 |
Of course, it's exactly that kind of self-deprecating wit and earthy charm – let Martha Stewart bake her pie crusts from scratch; Ray prefers to buy hers and use the extra time to mix her signature beer margaritas – that have helped the 5'4" hypercaffeinated dynamo (she admits to a 10-cup-a-day coffee habit) single-handedly transform herself into a one-woman phenomenon. Among the fruits of her round-the-clock labor: four hit Food Network shows, 12 million copies of her 13 bestselling cookbooks in print (she writes all the recipes herself), a self-titled monthly magazine and even her own brand of olive oil. Her fans turn out in force for her signings and appearances (she does about 150 a year), obsess over her every move on dozens of Web sites, chop with her signature knives and even adopt her Rachaelisms (EVOO = extra virgin olive oil; sammie = sandwich).
This year she proved she can hold her own as a talk show host, with the first season of the Rachael Ray Show – coproduced by her friend and mentor Oprah Winfrey – up for seven awards at the Daytime Emmys in June. And just last month she launched her new nonprofit healthy-eating and cooking initiative for kids, Yum-o!, in partnership with the William J. Clinton Foundation and the American Heart Association. Along the way she has made "30-minute meals" words to live by for millions of busy moms and become a doggedly determined fixture of domestic American life. Says professor of pop culture and television at Syracuse University Robert Thompson: "You can't go through a grocery store without her visage staring out at you."
More on Rachael
Get up-to-the-minute celebrity news and photos on your cellphone, iPhone or Blackberry at www.people.com!
