All Over Albany

New York's next First Lady-friend?

Page Six Mag had a piece this past weekend on the relationship between Andrew Cuomo and his ladyfriend, Food Network star Sandra Lee. Apparently it's all rides on the Harley, watching Ice Road Truckers on the couch and eating lasagna made with canned tomato soup.

Cuomo and Lee haven't said much publicly about their relationship. But it does come up. Lee recently said on a talk show that she would cook in the Governor's Mansion (and bring "great garnishes"). She's said Cuomo is "the most amazing person I've ever met in every way" and referred to his kids as her "weekend daughters."

And the two do sometimes appear together at events together. From Anthony Bourdain's blog post about his encounter with Lee and Cuomo at the Julie & Julia premiere:

Now, I've said some unkind things over the years about Sandra. Far too many and far too terrible things to ever apologize for. Plus, I pretty much meant every word. Once you've seen Sandra making Kwanzaa Cake on YouTube, there's no backing down . My head is reeling with the thought that one phone call from Cuomo and my last twenty years of tax returns are getting audited . I'm paralyzed, wondering what the statute of limitations is on various things I may or may not have done twenty years ago. Sandra is talking. I know this cause her lips are moving and she's saying--overtly anyway, nice things. Like "You're a very naughty man," and she's chatting amiably with my wife. But one hand is picking over me like the meat buyer at Peter Luger selecting a rib section--like some demonic bird of prey is poking and prodding, deciding where the weakest, most tender point of entry is, giving, as I recall, a point by point review of her investigations to my wife--who ordinarily, I have to say, would have been across the table with a tomahawk chop elbow to the top of the skull by now, but who, like me, sits mesmerized and grinning insanely, frozen by the ..bizarrenessof the moment which seems to go on forever as Sandra's hand wanders upward, tugs an ear lobe and asks if my ears are red yet. (They were.) Having had her way with me, she leaves the emptied husk of my carcass teetering at the table and moves on.

The Page Six piece sets up Lee as the complete opposite of Andrew Cuomo's former wife, Kerry Kennedy. But Lee might also be a bit of a semi-homemade politician. From an Out profile (apparently she has quite a gay following):

Lee may look like a hyperbolic homemaker, but she has the agility of a candidate on the campaign trail, effortlessly hitching her brand to separate constituencies, from the power gays on the benefit circuit to the Midwestern housewives that make up the largest part of her base. Even when those interests collide, she breezily plows on. Although she received some scorn for her 2007 appearance on the The 700 Club, where she asked host Pat Robertson if she could kiss him, Lee says that she would not hesitate to do it again -- bringing her gay brother with her next time. That may have more to do with an Obama-like belief in her ability to bridge differences than cynical calculation, but it's hard to reconcile Lee's big-tent Christianity ("Jesus didn't judge, and I'm not going to judge," she says) with a guy who attributes gay days at Disney with the awesome power to beget terrorist bombs, earthquakes, tornadoes, "and possibly a meteor."

Of course, if she does hit the campaign trail for Cuomo, his staff better have a response for her Kwanzaa cake:

By the way: Andrew Cuomo continues to hold a big lead on everyone in the hypothetical New York gubernatorial race, according to a November Siena poll.

photo: Food Network