'House' Calls on Lisa

Smell the coffee? Smell the kasha! For Lisa Edelstein, everything has been looking up. Indeed, the "Risotto Girl" of "Seinfeld" has never felt more ... fulfilled.

"Definitely for now," says the satiated star of Fox's "House," in which she plays not-so-cuddly Cuddy, dean of medicine at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital.

If life has taught her anything, however, finding fulfillment is a full-time job. "I'm a bit fickle. So, I think a good seven years of satisfaction [as Dr. Lisa Cuddy] will lead me to the next phase."

There's not much to faze her: From "Queen" to dean -- the actress once called the "Queen of Downtown"and known as Lisa E. for her club capers on the New York scene, is as wildly funny as Cuddy is cutting-edge corporate. (Or at least she had been until last week's episode of "5 to 9," which put a stethoscope to the character's private life and found its heart beating a little bit racier.)

If Edelstein's role as Cuddy, M.D., is empty of clichés, maybe it's because it all hits home: The Jewish home she was raised in was always on its own house call; Dad Alvin was a pediatrician at Chilton Memorial Hospital in New Jersey.

Does Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein) have heart problems, splitting her affection between House (Hugh Lurie, above) and Lucas (Michael Weston, below)?

Not Off-Base, Just Off-Off-Broadway
Wayne's world?

Indeed, the Wayne, N.J., raised social butterfly-to-be was a monarch of the club scene -- she is mentioned in Disco Bloodbath, James St. James' 1999 chronicle of what was up downtown -- and still has that offbeat edge that is at once ingratiating and in-keeping with her off-off-Broadway résumé, which includes "Positive Me," an AIDS musical she penned, composed and starred in.

She is proof-positive that there is no "Seinfeld" curse -- at least, for its guest stars. As Karen, the woman George bed and bored, Edelstein did for risotto what Meg Ryan did for the turkey sandwich in that infamous delicious deli scene when Harry met Sally -- and the rest of the world met the wonders of a good cold-cut sandwich.

But then, Edelstein has never gone cold turkey, going from one good performance to another: She received great notices as the lesbian daughter of a less-than-gay Jewish home in the short-lived "Relativity"; was on-call as Rob Lowe's call-girl girlfriend in "The West Wing"; and portrayed an Orthodox mother enmeshed in "Family Law."

Keep the faith? She did that, too, as Ben Stiller's girlfriend in a comedy of unorthodox Jewish entanglements, "Keeping the Faith."

And now, she believes in Cuddy: "As the years go by and the writers get to write more deeply about each individual, they just expose themselves little by little."

All the nudes fit to print: "I don't mean that in a nude way," and then she reconsiders.

"Although actually, I do, because that's pretty much what happened with my character. Every season I become more and more disrobed," she says.

Meanwhile, she wears the love-hate relationship with Dr. House like a badge of honor.

As does she the coverage of motherhood.

"I think that having a child definitely changed [Cuddy's] attitude about relationships," says the 43-year-old actress, whose character dealt with adopting a child after artificial insemination proved less than a fertile process.

"Representing single moms and single working moms and what they do is always nice because they're unsung heroines."

Hum a few bars if you know the words to "Jewish heroines" as well.

Many of Edelstein's characters in film and on TV have been searing symbols of strong working Jewish women weighed down in a man's world, whether it be "Huddy" -- as her love-to-hate-him relationship with House is called by her many fans -- or in other roles.

The actress who started out hosting a series on MTV must have her mensch-TV now. And she has accomplished this with Cuddy, whose conflict with the cantankerous House operates on a number of levels; she was, in fact, the doctor who operated on him against his will, leaving him walking the line ... with a cane.

A writer for Salon.com hailed the sexy yet stately Cuddy as one who "clicks through the halls of the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Hospital in low-cut sweaters and pencil skirts, bringing incredible Jewy glamour to prime time."

Jewy? Well ... Jewish anyway.

Much like the woman herself, who has reveled in the past in the wonders of Sukkot, Shabbat dinners and "being a New York Jew."

And as far as the possibility of Cuddy and House finding the ultimate Rx for life in a permanent hook-up, I.V. or otherwise -- actually, their characters, years earlier, pre-meddling at the hospital, had a one-night fling -- odds are a health-care bill will be passed unanimously by Congress before any sexual congress again between the characters.

Jumping the shark -- House -- would probably mean "jumping the shark" for the TV series.

And there's no HMO that would cover the complaints to follow from viewers who enjoy the injection of sexual tension on the "House."