Rachael Ray is a cultural phenomenon of our times, a whole food industry unto herself. As of this writing, she has several TV shows on the
Food Network, including a talk show, a cooking show (
30-Minute Meals), and a travel show (
$40 a Day) in which she visits restaurants in different cities, seeking out three good meals for less than $40. She has at least 21 cookbooks on the market, her own magazine, a line of olive oils, knives, cookware, and various foods under her label, and her face and recipes adorn boxes of Nabisco crackers in supermarkets. Her legions of fans adore her, because this perky young woman is just so lovable. She is outgoing, earnest, and bursting with energy, and radiates an irresistible, love-me-or-else personality.
But while most people (including my sweetie) are captivated by her cutesy, gushing demeanor and her lack of culinary pretensions, others are annoyed by it. It's true that her $40 restaurant show is entertaining and informative. What bothers me, though, is that no matter where or what she eats, she seems to undergo a sexual climax every time she tastes any food she is evaluating.
"Mmmm," she will moan predictably, smiling and shaking her head in ecstasy. "Oh, wow!" Or, her catchphrase expression that really drives me up the wall is: "Yum-O!" (She also has a line of tee shirts, one with that word on it.)
She reminds me of the film
When Harry Met Sally, when Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan are in a coffee shop. Demonstrating to him how women fake orgasms, Ryan moans and screams in wild ecstasy for several minutes, prompting an older woman at another table to tell a waiter, "I'll have what she's having."
My fantasy is to watch Rachael once, just once, make a face, spit out a mouthful of food, and exclaim, "This is garbage!"
I had decided that this would never happen, even if she was chowing down in a Russian gulag. But then I got an idea after I ate at the Barstow Card Casino's Four-Star Restaurant and suffered stomach cramps for the next four days. That place would really provide an acid test - and acid would be the right word. So, I hatched a plan to lure Rachael into that barf house to see how she'd react after eating there. I sent her a letter explaining that all of the tourists going to and coming from Vegas would appreciate a good restaurant along the way, and that Big Denny's bistro was absolutely the finest eatery they could find.
To my utter delight, she responded. She said she was intrigued by my letter, and promised to check out Denny's establishment the following week.
The day before she came, I drove to the Barstow Card Casino and advised Big Denny that a very important food critic would be coming by his place the next day.
"It ain't nobody from da Department a' Health, is it?" he asked suspiciously.
"No, no," I assured him. "It's Rachael Ray. Surely you've heard of her."
When he gave me the blank stare I expected, I explained who she was. "Just think, Denny, last week you were on Judge Judy's television show, and now you're going to be on Rachael Ray's. You'll be as famous as O.J. Simpson."
Denny did not appreciate my wisecrack, so I hastily continued. "You ought to talk to your cook and arrange a really outstanding meal for her."
We walked back to the kitchen, where Fingers Finnegan, the restaurant's world-renowned chef, was preparing the evening's meals. Finnegan was an old mob buddy of Denny's who took some cooking classes while in prison. More people had ended up in the hospital from his cooking than from that recent tainted spinach outbreak. Fingers' middle name was E. coli. His most distinguishing feature was the three missing digits on one hand, which resulted from a mishap when he got drunk one night and tried to chop up a chicken.
I held my nose as we entered, because the kitchen hadn't been cleaned since Teddy Roosevelt was president. The floor was filthy and littered with food scraps, the grill was as greasy as an old car motor, and a menagerie of insects scurried around in every direction. As I watched in horror, a small rat suddenly jumped onto the cutting block. Fingers smashed it with his fist and dropped it into a pot of stew. "No sense lettin' it go to waste," he grinned. Well, that explained how that tail got in my stew the night I got sick. And, much to my dismay, Big Denny didn't seem the least bit surprised or annoyed.
The big guy told Fingers about Rachael's impending visit. "She's a really important broad who's got millions a' people watchin' her show, so ya gotta come up with somet'in' special."
Fingers smiled. "Leave it to me, boss. I got a great new recipe I been meanin' to try out. She's gonna love it."
"She better," Big Denny said menacingly. "An' dere better not be no rats or cockroaches in it, neither."
Right on schedule, Rachael Ray drove up the next day with her film crew. Happy and bubbly as ever, she began the narration for her show. "Well, here we are today in the historic desert town of Barstow, California. We're about to enter Big Denny's Barstow Card Casino, home of the Four-Star Restaurant, which was so highly recommended to me by Max Shapiro."
As she stepped out of the car, her enthusiasm immediately began to dim as a security guard patted her down for concealed weapons. It faded further when she walked inside the smoke-filled building, gazed at the converted cow barn with its peeling walls, and observed all the farmers in grimy overalls, playing and cursing their bad luck. And it dropped down even further when she was seated at a table covered with a badly stained tablecloth.
"May I see a menu?" she asked politely.
"Ya don't need one, lady," Fingers Finnegan told her. "I made up a dish specially for tonight."
He snapped his fingers, and a waiter set a plate heaped with some manner of unrecognizable food on her table. Rachael's nose twitched involuntarily as a strange odor enveloped her. "What's this cr … I mean, concoction?" she inquired.
"Somethin' I created myself," Fingers said proudly. "Sautéed goat gizzards an' chitlins flavored with pig drippings. Take a bite."
Oh boy, I thought. Here it finally comes - a dish Rachael can't praise, much less eat.
The young lady gazed for some time at the mess on her plate before reluctantly lifting a very small portion to her mouth. As her taste buds recoiled, her eyes squeezed shut in distress, and her face transformed into a mask of revulsion. Her lips trembled as she attempted to come up with an appropriate comment. Finally, as gamely as she could, she uttered a single word: "Yum-O."
Oh, well, it serves me right for expecting to hear a negative word from Rachael. Anyway, don't look for the Barstow Card Casino segment on TV anytime soon. The food was bad enough, but Rachael later discovered that the security guard had taken the $40 daily food allotment from her purse, while the valet parking attendant had stolen her car radio. She'd have had a better time at a Russian gulag.
Max Shapiro, a lifelong poker player and former newspaper reporter with several writing awards to his credit, has been writing a humor column for Card Player ever since it was launched 20 years ago. His early columns were collected in his book, Read 'em and Laugh.
