The woman behind the infamous Kwanzaa Cake (it's not Sandra Lee)
Sandra Lee's Kwanzaa cake already had too much on it. Dinner table candles? Pumpkin seeds? Corn nuts? But a secret ingredient was revealed today that brought new meaning to the worst cake in the world: the recipe writer. Denise Vivaldo came clean on a HuffPo blogpost that she conceived of the Kwanza cake for Sandra Lee.
"I guess I imagined something more refined. And I know the Corn Nuts were disgusting, but [Lee] didn't. As a matter of fact, the more tasteless the recipes got the more she liked them, the faster she approved them, and I could get home and drink some medium-priced wine after our meetings. She's not a good role model for abstinence. "
Vivaldo detailed her job as a kind of ghost food writer. She's paid to write recipes for Lee and several other celebrity chefs with no time, or in her words, "talent" to take on the task themselves. But it's unlikely Lee will be hiring her again. Vivaldi's post skewers the first lady of the Food Network, blaming her "incredibly bad food taste" on the fact that she "came from carnival or circus people."
Some blogs are questioning whether Vivaldo's rant was meant as satire or true confession. So far, Lee hasn't publicly addressed it, which may point to the fact that it's a joke-or that she's letting her lawyers handle it. Either way, the Kwanzaa cake just earned itself another 15 minutes of fame. Anyone want a piece? Thought not.
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