Want to talk back to Rachel Ray? Want to post your OWN recipes? Have a paring knife fetish? Want to find out where the best organic meat in town is? Then get ready for AT: The Kitchen this week, featuring Sara Kate on cooking, guest posts on subjects like wine, and all of you on everything else. We can't wait. For one, the writing's better than ours (no typos), and secondly, you can eat it.
can't wait!
here's a design/kitchen question
We're swooning over a pricey toy - click my name for the link - the Illy Aerolatte Moka expresso maker with cute little removable pot. It's either that or the chubby new Bialetti design . . .
http://www.bialetticafe.com/s.nl/sc.2/it.A/id.106/category.85/.f
I'm loving Xmas shopping. . . .
sooooooooooooooooooooo excited for the kitchen to get fired up!!!
bring it on people!!!!!
who doesn't love food!
and speaking of food, after reading bruni's review of Cookshop today, i cannot WAIT to go eat there!!!
anyone been?
is it as dreamy and wonderful as it sounds?
i LOVE Five Points, its where i try to spend my birthday every year
could Cookshop possibly be better?
Haven't been to Cookshop but it looks fabulous from the outside. There were so many delays in opening that I imagine they wanted it to be perfect before tearing the brown paper off the windows. Waiting for Christmas money to go there.
You mean we can really talk back to Rachel Ray?! Bring it on!
I'd rather just slap Rachel Ray silly. Oh, am I being hostile? Now that she's Oprah's latest annoying protegee (like Dr. Phil wasn't bad enough?), I'm sure I will be seeing even more of her.
I just wish someone would teach Rachel Ray how to tip. Did anyone else see her $40-a-day show on New York? She carefully calculated her 15% and left approximately $1.42 for her lunch at Tabla. Appalling. Or is it just me?
i'm pretty sure the producers always calculate the tip at exactly 15%, i mean, comeon, this is tv ;-)
i'm an unapologetic Rachel Ray supporter
i find her INSANELY annoying, but, man, good for her for getting as far as she has!
i remember when she used to do her 30minute meal demos at Cowan & Lobell in Stuyvesant Plaza in Albany when i was a little girl, and i worshiped her spots on Channel 6 in albany as i grew older and older
she was my Emeril (for lack of a better term), meaning, she was the person that showed me as a child that cooking could be easy and FUN!
when i first saw her on Food Network, i was soooooo psyched
us Albany girls gotta hang together ya know ;-)
I met Sara Moulton (chef supreme, someone who actually KNOWS how to cook and how to teach) at a book signing and we had a nice kvetch about how much we both hate Rachel Ray. Excellent.
and to continue on the tipping theme, i once waited on sara moulton
she is a DOLL and a great tipper!!!!
a couple of years ago i enjoyed watching rachel ray and it took several months to realize that she doesn't know how to cook but simply worked at food shops and macy's food dept. where she prepared food. that was okay for another couple of months of watching her. but now that Rachel is everywhere i can't help but remember dear julia child and how till the very end she did not exploit her following of fans. how she did not try to sell them every last piece of merchandise possible and wasn't a shill for any company at any price.
This Thanksgiving my mother told me the only thing she wants for Christmas is a Rachel Ray cookbook. After I picked myself up off the floor and vowed to get a DNA test -- not the first time, mind you -- I told her the only thing I will NOT give her for Christmas is a Rachel Ray cookbook.
So, we compromised... she's getting a Giada De Laurentiis.
I recently went to Martha's book signing and got to meet her. For those of you that like to bake, we chatted about her fav recipes in the handbook. She was extremely good spirited and engaging. I am of course a huge Martha fan....I told her about my collection of her magazines. I have every issue of living starting with number 19. I think they are on issue 139 or something now! She was excited to hear that and even asked me what I did for a living. In my opion-her and her team are experts on any subject they take on!
P.S. sounds like everyone loves to hate rachael ray-I did still her garbage bowl idea when you are cooking...thats about all she was good for:)
lorraine
you say "it took several months to realize that she doesn't know how to cook"
so what does she do then?
how is what she does any different from what you or i, or even Daniel Bolud (probably) do when we're cooking dinner at home for ourselves or our family?
i think she is to be comended for getting harried, stressed out families to think about eating healthy, freshly prepared food, when they could just as easily call ahead to Applebees and get their 'dinner' delivered to them curbside in wasteful packaging and thermoregulated bags that they then rush home in their gas guzzling suvs to keep it from getting cold before hitting the couch and consumign while watching The OC?
i mean, yeah, her voice is annoying, but, come on, give the girl some props
and she's not the only one shilling her stuff
anyone seen the latesr Sur le Table catalog with Mario and Batalli Sr. shilling their sausages?
how is that any different from ms. ray plopping her name on the side of a santoku knife?
"know how to cook" = knows the properties of food so one can combine them effectively in a systematic and creative way (or something like that)
One of my foodie friends swears that half of Rachael Ray's 30-minute recipes wouldn't be edible. Of course, since I only watch cable when out of town and have never tried one, I'm passing on nasty gossip in a purely recreational and uninformed way. Meow!
Hey, the girl's making money. She's doing something right, even if she is kinda annoying. (But I do sympathize with her in the name spelling thing)
I'm afraid to even bring this up, because it can so easily go wrong, but it's so interesting to me that I can't resist. I don't mean this in a catty way, because I am no great beauty myself, but I find it fascinating that Rachael Ray has not been forced by the media powers that be to do some crunches. I mean, she's a pretty girl, and you would think that the marketing idea would be to turn her into a cooking sex symbol like Giada DeLaurentis, but she has a serious spare tire. She doesn't fit into any of the normal categories. In the cooking show world you have your matronly types (Julia Child, Lidia Bastianich, Martha Stewart), your fleshy, sensuous types (Nigella Lawson, Ina Garten), and your plain old eye-candy types (Giada DeLaurentis, Sandra somebody with the semi-homemade cooking, lots of others). And now that she's being promoted so aggressively, you'd think they would make her get in shape. I'm not saying that they should, just that that's what seems to happen with everyone else when they hit the bigtime. But maybe that's her appeal, that she's just kind of an everygirl.
Diane. I don't think I would trust the recipes from a chef who was stick-thin unless we're talking macro-biotic, vegan, raw, or dietetic cuisine. My food gurus better have some meat on their bones! Otherwise, it subconsciously sends me the wrong message about the quality and taste of their food. Yes, be in-shape if you must, but have a little bit of a belly to prove to me that you actually eat the food your pushing on me. That's why I love watching Nigella Lawson's shows. She turns food prep, the use of full-fat creams and butters, and the act of eating into a full-on sensual experience. Never before has the sensual connection between food and sex been so palpable on a cooking show.
"you're" not "your". ugh.
Enrique, I'm not saying she SHOULD be thin or in shape, just that I'm surprised the media machine hasn't insisted that she be so. I like Nigella, too. It's literally food porn. And her food is good.
Diane. Agreed. I have 3 Nigella books and love her super-rich, high-fat (for America) recipes. Also a fan of Tyler Florence. Like Nigella, easy on the eyes and some damn good recipes. (But his show isn't nearly as sexy as Nigella's. Seriously, her show could be run on the Spice Channel!)
ann - when you say "freshly prepared" do you mean it's made right then and there rather than using leftovers or are you referring to her ingredients. Because in every meal she prepares over 50% of the meal comes out of a can or a bag. She's cooking food for mid american working moms. This is generic food. But hey, she's thumbing her nose at everyone as she and Oprah stroll over to the bank with huge amounts of cash. This girl is gonna cash in on every possible thing she can with a powerful benefactor steering her in the right direction. More power to her.
anne
(i love the with e minus e thing here)
i have no problem with canned goods going into "freshly" made food (or leftovers for that matter, i'm still milking the goodness of the leftover turkey my mom gave me. so far we've made sandwiches, soup, dumplings and pasta!!!)
i feel (and here, i get personal) that anyone that says they do not use canned goods (or leftovers) in their day to day cooking is a liar
i trained as a chef, and yes, chefs use canned goods
canned beans, canned roasted peppers, canned tomatoes, canned capers, canned (italian, extra virgina olive oil soaked) tuna, etc, etc, etc
anyone that can say their food is 100% can (or bottle) free cooking is a liar
one of my fave dishes ever that i make is olive oil soaked italian tuna cooked with garlic, capers and canned tomatoes over pasta
is that a bad dish?
is it any worse when rachel ray cooks it with sunkist tuna?
if we (they?) see it on her show and decide to use better tuna than starkist, does that make it better?
are we (they?) still using her idea?
is it not her idea if she got it out of a cookbook and adapted it?
is it better than if i (they?) picked up dinner from boston market?
she's just the messenger.... she's trying (being forced? asked?) to help america cook for (with) their family
at least she's making an effort to make cooking look like fun, and something do-able in a go-go world
like i said, her voice is annoying, but, is she really worse than bobby flay just because she doesn't have a restaurant in NYC?
i mean, who doesn't want to not see him add honey to yet ANOTHER sauce for chicken??
Enrique, you know I love you, but the chef could be like my dad and my sister (both of whom are fabulous cooks) who could not gain weight if they tried. Trust me, my sister (who was always rudely asked if she was anorexic when we were growing up and she was in full-fledged adolescent skinniness) eats more than 99% of the people I know, male and female. And to this day, my dad, who is 70 and owned restaurants back in the day, drinks protein shakes to keep weight ON.
And btw, I love Nigella, as well. I also love Ina Gartner (sp?). She seems to be genuinely having a ball while she's cooking. And anyone who names her store after an Ava Gardner movie must be interesting!
Is Nigella still making new shows? I used to watch her (slavishly) on Style, but she seemed to disappear a while ago.
Can anyone help! Rachel had a fish soup receipe that was aired last year around Christmas Time. It came very close to what Grandma used to make and I Have lost it does anyone have a copy thanks
I'm glad Rachel Ray isn't a cookie-cutter -- no pun intended -- show host. It's a great message to women everywhere. You can be young, pretty, middle-aged, have a belly, even be overweight, and still be successful. If they DO try to change her, I hope she resists.
Ina didn't name her store.... she bought it with the name already intact.
Becky