Rachael Ray...YES, You Heard It Here – LEAVE THE POOR WOMAN ALONE!!!

There was an unusually NON-noteworthy interview with RR last night on Nightline. It was particularly annoying, because it had been promoted as if it new ground had been broken. No question was asked that hadn’t been asked before and no answer was given that we hadn’t heard before.

There were 3 main topics covered. One was her FHM interview. Who cares? THAT was so 2003 and people should be more worried about her awful food than her pictures in a little apron licking a wooden spoon. Anyway, that’s what we all do in our own kitchens ;-), so why shouldn’t she do it in a magazine?

The second topic was her relationship with Dunkin’ Donuts. Yeah, we all know what Tony Bourdain said and, of course, I agree with every word, but this has been covered already…a lot! Next topic!

I’m no fan of Rachael Ray (‘s cooking), BUT even I was offended by the interminable questioning about her desire to have no children. Leave it alone!

WHY does every interviewer feel that Rachael must be quizzed endlessly about how she would rather throw together mediocre recipes than raise a family? Seriously, she should be allowed to do what she wants.

Why do people feel so threatened by a successful woman who doesn’t follow the typical path of 1) career; 2) give it all up to raise a bunch of ingrates; 3) spend the rest of her life treading water, career-wise, to make up for all the time she lost while being home with babies?!!

RR can choose her OWN path in life. As much as I deplore her perpetual Sloppy Joe recipes, I also applaud her right to come up with 50 thousand more, if she wants.

I’m always amazed that she answers these questions with such aplomb. She doesn’t get testy or angry. She actually explains her reasoning, which we really have no right to expect and certainly not after having heard it a million times before. We should have stopped being interested about 300 questions ago.

Here And There

Remember when it looked like I was lying (I prefer thinking of it as being "misinformed”) and said Nightline was doing a story on the Iron Chef last Friday? Well, nice of them to tell me, but it was on THIS Thursday - last night.

You really didn’t miss anything, though. The Nightline correspondent, dressed rather inappropriately, I felt, in a bright summer party dress, walked around the set with Alton.

His only anti-fan comment (I'm recalling when I reported that someone else reported, probably 5th hand, that he dissed his overweight fans, supposedly out of their hearing, but not really…) was laughing haughtily at the idea that members of the Iron Chef audience thought they would be fed. (Hmmm, I guess that’s all part of his anti-fat bias.)

They showed the “smoke” from the dry ice that was pumped into the kitchen continuously; we saw the ingredient set-up that each chef works from - “a small grocery store” was how Alton described it; we met the tiny and indomitable Cat Cora; Michael Symon said hi. I like him. He said Iron Chef is no different from what chefs do in a restaurant every night. Yeah, but you don’t have that annoying guy in a suit narrating your every move.

The most interesting thing we learned (but I think we knew this anyway) was that the chefs are given IN ADVANCE three possibilities for the secret ingredient.

The story on the Nightline website is the exact story that was there last week. At least they didn’t change the date. Whatever…But don’t promo something, not have it on, put it your website as if it had been on and then show it a week later as if it were a new story. Harrumph!

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I’m sure you’ve heard the news of RR’s new venture – DOG (and cat) Food. The GOOD news is that parts of the proceeds are going to the animal welfare arm of her empire.

The BAD news is the name – NUTRISH – I guess a variation of Delish…
GMAB. Even my exterminator (don’t ask, but I will not have ants running around the radon canisters planted all over my granite) thought that was a bit much.



Animals need all the help they can get, but I’m surprised RR wasn’t worried about the inevitable comparison of Nutrish to her REGULAR food. One can only hope the animals got the better deal.

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Poor Tom Colicchio had a real waste of a morning on the Today Show this morning. I caught him in the middle of being forced to compete with the constantly interrupting Kathee Lee Gifford - Kathie Lie Gifford? or however she spells it. The other, much more muted, women of Today - Meredith, Hoda and Natalie – were also there.

They were tasting three dishes for some contest or other. Several of them had various food issues – no watermelon, no raw fish – not exactly the perfect panel for judging. They tasted the dishes (or whatever part of them they could stomach - Kathie Lee spit one out) and came up with a winner after a quick huddle.

Poor Tom stood 3 feet away, looking completely beaten down by stupidity of this segment. Then he said he’d be back in December. I guess he meant with the next season of Top Chef. This winning segment isn’t on the website yet…(the show is still on) I’ll include it later…

Postscript:

I finally found the video of this segment. The three dishes were made by 3 Top Chef contestants of the season currently filming in New York. Their challenge was to make a dish to be demonstrated on the Today Show. Tom claimed the judges couldn't decide on a winner and needed the Today Show crew to help. (Yeah, right!) The winner will appear on the Today Show to demonstrate the recipe deep into the next Top Chef season.

I'm Confused About The Iron Chef Story On Nightline

Or should I say the LACK of an Iron Chef story. They said last night they were covering it tonight (Friday). There IS a big story on the Nightline website about the Iron Chef, but nothing on the show tonight. I'm disappointed.

You won't learn much that you didn't know before. They also have a kind of low rent slideshow, which is no substitute for a filmed segment.

Were they simply promo-ing this lame story on their website and I totally misunderstood or did they switch gears to bring us a riveting story about expensive bottled waters?

Iron Chef Exposé? Or Not

Friday, July 25th on Nightline will be a look at Iron Chef. I wonder if they’ll show much behind the scenes stuff that we're not supposed to see or know. Probably not. The promo showed Jamie and Mario in the cobia battle. I won't say who won, if you haven’t seen it, but someone’s shoes had reason to be dancing into the night.