Get the USA TODAY app Flying spiders explained Start the day smarter ☀️ Honor all requests?
NEWS
Food preparation

Even N.Y. Gov. Cuomo's girlfriend Sandra Lee still in dark

By Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy, The (Westchester, N.Y.) Journal News
Food Network personality Sandra Lee unloads donated items for Hurricane Sandy victims to a food bank warehouse in the Bronx, N.Y., Nov. 4, 2012.
  • N.Y. Gov. Andrew Cuomo shares a home with Sandra Lee
  • Sandra Lee hosts 'Semi-Homemade' on Food Network
  • Like thousands of other New Yorkers, they remain without power

NEW CASTLE, N.Y. — On Day 10 of Superstorm Sandy's aftermath, the home Gov. Andrew Cuomo shares with his girlfriend, Sandra Lee, the Food Network star, is one of 3,000 households in New Castle still without power.

"We have a generator," said Lee, Wednesday, while standing in line for lunch at a Bedford Hills restaurant.

The statuesque first girlfriend, dressed all in black (including black rain boots), was busy coordinating relief efforts on her smartphone, even as she stood in line.

"I am trying to get food trucks to deliver to food banks in Queens," said Lee, host of the "Semi-Homemade Cooking" show. "Everyone's suffering."

"No one has power," said Lee, an on-screen chef and the de facto first lady of New York state. "Andrew has been eating cold, hard boiled eggs, I know, because I make it for him."

No wonder Cuomo unleashed his fury on Con Ed at a news conference Monday.

"The progress is unacceptable," Cuomo said. "To say that I am angry, to say that I am frustrated, disappointed, would be the understatement of the decade."

All of the state's utilities that have customers without power — Con Ed, Long Island Power Authority, New York State Electric and Gas, and Orange and Rockland Utilities — will be scrutinized, the governor said.

"I promise the people of this state that they (the utilities) will be held accountable for their lack of performance," he said. "These are not God-given monopolies. I will review all of them."

Featured Weekly Ad