She's crafty, and she's just my type

Turn on the Food Network any weekday between 4 pm and 7 pm. Here's what you're likely to see: women preparing meals in a home kitchen. Five women each host a show in the hours in which (presumably) viewers are at home and thinking about what's for dinner that night. By the looks of it, you'd think every woman in America cooks dinner every night. . . or is supposed to. What exactly are we looking at and integrating into our beliefs when we watch these cooking shows?

I have a few guesses.

Let's meet our cast of characters. First up is Sandra Lee. Semi Homemade with Sandra Lee is all about taking shortcuts; for each recipe she combines 70% ready-made products with the other 30% of the ingredients prepared by hand. The best part about her show is that she ends every episode with booze.

Next is Giada di Laurentis. In her show, Everyday Italian, di Laurentis cooks (what else?) Italian food. She has a lot of male fans.

Fancy foods (with French names) are Ina Garten's forte. Barefoot Contessa is set the Hamptons, where Garten entertains in her picture-perfect farmhouse kitchen. She likes to make labor-intensive recipes with expensive ingredients.

Paula Deen dishes out generous helpings of Southern comfort food in her programs. Paula is infamous for starting every recipe with a stick of butter and for making funny faces when she tastes her dishes.

The afternoon cooking block ends with an hour of Rachael Ray's 30 Minute Meals. Ray has been a fixture on Food Network for over a decade. And despite her inordinate perkiness and unique phraseology (she coined such terms as EVOO for extra virgin olive oil); her popularity only increases.

So what are the prevailing trends among these shows? The most obvious, of course, are issues of gender and space -- or gendered space. All of these programs tell a story from the same point of view: the home kitchen is the place in which women must cook. According to these shows, womanliness and domesticity are inextricable. And for whom do the cook? Their husbands; all the women are married (except Lee, a divorcee since 2007, who allegedly has been dating the same man since the divorce). Preparing food may be viewed as an act of subservience to men.

Another strong undercurrent in the shows is linking food with desire and sensuality. Watching shows like this will whet one appetite or another. That connection is easy to make just by looking at how the women dress; it's pretty clear that this is eye candy for admirers of the decolletage. But I believe that there are subtler forms of desire that the shows address as well.

These women seemingly "have it all": a beautiful home, a family, a successful career, and enough time each night to make a fabulous dinner to boot. It's as if they provide a model for female viewers to emulate. Is this the way of life that the viewer (male or female) is supposed to desire?

And what did you think of their posh kitchens? Clearly these ladies are living the good life. . . maybe even the American Dream. All of the kitchens evoke a sense of wealth, which is sometimes combined with a WASPy sensibility (as is the case with Sandra Lee). The back stories on Lee and Paula Deen are very rags to riches; they both were the sole providers for their families of young children and came into their fortunes by ingenuity. Similarly, Rachael Ray came into her profession by a lot of hard work and more than a bit of dumb luck; she never trained as a chef. Their shows give the audience a hope of upward mobility, and reiterate the promise of the American Dream.

Just keep watching the Food Network and sooner or later you'll find something (or rather, someone) to suit your tastes.

Look at me-- I've watched Rachael Ray so much that my initial annoyance with her quirks has evolved into full blown idolatry. Not only do I watch and enjoy her daytime show every chance I get, but I also want her to be my BFF.

Hmm, looks like I'm complicit in my subjugation.