NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo (and favored candidate for NY Governor) is trying to stay "neutral" in the dispute about the recipes for Lasagna of Andrew's mother Matilda, and Andrew's girlfriend, Celebrity Chef, Sandra Lee, (not to be confused with Food company of similar name).

Sandra has suggested using Cottage Cheese instead of Ricotta, and Tomato Soup instead of Tomato Sauce. At first I was incensed that Lasagna would be so "Dumbed Down", until I realized that her whole "Martha Stewart thing" is based on trying to enjoy the best with a skimpy bargain budget.  This is Not Chef Boyardee, But close. She looks, thinks, and talks so great, I'm giving her a pass, even though I NEVER intend to use her recipe. LOL 

But, 43 yr old blonde and beautiful, Sandra Lee is a sunny on-screen chef with a homey Midwestern manner, that has built a media empire around how-to advice, and whose wealth and star power outstrip that of the governor himself. She hosts two of the highest-rated shows on the Food Network, has sold more than one million books and has developed products sold at Sears, Target and Wal-Mart. 

Sandra Lee's  latest domestic project? The Cuomo family. Ms. Lee, has invited his Andrews young daughters, by his previous marriage onto her Food Network show to bake cupcakes. "Good job, sweetheart!" she exclaimed after Mariah, one of Mr. Cuomo’s 15-year-old twins, expertly applied icing. She takes Mr. Cuomo’s mother, Matilda, antiquing in upstate New York, and bakes brownies for Mr. Cuomo’s staff. 

Ms. Lee and Mr. Cuomo are, on the surface, dissimilar (she is a college dropout who grew up in California and Wisconsin, and he is a law-school graduate from New York), they share some essential traits: an unyielding drive and an action-oriented style. 

Her meticulousness manner grew out of a troubled childhood: an absent father, a chronically ill mother and welfare checks that she was forced to cash on her own, at age 13, to buy groceries for her siblings.
Her solution to the chaos was to impose order on it: as a teenager, she was directing a household of four children, conjuring up the inexpensive meals and penny-wise routines that would later become the basis of her multimillion dollar brand, Semi-Homemade, which relies heavily on packaged goods. "We made simple bargain cuisine, not because we wanted to, but because we had to," she writes of those days in her book. 
After leaving home as a 16-year-old, she built the résumé of an undeterred striver - cleaning houses, waiting on tables and hawking products at trade shows and county fairs. Her ambition was evident to everyone who met her. 
See : "TV Cook is Cuomo's First Lady": http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/15/nyregion/15sandralee.html
 

New Yorkers react to AG Andrew Cuomo's girlfriend's lasagna recipe.  Lee's recipe includes tomato soup and cottage cheese.
MANHATTAN — An informal DNAinfo poll showed that New Yorkers largely sided with AG Andrew Cuomo's Italian-American mother in her food fight this week with celebrity chef Sandra Lee, her son's girlfriend.
Cuomo's mom had thrown rotten tomatoes at the lasagna recipe used by Lee, which reportedly included tomato soup and cottage cheese.
"No, that's not how you make lasagna," said Andre Blake, shaking his head indignantly. 
But Blake wanted the gubernatorial candidate to know that his girlfriend's cooking wouldn't affect Blake's opinion of him. 
"Mr. Cuomo, I won't hold it against you that your girl don't know how to make lasagna," Blake added, though he recommended that Lee head down to Little Italy and figure it out.
Terrance Atkinson, of Woodside, Queens, was having none of the recipe."Cottage cheese, apple cider...That's ridiculous, c'mon," Atkinson said with a a snort. A fellow Queens man, William Vergara, agreed.
"If you add another cheese you're changing the flavor, so it's not lasagna anymore," said Vergara. "You're eating something else."
For his part, Cuomo, played the roll of diplomatic politician."Sandy makes a beautiful lasagna. My mother makes a beautiful lasagna. And on this issue, I'm going to be very, very careful," Cuomo told host Fred Dicker on Albany's Talk 1300. 

 http://dnainfo.com/20100617/manhattan/
new-yorkers-agree-sandra-lees-lasagna-
recipe-is-not-real-deal#ixzz0r97iZSdv
 
 
 

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