'30 Minute' guru has real-life appeal
talks fast, hates to measure and cooks food designed for the typical harried, distracted working American
Washington Post
Published on: 02/20/04
When Rachael Ray came to sign her newest "30-Minute Meals" cookbook at the Borders Books & Music in Ann Arbor, Mich., this past November, 2,000 people showed up. Ray signed books until midnight, staying even after the store closed.
At the gigantic Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn., three days earlier, thousands of fans filled three levels around the rotunda where Ray gave a cooking demonstration before signing books at the nearby Barnes & Noble. "The only other time we got a crowd this big [for a food person] was for Emeril [Lagasse]," said a bookstore manager.
Everywhere she went, it seemed, rock-star-size crowds awaited the bubbly, 35-year-old Food Network personality. More than 1,200 lined up around the block at the Sur la Table cookware store in San Jose, Calif., including teenagers with homemade Rachael Ray T-shirts. At the Sur la Table in Woodmere, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, 1,000 people called for the 500 available spots to see Ray film a TV spot, do a demo and sign cookbooks. "It was chaotic," said a store spokesman. "We sold out of all her books. We've had other Food Networks chefs, but there were always books left."
Britain has domestic goddess Nigella Lawson, with her temptress looks and seductively staged cooking show. We have Rachael Ray, a perky single woman from Albany, N.Y., who talks fast, hates to measure and cooks food designed for the typical harried, distracted working American.
With her dark brown hair, plump cheeks and wide smile, Ray resembles a young Sally Field. (Younger fans think she looks like a brunet Kelly Ripa.) Either way, she's the hot new darling on the food scene.
Two of her cookbooks -- "Rachael Ray 30-Minute Meals 2" and "Rachael Ray 30-Minute Meals Get Togethers" -- are on The New York Times' paperback advice best-seller list. Her Food Network shows -- "30-Minute Meals" and a travel show called "$40 a Day" -- are among the most popular on the cable network. She has three more books in the works for this year, including "30-Minute Meals Around the Clock" and a kids' cookbook. Plus, there's a show being planned in which the telegenic Ray will go on the road to cook with celebrities.
"It's so surprising," says Ray about her wild success. "I feel like J.K. Rowling. It's so overwhelming, I can't even wrap my head around it. But it's really cool."
Her concept — simple meals you can make in less time than it takes to buy takeout or even wait for that delivery pizza — is nothing new. The bookshelves are crowded with cookbooks promising supposedly quick cooking. What Ray projects is warmth and charm. She's like a good friend -- "your next-door neighbor, a menschy cousin," as she puts it. On her show she yaks away nonstop, yanking stuff out of drawers, rummaging through the refrigerator, just like most of us. She uses youthful slang and talks about her "mommy's recipes." She giggles. She drops stuff. Watching her cook, you feel like you could do that recipe, too.
Her friendly demeanor and cute, girl-next-door looks are a hit with men and women. Especially men. Just ask Pat Coniff, owner of Heroes bar in Green Bay, Wis., where the guys watch her show every night. Coniff sent her a fan letter, and Ray saluted his bar in her "30-Minute Meals 2" book.
It also doesn't hurt that she's a huge sports fan, particularly baseball and particularly the Boston Red Sox. "With all the success that's happened to me, the most exciting moment was when I was invited to throw out the first ball at a Red Sox game," she says. "I got to throw from the mound, and I made the plate. My family was there. Pedro [Martinez, the pitcher] signed my ball and glove. It was fantabulous."
Men also undoubtedly enjoyed the photos of Ray in skimpy costumes that ran last October in FHM, a men's magazine similar to Maxim, that usually has stars like Neve Campbell and Kim Cattrall on its cover. The magazine noted that Ray's cooking show is popular with guys because "she doesn't mess around with stupid ingredients, she doesn't bother with measurements and, like us, she's a danger to herself in the kitchen." She, in turn, revealed that she keeps her figure trim by doing 200 sit-ups every day. "And I do 100 pushups, too. Man pushups," she added.
Asked recently why she posed for the magazine, Ray was typically frank. "Hey, I'm 35. When am I going to do it?" she answered with a laugh. "I just wanted to 'represent,' as they say. I figured [the magazine] should have a normal person in there, not just teens from the West Coast." She added that she had a great time doing it, but she probably wouldn't do it again. "It's a shocker to actually see yourself with so little clothing on," she admitted.
It's doubtful that her fans will mind. Even showing a little cleavage, Ray just seems so wholesome and unassuming. She doesn't own a restaurant, unlike the big-name guys on the Food Network, like Lagasse or Mario Batali. She emphasizes that she never trained as a chef.
She has, however, been in restaurant kitchens since she was a toddler. She's the middle child, between an older sister and a younger brother. Her parents -- her father's Cajun, her mother's Italian -- owned a restaurant on Cape Cod, and her mother cooked and worked for 40 years for a variety of upstate New York restaurants, including a steakhouse, a Tex-Mex restaurant, a Howard Johnson's and a catering company.
"My mom is Sicilian. She doesn't like strangers watching her children, so we were literally brought up in a kitchen," Ray says. "I've worked every job, from a fountain girl at HoJo's to a fancy caterer in Albany."
Ray eventually got a job at the Macy's Marketplace in New York City, first working at the candy counter and eventually managing the fresh-foods department. Her two years at Macy's, she says, gave her an education in gourmet foods. She managed another gourmet market in New York City, then quit and moved to the Adirondacks, to a wood cabin on three acres near Lake George. After a stint managing resort pubs and restaurants, she was hired by Albany's Cowan & Lobel market to be the food buyer and chef.
"So I took over the kitchen, and I'm working 100 hours a week and the customers are buying the prepared food, but I can't get them to buy more groceries. They said they didn't have the time to cook or they didn't know how or they just didn't want to be bothered," she recalls.
To increase grocery sales, Ray began demonstrating 30-minute meals that customers could easily make with simple ingredients. She'd teach them how to make five different dishes with the same red sauce, or one basic chicken or pork recipe and five variations.
The weekly classes were a sellout. "We got brides-to-be, seniors, scout groups, everyone," Ray says.
Eventually, an Albany TV station asked her to do a weekly 30-minute meal segment on the evening news. She would travel to a different spot each week -- everything from fire stations to dorm rooms to senior centers -- and teach viewers to make dinner. Using the recipes she demonstrated, she wrote her first cookbook in 1999, "Rachael Ray 30-Minute Meals," begging Lake Isle Press, a small local publisher, to help her get it printed in just three months.
The book sold 10,000 copies in 10 days.
"People were insane for it. They couldn't get it in bookstores, only in the supermarket," Ray says.
In 2001, she got a call on a Friday from NBC's "Today" show. They wanted her to cook soups that Monday with celebrity weatherman Al Roker. The president of the Food Network, who had seen her book, watched the Monday segment, and two weeks later she had two pilot shows on cable TV.
Her phenomenal success has brought some changes in her life. "I always had lived check to check," she admits. She still lives modestly, but now she has money for some extras and to splurge on her family. "I got a new fridge and a new GE stove because two of the burners on the old one didn't work. I still don't own a dishwasher."
She also bought a BMW X5 for herself and bought her mother a green Mini Cooper.
"That Mini goes like a rocket ship!" Ray says, laughing. "My mommy zips around in it, this little 4-foot-10, 70-year-old Italian woman. It's the cutest thing. She got a speeding ticket the first time she took it out. When the officer pulled her over, she told him, 'I'm sorry, it's impossible to make this vehicle go less than 90.' "
Ray attributes much of her success to what she calls her "accessible" recipes and timesaving tips she's picked up from busy restaurant kitchens. None of her recipes call for any special equipment. She doesn't even own a set of measuring spoons. Most ingredients, she insists, can be eyeballed: half a palm-full of flour, enough E-V-O-O (as she refers to extra-virgin olive oil) to pour around the pan twice, three shakes of vinegar.
"That's why I hate to bake. You have to measure in baking, and measuring is a huge waste of time. All that stopping and fiddling with things. I'm too impatient," she says.
What also makes her show different is that none of the food is chopped beforehand. You see Ray in her green and yellow retro kitchen pulling ingredients out of the refrigerator or the cabinets. You watch her open cans and pull the plastic off the supermarket package of meat. She paws through a drawer, looking for a spoon. When she finishes in 30 minutes and sits down to eat, it seems do-able.
But is it? Can the typical cook finish three of Ray's recipes in 30 minutes?
"Well . . . " she hedges. "I can do it in 30 minutes, but not everyone can. I'm used to cooking, I chop fast. I make three recipes because I need to fill every second on television. Most people will just do the entree and a side and don't bother with dessert.
"The idea I'm trying to convey is that you'll be eating fairly fast," she adds. "People work hard. They don't have a lot of time. I want them to watch and think, 'I can do that.' "
DEL.ICIO.UStalks fast, hates to measure and cooks food designed for the typical harried, distracted working American
Washington Post
Published on: 02/20/04
When Rachael Ray came to sign her newest "30-Minute Meals" cookbook at the Borders Books & Music in Ann Arbor, Mich., this past November, 2,000 people showed up. Ray signed books until midnight, staying even after the store closed.
 Food Network | |||
| On her show she uses youthful slang and talks about her "mommy's recipes." | |||
 | |||
|  | ||
|
EMAIL THIS
PRINT THIS
MOST POPULAR
Everywhere she went, it seemed, rock-star-size crowds awaited the bubbly, 35-year-old Food Network personality. More than 1,200 lined up around the block at the Sur la Table cookware store in San Jose, Calif., including teenagers with homemade Rachael Ray T-shirts. At the Sur la Table in Woodmere, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, 1,000 people called for the 500 available spots to see Ray film a TV spot, do a demo and sign cookbooks. "It was chaotic," said a store spokesman. "We sold out of all her books. We've had other Food Networks chefs, but there were always books left."
Britain has domestic goddess Nigella Lawson, with her temptress looks and seductively staged cooking show. We have Rachael Ray, a perky single woman from Albany, N.Y., who talks fast, hates to measure and cooks food designed for the typical harried, distracted working American.
With her dark brown hair, plump cheeks and wide smile, Ray resembles a young Sally Field. (Younger fans think she looks like a brunet Kelly Ripa.) Either way, she's the hot new darling on the food scene.
Two of her cookbooks -- "Rachael Ray 30-Minute Meals 2" and "Rachael Ray 30-Minute Meals Get Togethers" -- are on The New York Times' paperback advice best-seller list. Her Food Network shows -- "30-Minute Meals" and a travel show called "$40 a Day" -- are among the most popular on the cable network. She has three more books in the works for this year, including "30-Minute Meals Around the Clock" and a kids' cookbook. Plus, there's a show being planned in which the telegenic Ray will go on the road to cook with celebrities.
"It's so surprising," says Ray about her wild success. "I feel like J.K. Rowling. It's so overwhelming, I can't even wrap my head around it. But it's really cool."
Her concept — simple meals you can make in less time than it takes to buy takeout or even wait for that delivery pizza — is nothing new. The bookshelves are crowded with cookbooks promising supposedly quick cooking. What Ray projects is warmth and charm. She's like a good friend -- "your next-door neighbor, a menschy cousin," as she puts it. On her show she yaks away nonstop, yanking stuff out of drawers, rummaging through the refrigerator, just like most of us. She uses youthful slang and talks about her "mommy's recipes." She giggles. She drops stuff. Watching her cook, you feel like you could do that recipe, too.
Her friendly demeanor and cute, girl-next-door looks are a hit with men and women. Especially men. Just ask Pat Coniff, owner of Heroes bar in Green Bay, Wis., where the guys watch her show every night. Coniff sent her a fan letter, and Ray saluted his bar in her "30-Minute Meals 2" book.
It also doesn't hurt that she's a huge sports fan, particularly baseball and particularly the Boston Red Sox. "With all the success that's happened to me, the most exciting moment was when I was invited to throw out the first ball at a Red Sox game," she says. "I got to throw from the mound, and I made the plate. My family was there. Pedro [Martinez, the pitcher] signed my ball and glove. It was fantabulous."
Men also undoubtedly enjoyed the photos of Ray in skimpy costumes that ran last October in FHM, a men's magazine similar to Maxim, that usually has stars like Neve Campbell and Kim Cattrall on its cover. The magazine noted that Ray's cooking show is popular with guys because "she doesn't mess around with stupid ingredients, she doesn't bother with measurements and, like us, she's a danger to herself in the kitchen." She, in turn, revealed that she keeps her figure trim by doing 200 sit-ups every day. "And I do 100 pushups, too. Man pushups," she added.
Asked recently why she posed for the magazine, Ray was typically frank. "Hey, I'm 35. When am I going to do it?" she answered with a laugh. "I just wanted to 'represent,' as they say. I figured [the magazine] should have a normal person in there, not just teens from the West Coast." She added that she had a great time doing it, but she probably wouldn't do it again. "It's a shocker to actually see yourself with so little clothing on," she admitted.
It's doubtful that her fans will mind. Even showing a little cleavage, Ray just seems so wholesome and unassuming. She doesn't own a restaurant, unlike the big-name guys on the Food Network, like Lagasse or Mario Batali. She emphasizes that she never trained as a chef.
She has, however, been in restaurant kitchens since she was a toddler. She's the middle child, between an older sister and a younger brother. Her parents -- her father's Cajun, her mother's Italian -- owned a restaurant on Cape Cod, and her mother cooked and worked for 40 years for a variety of upstate New York restaurants, including a steakhouse, a Tex-Mex restaurant, a Howard Johnson's and a catering company.
"My mom is Sicilian. She doesn't like strangers watching her children, so we were literally brought up in a kitchen," Ray says. "I've worked every job, from a fountain girl at HoJo's to a fancy caterer in Albany."
Ray eventually got a job at the Macy's Marketplace in New York City, first working at the candy counter and eventually managing the fresh-foods department. Her two years at Macy's, she says, gave her an education in gourmet foods. She managed another gourmet market in New York City, then quit and moved to the Adirondacks, to a wood cabin on three acres near Lake George. After a stint managing resort pubs and restaurants, she was hired by Albany's Cowan & Lobel market to be the food buyer and chef.
"So I took over the kitchen, and I'm working 100 hours a week and the customers are buying the prepared food, but I can't get them to buy more groceries. They said they didn't have the time to cook or they didn't know how or they just didn't want to be bothered," she recalls.
To increase grocery sales, Ray began demonstrating 30-minute meals that customers could easily make with simple ingredients. She'd teach them how to make five different dishes with the same red sauce, or one basic chicken or pork recipe and five variations.
The weekly classes were a sellout. "We got brides-to-be, seniors, scout groups, everyone," Ray says.
Eventually, an Albany TV station asked her to do a weekly 30-minute meal segment on the evening news. She would travel to a different spot each week -- everything from fire stations to dorm rooms to senior centers -- and teach viewers to make dinner. Using the recipes she demonstrated, she wrote her first cookbook in 1999, "Rachael Ray 30-Minute Meals," begging Lake Isle Press, a small local publisher, to help her get it printed in just three months.
The book sold 10,000 copies in 10 days.
"People were insane for it. They couldn't get it in bookstores, only in the supermarket," Ray says.
In 2001, she got a call on a Friday from NBC's "Today" show. They wanted her to cook soups that Monday with celebrity weatherman Al Roker. The president of the Food Network, who had seen her book, watched the Monday segment, and two weeks later she had two pilot shows on cable TV.
Her phenomenal success has brought some changes in her life. "I always had lived check to check," she admits. She still lives modestly, but now she has money for some extras and to splurge on her family. "I got a new fridge and a new GE stove because two of the burners on the old one didn't work. I still don't own a dishwasher."
She also bought a BMW X5 for herself and bought her mother a green Mini Cooper.
"That Mini goes like a rocket ship!" Ray says, laughing. "My mommy zips around in it, this little 4-foot-10, 70-year-old Italian woman. It's the cutest thing. She got a speeding ticket the first time she took it out. When the officer pulled her over, she told him, 'I'm sorry, it's impossible to make this vehicle go less than 90.' "
Ray attributes much of her success to what she calls her "accessible" recipes and timesaving tips she's picked up from busy restaurant kitchens. None of her recipes call for any special equipment. She doesn't even own a set of measuring spoons. Most ingredients, she insists, can be eyeballed: half a palm-full of flour, enough E-V-O-O (as she refers to extra-virgin olive oil) to pour around the pan twice, three shakes of vinegar.
"That's why I hate to bake. You have to measure in baking, and measuring is a huge waste of time. All that stopping and fiddling with things. I'm too impatient," she says.
What also makes her show different is that none of the food is chopped beforehand. You see Ray in her green and yellow retro kitchen pulling ingredients out of the refrigerator or the cabinets. You watch her open cans and pull the plastic off the supermarket package of meat. She paws through a drawer, looking for a spoon. When she finishes in 30 minutes and sits down to eat, it seems do-able.
But is it? Can the typical cook finish three of Ray's recipes in 30 minutes?
"Well . . . " she hedges. "I can do it in 30 minutes, but not everyone can. I'm used to cooking, I chop fast. I make three recipes because I need to fill every second on television. Most people will just do the entree and a side and don't bother with dessert.
"The idea I'm trying to convey is that you'll be eating fairly fast," she adds. "People work hard. They don't have a lot of time. I want them to watch and think, 'I can do that.' "
.JPG)
-1.JPG)
Services »
