Sandra Lee

Sandra Lee Christiansen (née Waldroop; born July 3, 1966), known professionally as Sandra Lee, is an American television chef and author.

She is known for her "Semi-Homemade" cooking concept, which Lee describes as using 70 percent packaged and 30 percent fresh products.

Lee was born in Santa Monica, California, in 1966, the daughter of Vicky Svitak and Wayne Waldroop, who had been high-school sweethearts.

When Sandra was two, her mother sent her, along with her younger sister, Cindy, to live with their paternal grandmother, Lorraine Waldroop.

Vicky had three additional children in the 1970s: Kimber, Richie, and John Paul.

Due to her mother's illness and the absence of her and her siblings' fathers, Lee effectively raised her four younger siblings.

In her youth, Lee learned how to feed her younger siblings frugally with a combination of food stamps and welfare payments, an experience that informed her future approach to cooking.

Lee graduated from Onalaska High School, in Onalaska, Wisconsin, and attended the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.

Lee has said her family is Catholic but was raised as Jehovah's Witnesses.

One source reported they were also Seventh-day Adventist for a time.

In December of her junior year, she left college to live near family in Malibu, California.

She later attended a two-week recreational course at Le Cordon Bleu in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

In 1972, after divorcing Wayne, Lee's mother moved with her girls to Sumner, Washington, where they acquired a new stepfather, whose last name (Christiansen) Lee took.

In the early 1990s, Lee created a product called "Sandra Lee Kraft Kurtains," a home-decorating kit designed to turn a wire rack and sheets, or other spare fabric, into decorative drapery.

It was sold via infomercials and cable shopping networks.

Home-shopping network QVC hired her as on-air talent.

In her first 18 months, Lee sold $20 million worth of merchandise.

QVC also selected Lee to launch its craft and home decorating categories on its networks in the U.K. and Germany.

In 1994, she released her first DIY home improvement video series, which sold more than a million copies.

Semi-Homemade Cooking with Sandra Lee premiered on the Food Network in 2003.

The show ran for 15 seasons and was in the top three new weekend shows on the network for its first five years.

Each episode contains entertaining and arts and crafts elements, in which Lee decorates the table setting and kitchen in accordance with the theme of the meal that she just prepared.

She refers to these as "tablescapes", a term she coined.

She has authored 27 books, including Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade: Cool Kids Cooking (October 2006) and a memoir, Made From Scratch, which was released in November 2007.

Her book Semi-Homemade Cooking appeared on The New York Times Best Seller list.

Lee's second Food Network series, Sandra's Money Saving Meals, began airing on May 10, 2009, in response to the Great Recession.

At the time, she was the only host on the Food Network with two cooking series running concurrently.

Kurt Soller, writing for Newsweek, described her as "among TV's most successful female chefs".

, her shows have aired in 63 countries.

A magazine based on her show, Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade, was released in 2009.

In late 2009, Lee hosted Sandra Lee Celebrates, a series of four one-hour specials that aired on HGTV.

As the partner of former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, she served as the de facto First Lady Of New York from 2011 to 2019, when the couple ended their relationship.

She received the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lifestyle/Culinary Show Host in 2012 for her work and her show.

In 2012, Lee won the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lifestyle/Culinary Host for Semi-Homemade Cooking.

Also in 2012, she started a monthly lifestyle magazine, Sandra Lee, in partnership with TV Guide.

People magazine has included her in its list of "Most Beautiful" people multiple times.

In 2015, shortly before being diagnosed with cancer, Lee started her own production company.

In early 2020, Lee began creating her "Top Shelf" video series for Today.com, showcasing new ways to make meals from products commonly found in pantries.

An April 2020 New York Times article authored by Jessica Bennett called Lee "the queen of making something out of nothing".

In late 2020, Lee hosted a series of holiday segments, "It's a Wonderful Lifetime", on Lifetime.