"I'm surprised that on the Oprah show this was being touted as an entirely new technique pioneered by Ms. Seinfeld," Lapine said Saturday. The idea of stealth nutrition is not new, Lapine says. "My grandmother used to do it," she says, but her book is the product of five years of research. "My book is not just a concept. My book is a how-to manual."

Moreover, she adds, "I'm concerned and troubled that Oprah credited and applauded someone else for a technique that was out there six months earlier." Winfrey was not available for comment. Lapine says she and her publicists pitched the Oprah show five times without success. She also points out she submitted her 139-page book proposal with 31 recipes and 11 purees twice to HarperCollins (Seinfeld's publisher), once in February 2006 without an agent and again with an agent in May 2006.

"The one big fact is that they had access to my manuscript early on," Lapine says. Seinfeld's book was signed up in June 2006.

"There are at least 15 of my recipes that ended up in her book," Lapine says. However, she says, recipes are hard to protect: "If you change one ingredient, you're safe." She says that after her publisher contacted HarperCollins, Deceptively's cover was modified from the one featured on a promotional brochure. The word "simple" was inserted in place of "sneaky." "Seinfeld is a big name, and it garners more attention than someone who doesn't have a big name," Lapine says. She and her publisher have no comment on possible legal action.