General: Food Network, Ina Garten »
Thirsty? How About Some $33 Food Network Hot Chocolate?
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The Food Network cares about your bank account during these tough economic times! They have an entire section on their website dedicated to budget-friendly meals. They hired Sandra Lee to host a new show called Money Saving Meals. And, oh yeah, they’re selling hot cocoa mix for THIRTY THREE DOLLARS (plus shipping/handling) in their online store.
Ina Garten must be out of her mind. $33? For hot chocolate, marshmallow mix, and a cheap dollar store spatula? GET REAL. Somebody needs to bring Ina Garten and the rest of the elitist snobs at Food Network back down to reality. They should be embarrassed charging $33 for hot chocolate in this economy, especially considering the Barefoot Contessa 3-piece brownie pan (which comes with the pan, the brownie mix and – yes – the spatula) is $3 cheaper at $30.
Excuse me while I morph into Suze Orman, but I don’t care how much disposable income you have. I don’t care how desperate you are to feel like Ina Garten is a close personal friend of yours. Paying $33 for hot chocolate doesn’t make you elite… it makes you A MORON.
If you want the most delicious hot cocoa you’ve ever tasted – without having to take out a second mortgage on your home – I recommend Droste cocoa from Holland. It’s about $7 in the grocery store, and it is to die for.
Other posts on Food Network Humor:
---Ridiculous Food Network Recipe Of The Week: Ellie Krieger’s Dark Chocolate Dipped Pretzels---THINGS WE HATE: Barefoot Contessa’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix
---Holiday Recipe Of The Week: Sandra Lee’s “Sensuous Chocolate Truffles”
---RIDICULOUS FOOD NETWORK RECIPE OF THE WEEK: Dark Chocolate As A Snack
---Woman Calls Ina Out Over “Good” Ingredients
- General: Food Network
- Ina Garten
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31 Responses
OMG this is too funny. I can’t imagine spending $35 on hot chocolate mix. Not even to splurge. That is just out of control.
Food Network wants to have their cake and eat it too, and you really drove that point home perfectly. They want you to think they care about you and your budget but the truth is they are in it to make money. They pander to viewers under the guise of wanting to help them – but they want to help themselves and their own wallets.
Many of the Food Network personality branded products are ridiculously overpriced but this one has to take the cake. Appalled!
$35? I could buy 3 24-packs of decent beer for that price. Or a bottle of decent tequila. Or 15-17 cups of Starbucks hot chocolate, which I think is really good.
The more I listen to ina garten the less I like her. Nice article.
I have one word to say on this:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/hot-cocoa-recipe/index.html
Ok. It wasn’t a word; it was a URL. But you get the point.
*smiles*
This is insane. I could care less if Ina and her buddies sip on this stuff and talk about interior design floral arrangements.
Thank you for exposing FN for being so frickin greedy. They deserve to crash and burn.
@Lana ~ :)
AB’s hot cocoa mix is awesome, especially if you use ‘really good’ cocoa ;)
Sheesh. I don’t even know what to say except FN and the overpriced crap is out of control. Wanna get back to reality? Try http://www.greatdepressioncooking.com. Watch some of the video’s and notice Clara doesn’t have a gourmet food product, garbage bowl, “good” vanilla, gay guy with a bunch of flowers or any other FN trapping. Talk about “back to basics”, Ida could take a lesson or two from this lady. But then Clara doesn’t live in the Hamptons…
They sell Barefoot Contessa stuff at my local grocery store (Wegmans) and my eyes about popped out of my head when I saw the prices. The cake mixes – I assume make one cake? are $9.99. I know for sure there are several box mixes for either cookies or cakes that are $13.99. The products are in a special display in the store and it certainly looks like it gets bought judging by the empty spots. The cheapest things are I think the pancake and waffle mixes at around $6. If I’m paying $14 for a cake mix or $33 for cocoa, Ina better pop out of the box or can and mix it up when I open it!
Also to add – all Ina’s recipes are out there and pretty basic, not secret by any means. You could whip up endless batches of ultimate brownies spending the $30 on basic ingredients. Are people just that lazy?
The word, Frenchfille, is not lazy, it’s STUPID.
And then they wonder why they don’t have any money and are in debt up to their eyeballs.
This is the second time Ina’s products have come under scrutiny at this site.
http://foodnetworkhumor.com/2008/12/things-we-hate-barefoot-contessas-chocolate-chip-cookie-mix/
people that can’t make a chocolate chip cookie or a hot chocolate and need to buy massively overpriced prepackaged mixs endorsed by a massive FN celebrity cook are most likely learning disabled and stupid.
I like Ina Garten and her recipes. I really do. Because the recipes are good I don’t even mind that the premise for each show seems cutesy and contrived. She seems devoted to her friends, although I have to wonder why, of all of them, when Miguel gets invited over he has to work for his dinner by doing the table. But $33 for hot chocolate? On what planet is that considered sane?! $30 for brownie mix? I can’t even imagine the thought process a person would have to say, “Hey, buying this is a SUPER idea!” You know, it’s not just Food Network’s greed. Doesn’t Ina endorse this stuff at these prices? If she does, for shame, Ina!
Personally, I’m a fan of the Ghirardelli brownie mix which can be bought in a 3-pack at Costco’s for about $10. Good for a midnight snack attack.
Wait a second. I just figured it all out!! Ina NEEDS the thirty three bucks (for two dollars worth of product). This will give her some disposable income to purchase some freakin new clothes. Poor lady has to wear the same shirt every single day! And even when she’s having a party she doesn’t even have something to change into after she’s cooked all day! Poor Ina. Let’s all buy some hot chocolate and, thanks for the reminder, Mike, some really expensive cookie mix, too!! How bad can that be???
For $33 I have to make my own marshmallows??? For $33, those marshmallows better be ready-made and coated in cocaine.
Let’s just hope for all our sakes the hot chocolate and marshmallow mix were made with GOOD vanilla. For that price it better be the best, most freaking rare vanilla on the entire planet.
I hear this stuff tastes really great when you mix it up in a $16 Rachael Ray garbage bowl.
The shark FN is jumping must be truly gigantic.
…I hear the stuff is great when you mix it with a $50 bottle of Grey Goose. And if you drink enough of it, you forget that you’re drinking away three days worth of groceries in 30 seconds.
Complain all you want about the pricey Barefoot Contessa products. When an itsy-bitsy vial of saffron becomes $2.99 a pop then I’ll start whining about how the BC Cocoa Grab ‘N Go is expensive.
I just checked this product out. It’s marshmallow mix, cocoa powder and a spatula. Considering how BC items (like brownie mixes and whatnot) usually go for about $9.99 each (I’ve seen higher prices for said items at Williams-Sonoma), the pricing of this makes sense (yep, utensils can sometimes cost as much as mixes, even if it’s a spatula).
For that price, I’d at least expect a spoonula.
C’mon, consider the source. Ina Garten lives on Long Island. Seriously. She has more money than Carter has liver pills. Why would it even occur to her that the pricing is too high??
$33 for hot chocolate by the barefoot contessa? That must be her penny saver version.
Oh, and that fabulously succesful gourmet shop she used to own. Her husband paid all her bills. On her own, she would have gone out in a year, tops.
I actually like Ina Garten’s show, and her recipes are pretty good, but she is loaded. Some magazine interviewed her a few years ago, where she talked about her favorite purveyors of tableware; she buys linens at a store in Paris called Doucement – $300 for a placemat and napkin!!! I don’t care how much money you have, that is obscene.
If you read the book, “The Millionaire Next Door,” it talks about how really smart rich people respect their money and many of them actually use coupons when shopping. You don’t become rich by buying $33 brownie mix etc. All Ina Garten does is support the societal cache system by creating a false sense of superiority through the squandering of money.
What she thinks she is doing: Making all of the “little people” want to be her, admire her and think she’s better than everyone else and pine away in envy of her wonderfulness.
What she’s actually doing: Lining the pockets of other greedy people who are greedy enough to put stupid prices on items.
When is giving your money away and paying more than something is worth a SMART thing worth admiring, anyway?
TFN is the same. They want your money. That’s all they want. They want you to want to be Ina or be Ina’s friend, or feel like Ina. Ina is a fantasy and an illusion. She plays her part, gets you to shop at expensive stores in search of status, and to take your money from you.
Think Williams Sonoma gives a crap? You only pretend they do. They want your money and they use the whole class system to make sure that rich idiots with money give that money away. Blechh.
caste system, caste system. Sorry, my brain hiccuped on that one. :( If only I were rich like Ina.
Oh look, it’s on “Special” for only $25.99. Ugh…
[...] there was Ina Garten’s $33 hot chocolate mix (but it came with a [...]
Seriously? Over $30 for hot chocolate mix? That had better be some damn good mix. I bet whoever buys it will find out they are drinking crap that tastes similar to Hershey’s lmao.
All of her mixes are expensive and I don’t know why… but this is the cherry on the cake. $33 for a hot chocolate mix? I got a three pack of Godiva hot chocolate mix in cute little containers and that was only $10 on sale ($20 full price), so I don’t know where she gets off with that kind of price. It must be the dollar store spatula pushing it over the $25 mark. ;) Personally, I’d skip that mix and buy some good chocolate and the ingredients to make homemade marshmallows myself; Alton Brown had a recipe and I’ve always wanted to try it.
Speaking of Alton Brown recipes… I read your article on the disappointing Barefoot Contessa chocolate chip cookie mix. Alton Brown’s recipe for “the chewy” chocolate chip cookie came out GREAT and I’ve made it a few times so far using chocolate chips and peanut butter chips. Try it sometime, if you haven’t already. I was skeptical at first, but it was worth it.
WHY DOES HOT CHOCOLATE REQUIRE SPATULAS?!?!?!?!?!?!?