A Conversation On: Sandra Lee
SANDRA LEE: THE WOMAN IN WHITE
by Gully Wells | Vogue | February 2011
Tall and willowy, dressed in a white cashmere sweater and cream pants, her long blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail, pale-blue eyes highlighted with just a glimmer of frosty blue eyeliner, Lee is taking me shopping for some new plates for the house she shares with Andrew Cuomo in Mount Kisco. Except that now they will be commuting between Westchester and the Governor’s Mansion in Albany, and Cuomo’s daughters go to local schools. “I’m not quite sure how all this is going to work out yet,” says Lee. (Cuomo has joint custody of Michaela, thirteen, and sixteen-year old twins Mariah and Cara.) But back to the plates. “I like to create what I call ‘tablescapes,’ ” she explains. “It’s so much more fun when you organize your table around a theme, don’t you think?” And there, stacked up inside an open armoire at Fishs Eddy on Broadway, she finds exactly what she’s looking for. Decorated with vintage pictures of the emblematic buildings dear to the heart of every red-blooded, patriotic American politician—Mount Vernon, Independence Hall in Philadelphia—the plates would fit right into her Founding Fathers–themed dining room at home. “You’ll see what I mean when you come out to the house next week and we cook together,” she says.
For my money, a better profile.
THE RAVENOUS AND RESOURCEFUL SANDRA LEE
by Benjamin Wallace | New York Magazine | March 2011
Sandra Lee will make this happen. On a Friday afternoon in early March, the Food Network star and girlfriend of Governor Cuomo is sitting on a sofa in a photo studio in Chelsea, wearing a white sweatsuit, running shoes, and no jewelry. Even dressed down, she still has the long neck and blonde polished looks of the QVC host she used to be. But today’s self-presentation is a ways from the Sandra Lee of Vogue features, inaugural ceremonies, and television fame. She is here to pursue what is in effect her second career—as an anti–child-hunger advocate—by filming a public-service announcement for Tyson Foods. In January, after visiting nine of New York’s ten food banks and learning that what they needed most was protein, she made a deal with Tyson to appear in this PSA in exchange for their donation of 10,000 pounds of meat to each of the ten banks. Tyson has flown in two reps from Arkansas for the shoot. Clearly, these nice folks have no idea what they’re in for.