The front page of the New York Post today is all about a pastry chef whose show, "Dessert First," was canceled because her recipes were allegedly not so fresh. STOP THE PRESSES! Headline: "Food Network's 'Dessert First' star axed in recipe-copy flap: sources." The sources, as usual, are unidentified, and the "exclusive" is actually based on a single source, not plural sources, but why get bogged down in trivial details when you can lead with: "This puff-pastry princess is a purported plagiarist"? We don't want to egg on the Post, but this whipped-up scandal seems a little half-baked!
Pastry chef Anne Thorton's show ran for two seasons on the Food Network, and a spokesman for the channel tells the tabloid, "Anne’s show, ‘Dessert First,’ was not renewed after its second season purely due to ratings/performance." But the Post's source says Thorton got canceled because "many of her recipes were close — with only a few minor edits — to other chefs’ recipes."
But is any of this true, and do you care? (After all, there isn't a famous comedian mixed up in this one.) When a Post reporter got her on the phone, Thorton said, "This is all news to me. I get inspiration from all my heroes. You take what you learn from them and then you riff on that. As for lemon squares, there’s only so many ways you can make them, so of course there will be similarities. The same thing with baking or frosting — there are only so many ways you can do it." It's like coming up with a front page story for a tabloid day after day—there are only so many ways you can cook a cow pie and call it manna. Read the whole smear for yourself, then go stick your head an oven.
