Jessica Seinfeld Could Have Been A Whole Lot More "Deceptive" About Her Plagiarism!

So remember Jerry Seinfeld's wife Jessica? It seems like forever ago that she published that book about how you can get kids to eat pretty much anything if you figure out how to disguise them in the midst of more appealing foods, like with pot and brownies. And indeed, it's been on the best-seller list for an eternal-esque twelve weeks. (Isn't that like, practically a year?) But if you jog that memory you may recall that somewhere between being interviewed by the New York Times and showering Oprah Winfrey with enough $600 pairs of shoes to outfit a small drag queen militia, some other cookbook writer inferred Jessica had "plagiarized" her earlier work from an eerily similar competing title The Sneaky Chef, authored by one Missy Chase Lapine. Well, today Missy finally filed the lawsuit accusing Seinfeld of copying her "revolutionary" (her words, not ours!) book's "original expression, philosophy, premise, approach, explanations, discussions, reflections, organization, methodology and overall look and feel." And shit looks pretty damn damning! So what the hell took so long?

Well, judging from passages in the lawsuit, which mostly go like this:

(d) Both the Book and the Infringing Work explain that the author is not a professional chef, just a mother who desres to have peace at the dinner table and to feed her children nutritious food. Both works discuss how the author overcame the guilt of tricking her kids into eating healthy good.
  • The Book states that "this method has brought peace to our family table," that "[i]n many families, the dinner table becomes a battleground and meal time is a power struggle," and that "I couldn't use logic, but I couldn't afford to give up either."
  • The Infringing Work states: "I just wanted a little peace around the dinner table," and continues, "I want my kids to associate food and mealtimes with happiness and conversations, not power struggles and strife." The Infringing Work acknowledges, "[W]e just want to give up."
Reading both books and comparing them side by side for an infringement lawsuit was possibly the only task more boring than cooking food for small children. Luckily, Jerry Seinfeld spices it up toward the end where Lapine's lawyers accuse him of smearing and defaming her character in an October 29 Letterman appearance:
I'm more upset that she is, you know, angry and hysterical, and because she's a three-name woman, which is what concerns me. She has thre names. And you know, if you read history, many of the three-name people do become assassins...Mark David Chapman. And you know, James Earl Ray. So, that's my concern.
Ha ha ha, strong words from a man married to a woman named Jessica ! Although, to be fair to any wrongfully accused assassins, wasn't Jessica Seinfeld always dismissed as "plain"?

Seinfeld, Wife Sued Over Cookbook Controversy [Smoking Gun]
Earlier: Jessicas Are All Pretty Bitches
Jessica Seinfeld's I Never Read That Book" Defense Smells A Little Fishy
Jessica Seinfeld's "Deceptively Delicious": Kinda Deceptive, Not So Delicious