Where Did Rachael Ray Learn To Cook

Rachael Ray's Sizzling Success Story

Sept. nineteen, 2006 — -- She calls herself a "hick from the sticks," just at 38, Rachael Ray is fast becoming an industry.

She's the star of "30 Minute Meals" and three other popular shows on the Nutrient Network.

Ray is also the writer of xvi cookbooks for the time-starved; editor of a monthly magazine; and creator of a line of knives, cookware, piece of furniture, and even her ain brand of olive oil.

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As if that wasn't enough, she launched a daily talk show this week where she ventures beyond the stove to offer a smorgasbord of tips, celebrity visits and adventures.

The show is backed by Oprah Winfrey -- who saw something in Ray the first time the perky cook appeared on her show:

It'southward piece of cake to understand.

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"20/twenty" caught upwardly with Ray terminal week, after she had already been working for 12 hours, and she was still going strong.

Sitting in the evidence's studio, where the audition rotates like a Lazy Susan on sets resembling different parts of the habitation, Ray says she'south most excited about having an audition for the first fourth dimension.

"I've been lone talking to myself on photographic camera for five years."

Ray says the only rule on her new show, "Rachael Ray," airing on ABC nationwide, is "no crying allowed."

Non since Dr. Phil, has Winfrey supported a prove like this.

"From the day I met her, her communication has been exactly the same. Be yourself," Ray said.

A Busy Woman

Across her new show, Ray is busy with books, the Food Network, a magazine and cookware. She says it'south non too much to handle.

"This is a lovely life where yous're afforded the opportunity to chat and cook -- two things that I would practice to relax," Ray said.

"Who cares when yous get home? I'm lucky plenty to practise the stuff that I would normally be doing to relax from a real job."

Ray says what most people consider relaxation is actually stressful for her.

"Relaxing freaks me out. All that massage and a Zen moon doggie, listen to the chimes and the ocean, allow some lady rub you lot," she said. "Information technology only freaks me out. I'1000 not expert with the calm ... I'm high-strung ... I've been in a knot since birth. I want to stay that fashion."

Ray grew up in a sleepy town in upstate New York, in the heart of the beautiful Adirondack Mountains.

She still returns almost every other week to spend time with her mom, Elsa Scuderi, who like Ray never seems to tedious downward.

Ray's mom managed a string of local restaurants, but notwithstanding found fourth dimension to cook for her family. Niggling did she know she was training the next big thing in the food world.

Ray'south mom gives a little insight into her daughter: "From the time she's been very small, she has always been ahead of herself."

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Her parents divorced when she was xiii. Rather than hire a baby sitter, her mom often brought Ray and her older sister and younger brother to work with her.

"I'grand a pale comparison next to her," Ray said. "My mother worked 100 hours a week, and wouldn't bat an eyelash. All my life she was iconic to me, she was my first Oprah. … She was like the person I looked at, and I said, 'Wow.'"

Ray says she learned everything from her mom.

"I recall that cooking was just a byproduct of the style we lived, and life happened around the food," she said. "We were always in the kitchen and talking and sharing, and information technology was just where you had a skillful time."

The Outset of Her Career

Ray started her food career in 1995, working at the processed counter at Macy'due south.

She quickly rose to become the manager of the entire fresh foods department. But subsequently a few years, she moved back to her love Adirondacks.

She says a few things scared her off from the large city, namely, a couple muggings, criminal offence, and not being able to beget anything.

So Ray traded in her tiny roach-infested flat in Queens, N.Y., for a remote cabin surrounded by woods.

She managed pubs and restaurants at the famed Sagamore Resort until a job opened up every bit a food buyer at the only gourmet store in the area.

To assist sell more groceries, Ray started a class called "thirty Minutes Meals" for her customers who told her they were stretched for fourth dimension.

It became and so popular that a local TV station offered her a weekly spot, and she decided to put some of her recipes into a cookbook.

In the winter of 2001, the networks came calling.

At some point, her book got into the hands of NBC'due south Al Roker.

Soon, Ray found herself adjacent to Roker on "The Today Bear witness," demonstrating chicken and dumpling soup.

"It was a fairy tale," Ray said.

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Executives at the Food Network took find, and Ray became the first nonchef asked to host a plan.

"30 Infinitesimal Meals" launched in 2002, and its popularity led to iii more shows on the network: "$forty a 24-hour interval," "Tasty Travels" and "Inside Dish."

Her lack of formal culinary training notwithstanding gives some foodies indigestion.

Melt or Chef?

Ray never went to culinary school and so she calls herself a cook, not a chef.

"You have to take papers to be a chef. You accept to have a pedigree."

Some chefs are critical of Ray, seeing her as down-market.

Brand no mistake, though, Ray is clear on her position: "I'm not a chef. … And that's fine. They're absolutely correct. I don't bake. I don't do things the right way. I chop an onion wrong, and I am instruction people how to exercise it -- all that stuff."

But perhaps that'south what people really want, a downward-to-earth melt they can relate to.

That'south exactly what Ray says: "For a lot of people, they want to make a burger for dinner or uncomplicated pasta, a knockoff of, uh, of a swell French dish that they tin wrap their heads effectually in 30 minutes, so I recollect there's room for everybody."

Another matter that irritates some chefs: Ray'due south quirky expressions.

For example, she calls a sandwich, "a sammy." And extra virgin olive oil, "EVOO," because she gets sick of saying the long characterization.

"Food makes me excited. It's similar, the one affair in life that genuinely makes me childlike. I mean I get actually amped up about it, it makes me happy," Ray said. "And then if I wanna say, 'Yummo,' instead of, 'This is magnificent and the tones of it are blah blah apathetic,' what do yous care, y'all know what I mean? You could plough the channel."

Only viewers haven't turned the channel.

Some eighteen million people watch her four shows on the Food Network every week. The workaholic took a rare break last fall to ally John Cusimano. He is an entertainment lawyer and likewise performs in a rock band, The Cringe.

Forth with their pit bull Isaboo, they divide their time between a downtown apartment in New York Metropolis and Ray's cabin in the woods.

"Y'all know, my married man is the but guy in the world I could accept married," Ray said. "The only man that tin can possibly be that doesn't mind eating dinner at midnight, y'all know. I hateful, he'south a really low-key guy."

So she's got a burgeoning career, a wonderful home, a perfect husband, and then what's next? Children?

Ray says she'd love to have a day off to "merely read a book, allow solitary take a child. I honey children. I similar working with them, 'cause they're funny, they're self-effacing, downwardly to globe. Having a child doesn't make sense to me 'cause my workload is too neat. I experience like a bad mom to my domestic dog most days."

Children love Ray, and her studio is decorated with art her young fans accept sent her. But her appeal spans all ages and backgrounds. Before her new show went on the air, more than 25,000 people requested tickets.

Her appeal? Possibly, she merely makes cooking approachable for people of all skill levels.

"Anybody tin can cook," she said. "If I can melt, the most accident-prone person in the world, anybody can."