When Sandra Lee won a blue ribbon at the Los Angeles County Fair, her sister called to tell her the good news. “It was surreal,” the TV chef says of her 1992 victory. “I’m not sure I was much older than 25, but I was just surprised because I had just sold my car to pay for the booth and I was right in the midst of trying to pay off student loans.
” At the time, the Santa Monica-born entrepreneur was under pressure and “trying to survive.” It was a mode she knew all too well. As a young girl, she raised her four younger siblings while her mother, an addict, stayed in bed — something she detailed in her memoir, “Made From Scratch.
” Lee managed the household and bought groceries with food stamps. She worked with what she had to feed the family, transforming cans of soup into tasty casseroles. After dropping out of the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, she moved to Malibu and started a company called Kurtain Kraft, which created a product that used wire hangers and fabric to create window drapery.
By 1993, Lee’s ingenuity had paid off with a QVC deal and infomercials. Ten years later, she made her Food Network debut as the host of “Semi-Homemade Cooking,” where she whipped up recipes using mostly store-bought ingredients. The Emmy-winning show spawned Lee’s lifestyle empire, 26 cookbooks and a print magazine — and the series ran for 15 seasons, until she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015.
She underwent a double mastectomy and announced that sh.