adplus-dvertising
Connect with us

News

With a new life and fresh ideas, Sandra Lee makes a TV comeback with a Netflix food competition show

Published

 on

 

Corn dogs, funnel cakes and fried Oreos may come to mind when you think of state fair food, but fairgrounds are also the place where bakers test out their creations by entering competitions.

The sense of community and creativity found at state and county fairs is especially meaningful to Sandra Lee, a cookbook author and TV personality known for the Food Network shows “Semi-Homemade Cooking” and “Sandra’s Money Saving Meals.” Lee won a blue ribbon at the Los Angeles County Fair in 1992 for display and design. (Her TV shows also featured segments with tablescape and arts and craft ideas inspired by each meal, so it tracks.) Next, she’s taking state fairs to a global streaming audience with “Blue Ribbon Baking Championship,” out Friday on Netflix.

On the show, 10 talented pastry chefs compete in bake offs for a blue ribbon prize and a shot at $100,000. Lee co-hosts with “American Pie” actor Jason Biggs, who she says is a talented baker: “He’s got a banana bread recipe that is unbelievable.” She’s also a judge alongside former White House pastry chef, Bill Yosses, and award-winning baker, Bryan Ford.

The venture is a part of Lee’s new chapter both professionally and personally. She battled breast cancer in 2015 and ended a 14-year relationship with former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2019. Lee’s beloved uncle Bill was battling cancer himself at that time and she moved from New York to California during COVID-19 to help him.

“I really cleaned house of my life over the last decade, which was extremely painful and very hard to do,” said Lee over Zoom from her Malibu home. “I’m finding peace now with my decisions and with my new life. Part of my new life is coming back to television, hopefully wiser, and back to business hopefully even better than ever.”

In a Q&A, Lee tells The Associated Press about starting over, her new show and Christmas trees. Answers are shortened for length and clarity.

—-

AP: You seem to be at a really great place where you have ideas and you’re ready for what’s ahead.

LEE: I took enough time off to really replenish myself and to really think about what I wanted to do. When I was coming out of being sick in 2015, it really made me focus on what I want to accomplish. And, for me, work has always been extremely important. There’s things on my career bucket list to get done. One of them is “Blue Ribbon Baking Championship.”

AP: What are the others?

LEE: I have an idea for a show that will change daytime television. That’s my heartstring and it’s a big deal. The other one is with a character that I launched on “Today” with Jenna Bush. Her name is Aunt Sandy Clause, which is what my niece and nephews call me. During COVID, I wrote a ton of content, so I have a lot of TV show (ideas.) I would love to do a reality show based on real estate and home staging. My sister has a huge real estate and staging business in Seattle. I want to go up there and do a family reality show.

AP: Besides its premise, what makes “Blue Ribbon Baking Championship” different than other cooking competition shows?

LEE: The comradery and sense of family among the contestants. They lifted each other up. Many of the bakers would actually leave their station and go help the other one. I don’t think the world sees who we really are as Americans. They hear the politics and they hear the kerfuffle in the news. I think that it’s going to be kind of amazing for viewers from other countries to get to watch us and to get to see what our fairs look like and our lifestyle and how kind people are. And — unlike other competitive shows — we shoot in real time. There was no stop and pick up the next day. We were shooting an 18-hour day. There was no cool off time or swap outs.

AP: What’s your first love? Cooking? Baking? Entrepreneurship?

LEE: My first love is cake decorating. When kids were playing with dolls, I was playing with powdered sugar and Wilton icing tips. When most kids were looking at Teen Beat, I was getting cake decorating books.

AP: What do you do in your spare time?

LEE: I antique a lot. I’m a huge antique collector. I also go to stores to see how others shop. I can see things differently than most people walking up an aisle. I can stand back and scan a room and I can see where the voids are. I can see what’s needed. I can calculate what’s missing and how to fix it.

AP: That must help in business.

LEE: It’s very helpful. There’s always the challenge of people saying no, like with “Semi-Homemade,” everybody said, “No, it won’t work.” I go, “I’m telling you it’s going to work.” Finally, I had to write two books to even get the show. And the show was No. 1 for like five years. I went to them and I said, “We’ve got to do a show called ‘Money Saving Meals.’” They said, “No one wants to save money on food.” So I called my publisher. I go, “I want to do a new book and I want to call it ‘Money Saving Meals.’” And they go, “Great.” We had it on the shelf within a couple months. The Food Network saw it, and called me back. They’re like, “Oh my gosh, we need a show called ‘Money Saving Meals.’”

AP: Let’s jump ahead to the holidays. How many Christmas trees do you put up?

LEE: It depends on how many rooms I have in the house. I like to put one in every room. There’s certainly something in every single room of my house.

AP: Do you stick to a theme or is each tree different?

LEE: If you’re decorating your rooms differently, and most people do, then I think that trees should represent those rooms. I don’t go over the top, unless you think that toilet paper with Santas on it is over the top, which I don’t.

Source link

Continue Reading

News

Canada’s response to Trump deportation plan a key focus of revived cabinet committee

Published

 on

OTTAWA, W.Va. – U.S. president-elect Donald Trump’s promise launch a mass deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants has the Canadian government looking at its own border.

Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said Friday the issue is one of two “points of focus” for a recently revived cabinet committee on Canada-U.S. relations.

Freeland said she has also been speaking to premiers about the issue this week.

“I do want Canadians to know it is one of our two central points of focus. Ministers are working hard on it, and we absolutely believe that it’s an issue that Canadians are concerned about, Canadians are right to be concerned about it,” Freeland said, after the committee met for the first time since Trump left office in 2021.

She did not provide any details of the plan ministers are working on.

Public Safety Minister Dominic Leblanc, whose portfolio includes responsibility for the Canada Border Services Agency, co-chairs the committee. Freeland said that highlights the importance of border security to Canada-U.S. relations.

There was a significant increase in the number of irregular border crossings between 2016 and 2023, which the RCMP attributed in part to the policies of the first Trump administration.

The national police service said it has been working through multiple scenarios in case there is a change in irregular migration after Trump takes office once again, and any response to a “sudden increase in irregular migration” will be co-ordinated with border security and immigration officials.

However, Syed Hussan with the Migrant Rights Network said he does not anticipate a massive influx of people coming into Canada, chalking the current discussion up to anti-migrant panic.

“I’m not saying there won’t be some exceptions, that people will continue to cross. But here’s the thing, if you look at the people crossing currently into the U.S. from the Mexico border, these are mostly people who are recrossing post-deportation. The reason for that is, is that people have families and communities and jobs. So it seems very unlikely that people are going to move here,” he said.

Since the Safe Third Country Agreement was modified last year, far fewer people are making refugee claims in Canada through irregular border crossings.

The agreement between Canada and the U.S. acknowledges that both countries are safe places for refugees, and stipulates that asylum seekers must make a refugee claim in the country where they first arrive.

The number of people claiming asylum in Canada after coming through an irregular border crossing from the U.S. peaked at 14,000 between January and March 2023.

At that time, the rule was changed to only allow for refugee claims at regular ports of entry, with some specific exemptions.

This closed a loophole that had seen tens of thousands of people enter Canada at Roxham Road in Quebec between 2017 and 2023.

In the first six months of 2024, fewer than 700 people made refugee claims at irregular crossings.

There are 34,000 people waiting to have their refugee claims processed in Canada, according to government data.

In the first 10 months of this year, U.S. border officials recorded nearly 200,000 encounters with people making irregular crossings from Canada. Around 27,000 encounters took place at the border during the first 10 months of 2021.

Hussan said the change to the Safe Third Country Agreement made it less likely people will risk potentially dangerous crossings into Canada.

“Trying to make a life in Canada, it’s actually really difficult. It’s more difficult to be an undocumented person in Canada than the U.S. There’s actually more services in the U.S. currently, more access to jobs,” Hussan said.

Toronto-based immigration lawyer Robert Blanshay said he is receiving “tons and tons” of emails from Americans looking at possibly relocating to Canada since Trump won the election early Wednesday.

He estimates that about half are coming from members of the LGBTQ+ community.

“I spoke to a guy yesterday, he and his partner from Kansas City. And he said to me, ‘You know, things weren’t so hunky-dory here in Kansas City being gay to begin with. The entire political climate is just too scary for us,'” Blanshay said.

Blanshay said he advised the man he would likely not be eligible for express entry into Canada because he is at retirement age.

He also said many Americans contacted him to inquire about moving north of the border after Trump’s first electoral victory, but like last time, he does not anticipate many will actually follow through.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024



Source link

Continue Reading

News

Surrey recount confirms B.C. New Democrats win election majority

Published

 on

VANCOUVER – The British Columbia New Democrats have a majority government of 47 seats after a recount in the riding of Surrey-Guildford gave the party’s candidate 22 more votes than the provincial Conservatives.

Confirmation of victory for Premier David Eby’s party comes nearly three weeks after election night when no majority could be declared.

Garry Begg of the NDP had officially gone into the recount yesterday with a 27-vote lead, although British Columbia’s chief electoral officer had said on Tuesday there were 28 unreported votes and these had reduced the margin to 21.

There are ongoing recounts in Kelowna Centre and Prince George-Mackenzie, but these races are led by John Rustad’s B.C. Conservatives and the outcomes will not change the majority status for the New Democrats.

The Election Act says the deadline to appeal results after a judicial recount must be filed with the court within two days after they are declared, but Andrew Watson with Elections BC says that due to Remembrance Day on Monday, that period ends at 4 p.m. Tuesday.

Eby has said his new cabinet will be announced on Nov. 18, with the 44 members of the Opposition caucus and two members from the B.C. Greens to be sworn in Nov. 12 and the New Democrat members of the legislature to be sworn in the next day.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



Source link

Continue Reading

News

Port of Montreal employer submits ‘final’ offer to dockworkers, threatens lockout

Published

 on

 

MONTREAL – The employers association at the Port of Montreal has issued the dockworkers’ union a “final, comprehensive offer,” threatening to lock out workers at 9 p.m. Sunday if a deal isn’t reached.

The Maritime Employers Association says its new offer includes a three per cent salary increase per year for four years and a 3.5 per cent increase for the two subsequent years. It says the offer would bring the total average compensation package of a longshore worker at the Port of Montreal to more than $200,000 per year at the end of the contract.

“The MEA agrees to this significant compensation increase in view of the availability required from its employees,” it wrote Thursday evening in a news release.

The association added that it is asking longshore workers to provide at least one hour’s notice when they will be absent from a shift — instead of one minute — to help reduce management issues “which have a major effect on daily operations.”

Syndicat des débardeurs du port de Montréal, which represents nearly 1,200 longshore workers, launched a partial unlimited strike on Oct. 31, which has paralyzed two terminals that represent 40 per cent of the port’s total container handling capacity.

A complete strike on overtime, affecting the whole port, began on Oct. 10.

The union has said it will accept the same increases that were granted to its counterparts in Halifax or Vancouver — 20 per cent over four years. It is also concerned with scheduling and work-life balance. Workers have been without a collective agreement since Dec. 31, 2023.

Only essential services and activities unrelated to longshoring will continue at the port after 9 p.m. Sunday in the event of a lockout, the employer said.

The ongoing dispute has had major impacts at Canada’s second-biggest port, which moves some $400 million in goods every day.

On Thursday, Montreal port authority CEO Julie Gascon reiterated her call for federal intervention to end the dispute, which has left all container handling capacity at international terminals at “a standstill.”

“I believe that the best agreements are negotiated at the table,” she said in a news release. “But let’s face it, there are no negotiations, and the government must act by offering both sides a path to true industrial peace.”

Federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon issued a statement Thursday, prior to the lockout notice, in which he criticized the slow pace of talks at the ports in Montreal and British Columbia, where more than 700 unionized port workers have been locked out since Nov. 4.

“Both sets of talks are progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved,” he wrote on the X social media platform.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

Source link

Continue Reading

Trending