author: Marion Hume
Edition: Style & Design

...Ho, whose Rescue magazine is pitched to those in "Martha recovery." While they all tout their own particular niche, what they share is tricks to fake the painstaking perfectionism that earned the queen of lifestyle her crown.

And television audiences are responding. On Home & Garden Television and the Food Network, among the fastest-growing ad-supported cable networks, the non-perfectionist programming is scoring the highest ratings. The Food Network's roster of shows launched in 2003 reads like a self help catalog for cooking enthusiasts: Easy Entertaining and Everyday Italian as well as Lee's Semi-Homemade.

Even without ImClone, perfection is, it seems, an outmoded goal in an anxious world. "We're getting more realistic about what we can achieve. We don't want to be perfect homemakers. We just want to be surrounded by family and love and safety," says Shoshana Berger, dubbed "cheeky Martha" for her magazine, ReadyMade, which includes such tricks as how to turn an old blender into a lamp.

When it comes to shortcuts, Sandra Lee wrote the book - or two - the first of which quickly became a best seller. Lee, who was raised in Sumner, Wash., appears on the Food Network, cheerily adding a can of Campbell's mushroom soup to ground turkey and calling it Stroganoff. The 36-year-old's Semi-Homemade philosophy preaches the use of 70% prepared products and 30% fresh foods, plus a dash of ingenuity, yet this gleeful application of packaged food is far from half-baked. Lee has a multimedia deal with Miramax that includes television, books and merchandise.

It is all about being kinder, to others and to ourselves. While style has entered every crevice of our lives and there is no stuffing it back in the closet, even Carson Kressley of Bravo's Queer Eye for the Straight Guy is hardly Tom Ford when it comes to chic. But the show - which has been picked up by networks around the globe - works because Kressley's snappy banter is underscored with tolerance and generosity.

While Ted Allen, the Queer Eye food and wine connoisseur, won't let straight folks serve up Cheez Whiz, Semi-Homemade's Lee swears by it as a flavor base. "It's about getting that 'from scratch' result without all the energy and effort," claims Lee. It is also about priorities. "Life is the blink of an eye," she says. "When you realize how short it ultimately is and how really insignificant perfection is, that doesn't mean you don't want to do things well, but you want to do them faster so you can take a bath, drink a glass of wine or read a book."

All that is forbidden is snobbery. Lee, who was forced to cook for her four younger siblings at the age of 9 because their mother was seriously ill, has since used trial and error to make quick fixes taste better. She'll add cream cheese, sugar and flour to store-bought slice-and-bake cookies to make them tastier while making life easier so that "even Mom, when she doesn't have time because she's working her little tushy off, can roll it out with the kids and enjoy the fun part." At a time when we are judged more by the love we share than by what we have and want - according to the newly minted lifestylers - it is no surprise Oprah is extending her reach in the market, publishing two issues of a home-design magazine this year.

Sandra Lee's forte does not include pig rearing, and the home-craft maven, who made her mark on QVC selling curtains, doesn't sew a stitch if she can avoid it. Yet Semi-Homemade is broad in other directions, encompassing, for example, romance in a "Sexy in Seventeen Minutes" feature in its online magazine. There she advises fans to spend minute 14 brushing Pixy Stix candy powder over chest and cleavage to "take even the busiest multitasker from tired to tantalizing." Such are the warmth and zeal of Lee.

Lee is neither shy nor wary that in building herself into a brand, there's a risk that, should it go wrong, it will be she who gets ripped apart. "You know one of the great things that just happened with Martha?" responds the woman dubbed "the next Martha" so often it is almost an adjunct to her name. "I always look at the brighter side and now I know exactly what not to do." Lee relishes what lies ahead. "I think there's always been a brand or an identity that people can relate to, whether it's Betty Crocker or Julia Child or Martha Stewart or Sandra Lee. You need to be able to identify with people who make sense to you. You can't identify with Mr. Clean!"