Sandra Lee doesn’t want a fancy title like First Lady and thinks the sexiest thing about her partner is his life-long commitment to public service.
As for what befuddled New Yorkers should call Gov.-elect Andrew Cuomo’s girlfriend, she suggests just keeping it simple.
“I want them to call me Sandy [or] Sandra. You don’t need a title to make a difference,” she said, in a wide-ranging interview that touched on everything from her desire to eradicate childhood hunger to how she planned for Cuomo’s tough new job leading the state.
“You don’t need a title to do the right thing and I don’t think its about that. I think it’s about contribution,” she said.
To that end, she’s wasting no time.
She’s riding the Ocean Spray float in today’s Thanksgiving Day Parade because the cranberry company donated $150,000 to her pet charity, Share Our Strength, which aims to erase childhood hunger.
Then she’s heading uptown to the East Harlem Union Settlement Senior Center, where she will distribute holiday meals to needy New Yorkers with Citymeals-on-Wheels.
“I hope that I can show and share by example,” she said. “Hunger is a real issue. Everyone wants to think it’s a Third World problem but its in our own community.”
Since her Thanksgiving will be spent volunteering, Lee and Cuomo, who is also working today, celebrated the holiday last Sunday at their home in Mt. Kisco.
Her cornbread stuffing — which she made using her Grandmother Lorraine’s recipe — was a big hit with former Gov. Mario Cuomo, the governor elect’s father.
“He said thank you so much for making that dinner, and by the way, that stuffing was unbelievably good,” she said.
And while she finds Albany “charming,” she said that she and Cuomo have no plans to uproot their lives in Mt. Kisco.
“Neither Andrew or I are moving there because the kids are in school here. They are kids. Kids come first,” she said.
Her own childhood wasn’t so blessed.
Her mother was abusive and neglectful, forcing the young Lee to manage the household and care for her four younger siblings. Lee spent her formative years cashing her mother’s welfare check at the bank and trying to stretch the family’s food stamps at the grocery market.
The now-head of a multi-million domestic arts empire — host of three TV shows, over a dozen books, and an eponymous magazine — still clips coupons.
“Just this weekend . . . on the back of my receipt was five dollars off for the next purchase,” she said.
When the California native went to live with her father at 16, she wrote in her memoir, “Made From Scratch,” she found it shocking to have so much free time, because she was so used to caring for her siblings.
Those survival skills that she learned early on have clearly stayed with her. To prepare for Cuomo’s election, she embarked on a grueling schedule that would leave even Martha Stewart winded.
“Before the election, I was working really hard to get ahead in my business so that I would have time for whatever Andrew needed or wanted me to do,” she said.
“I’ve already pre-written my next 6 books. I’ve shot all the covers for them. I’ve shot my magazine through fall of 2012.”
She joked, “I have organization issues.”
Despite her reluctance to be given a special title, she does agree with one special title her boyfriend recently received — one of People Magazine’s “Sexiest Men Alive.”
But not for the obvious reasons.
“He has been in service to our country and to this state his entire life. Being sexy isn’t just about your external. Its about your internal,” she said.
“He’s a good human being.”