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Into the blender of life, Rachael Ray throws everything
By David Hiltbrand
The Philadelphia Inquirer
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NEW YORK -- Although Rachael Ray is one of America’s best-known foodies, no one is likely to call her a gourmet. But the maven of “30 Minute Meals” certainly qualifies as a gourmand. The 5-foot-3 dynamo loves eating food at least as much as she loves cooking it.

On this afternoon, she’s in the Manhattan studio of her new chat-and-chop show, “Rachael Ray.” The overhead light grid is turned off, the audience has filed out, and a staffer is vacuuming the rug in preparation for the day’s second taping.

Ray is still standing on the dimmed set scarfing down a platter of Italian nachos (Bolognese sauce on tortilla chips with sour cream and other toppings) that she prepared minutes earlier while comic Dennis Miller kibitzed.

Over the course of a day and four cooking segments, she liberally samples everything she prepares, even using her fingers to scoop smashed potatoes out of the pan behind Morgan Freeman’s back.

These rich dishes are typically Ray. In her 15 cookbooks, her various Food Network series, and on her new syndicated show, she favors cuisine that might best be described as pampered peasant food: hearty and flavorful fare with the emphasis on quick and easy preparation.

And she always samples the results.

So why isn’t this omnivorous creature twice as hefty as Oprah (whose production company, Harpo, is bankrolling “Rachael Ray”)?

It could have something to do with Ray’s hummingbird schedule. Before she started two-a-day tapings of her broadcast show in September, she put 80 episodes of “30 Minute Meals” in the can for cable’s Food Network. She plans to exceed that number in the spring.

While “Rachael Ray” is on summer hiatus, she will spend the time globe-trotting for her Tasty Travels series on the Food Network. All this in addition to running a popular monthly magazine, Every Day With Rachael Ray.

How can she maintain that workload? “Lots of caffeine,” she says, her voice hoarsened from the high-decibel, high-energy persona she adopts on camera.

Back in her dressing room, she’s wrapped in a robe between shows. Supplicants tap on the door constantly, asking Ray to make decisions on everything from scheduling to which of her trademark Yum-O shirts to give to a guest. She’s involved in every detail of the show.

“What I’ve learned from her,” says Janet Annino, the show’s executive producer, “other than how to make a few good meals, is that I like working with a talent that is so involved. She’s not willing to show up and read copy.”

Ray bristles when it is suggested that her massive workload could lead to burnout. “I felt run-down when I was unloading 60-pound boxes of chicken in a production kitchen,” she says tartly. “And I felt run-down when my mom and I were trying to cook food for 12 busloads of Canadians at a time.

“Everybody I know works hard,” she snaps. “All the things I do here are what I would be doing for fun on my days off from those hard physical-labor jobs I’ve held: hang out, chat, cook, tell stories.”

Certainly Ray, 38, has experienced the food industry from the root cellar up. Raised primarily in the Adirondacks region of Upstate New York, the middle child of a Welsh father and a Sicilian mother, she worked nearly every retail and restaurant job imaginable.

In fact, she still bears a freezer burn on her arm because as an undersized teen, she used to press against the refrigerated compartment on tiptoes to scoop ice cream at HoJo’s.

Ray was managing a gourmet shop in Albany when a local TV station, WRGB, sent over a camera crew to tape one of her popular cooking demonstrations. Her exuberance and flair for food were so striking that the station hired her to do a weekly show.

That, in turn caught the attention of the “Today” show, which brought her on for a segment with Al Roker on Thanksgiving leftovers in 2001. Despite using the word “groovy” in almost every sentence, Ray made quite an impression in her national debut.

“She is a natural,” Roker says. “She is unabashedly who she is and makes no apologies, which is what people like about her. She’s real. It’s the same thing as the person who mentored her, Oprah. You see her on camera, and she just pops.”

Ray’s cherubic looks, her incandescent smile, and her casual but deft approach to cooking all work ideally on the tube. But it’s her personality, energetic and engaging, that has made her a star on the Food Network, during Oprah appearances, and now on her own show.

As Miller says to her on-air, “Now that Katie has moved on to the evening news, you have filled the perky void.”

“She has a very unique ability to be herself day after day after day, which is much more difficult a thing than it would seem to be,” Annino says. “There is no pretense with her and the audience can see how authentic she is. So many people come up to me and say, ‘If she was in my neighborhood, I know she would be my best friend.”‘

For such a TV veteran, Ray is remarkably unspoiled. On this day, the show is trotting out a new segment, the Mystery Taster. The host is so excited about the celebrity stashed backstage (it’s Freeman) that her hands are shaking. She tells the audience, “I’ll try not to throw up.” (That would be ugly. She just got through cooking and chowing on chicken livers.)

Asked later why the situation had her so jittery, she shrugs and says, “I like any element of a game.”

Not everyone is a fan of this kitchen Smurf’s bold and brassy style. There is a chat room whose name we cannot repeat where haters post daily ad feminam attacks on Ray’s appearance, her catchphrases, her demeanor, even her recipes.

But she must be doing something right. “Rachael Ray” bowed with the highest ratings for a syndicated talk show in four years. The program is something of a hybrid, combining Dear Heloise-like housekeeping tips, celebrity interviews, and cooking. Abbondanza!

She credits her success to her family. “I come from very hard-working people,” she says, “but more importantly, they really eat life. They’re optimistic, fun, outgoing. Everybody in my family has an over-the-top personality. They just like to create and share.”

With work being such a whirlwind, Ray really savors her downtime. “I go home, I hang out,” she says. “I watch ‘Law & Order’ reruns. I make dinner. I drink some wine. I play with my dog. I watch TV in bed with my husband and then go to sleep.”

Recipe for Rachael Ray

Rachael Domenica Scuderi Ray

Age: 38

Childhood: Born at Glens Falls Hospital in the Adirondacks of Upstate New York. Her family moved when she was an infant to Cape Cod, Mass., where her mother worked as a manager for a restaurant chain.

Marital status: Married to John Cusimano. No children, one pit bull.

Residences: Manhattan and Upstate New York.

Professional background: Two years at Macy’s Marketplace in New York, working the candy counter and then managing the fresh-food department; manager and buyer for the New York gourmet store Agata & Valentina.

Manager of pubs and restaurants at the Sagamore Resort on Lake George, then food buyer and chef for Cowan & Lobel in Albany, N.Y.,

Television background: Weekly segment on 30-minute meals for WRGB-TV in Albany-Schenectady. Nominated for two regional Emmys.

Host of four Food Network shows: “30 Minute Meals,” “$40 a Day,” “Inside Dish” and “Tasty Travels.”

Writing: Author of many cookbooks, including a series of 10 based on 30-minute meals.

SOURCE: Rachael Ray and various Web sites

(c) 2006, The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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Television chef Rachael Ray is the author of many cookbooks, including a series of 10 based on 30-minute meals.
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Reader comments on this story - 5 total

Note: All views and opinions expressed in reader comments are solely those of the individual submitting the comment, and not those of the Pantagraph or its staff.

ThereisnoBuddanamedJimmy wrote on Nov 14, 2006 7:14 AM:

" Who does she owe her career too? Looks to me as if she is hardworking, focused and driven without the pretense and air of certain other know it all, egotistical personas. She's refreshing. She's pursing the American dream, good for her! "

JimmyTheBuddha wrote on Nov 1, 2006 8:52 AM:

" I find her grating. Nails on a chalkboard grating. And with none of the class and elegance of her predecessors, to whom she owes her career. "

give it a try wrote on Oct 28, 2006 11:52 AM:

" Get past the perkiness and give her recipes a try. She has the best (easiest and healthiest) recipes on the Food Network. Most of what I cook, I got from her. Plus my wife likes the fact that I cook for her so much! "

just a thought wrote on Oct 28, 2006 6:45 AM:

" Talented, maybe, but a bit PERKY for me. Most likely a temporary new "Oprah" for our amnesiatic society. "

She's taking over the world! wrote on Oct 27, 2006 4:08 PM:

" My husband cannot stand her. He calls her "she-who-shall-not-be-mentioned". She talks like a cocker spaniel on speed and is quite irritating. But good for her for busting her arse to get where she is today!! "
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