Jerry Brito

That’s what you get for tricking little children

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The victim. The Sneaky Chef is a cookbook for parents who want to con their children into eating foods they would otherwise like to avoid, like vegetables and other non-hot-dog products. The New York Times says its recipes “camouflage puréed vegetables and fruits in comfort food for children[.]” Kathleen gave it to her brother and sister-in-law this Christmas and they loved it, though I can’t say the same for their M&M-aware two-year-old.

Now the author of the book, Missy Chase Lapin, has sued Jessica Seinfeld, wife of comedian Jerry Seinfeld, for copyright infringement. Seinfeld, it turns out, also has a kid-defrauding tome, which is called Deceptively Delicious.

Now, the first thing that pops to mind is that recipes aren’t subject to copyright, only their expression. Even if you were going to nick someone else’s recipe for your book, you’d write your own little paragraph introducing it, and it seems like that’s what Seinfeld did. So what do the suit allege? Similarities in “original expression, philosophy, premise, approach, explanations, discussions, reflections, organization, methodology and overall look and feel.” Except for maybe the first thing, she doesn’t have a leg to stand on.

What I like even better, though, it the defamation suit she has filed against Jerry Seinfeld for, among other things, calling her “a wacko.” According to the Times,

On the Letterman show, Mr. Seinfeld did not refer to Ms. Lapine by name, but spoke of a “three-name woman” and said that “if you read history, many of the three-name people do become assassins.” The complaint states that Ms. Lapine is “not a violent or dangerous person.”