both Jessica Bennett in New York Times and Jaya Saxena in Eater noted that the context of pandemic scarcity made the "semi-homemade" concept feel newly relevant. Of Lee, Saxena wrote, "her show, Semi-Homemade Cooking, might be the perfect way to cook through quarantine." Kwanzaa cake Much of the criticism of Lee has coalesced around a recipe for "Kwanzaa Cake" that she demonstrated on a 2003 episode of Semi-Homemade Cooking with Sandra Lee. The recipe consisted of angel food cake topped with icing, cinnamon, apple pie filling, pumpkin seeds and corn nuts (which she referred to as acorns), all of which were store-bought, with seven Kwanzaa candles then inserted into the cake. Food writer Anthony Bourdain, who was harshly critical of Lee in general, described the video clip of this segment of the show as "eye searing" and "a war crime". The cake was called "scary" by the Houston Chronicle, and "the most ghastly-sounding dish in Lee's culinary repertoire" by Tulsa World. Salon.com wrote that the video "takes pride of place in the pantheon of hilarious culinary disaster videos". Cookbook author Denise Vivaldo, who claims to have ghostwritten recipes for many celebrity chefs, wrote a humorous post in The Huffington Post in December 2010 stating that she was responsible for the recipe (though she said that the candles were Lee's idea), and apologizing for it. She also wrote that Lee "has incredibly bad food taste". A week later, the post was removed after Lee's lawyer threatened legal action. Lee has said this recipe is the only one of hers whose criticism she has taken to heart, and that the recipe was due to the Food Network dictating the show's content at the time. Personal life From 2001 to 2005, she was married to then-KB Home CEO and philanthropist Bruce Karatz, for whom she converted to Judaism. In the fall of 2005, Lee entered into a relationship with Andrew Cuomo, who served as the 56th Governor of New York from 2011 until his resignation in August 2021. The two lived in a home owned by Lee in Chappaqua. On September 25, 2019, the couple announced that they had ended their relationship. Lee has been reported to be dating the Algerian born Abdulwahab Benyoucef since March 2021, an actor professionally known as Ben Youcef who is 13 years her junior. Reportedly, friends of Sandra Lee and Ben Youcef are known to affectionately refer