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Rachael Ray: All The Dish!

By Liza Hamm and Michelle Tauber

Originally posted Thursday May 03, 2007 12:00 PM EDT

"Rachael's energy and ability to connect with her audience are why she's such a hit," says Oprah Winfrey. Photo by: RACHAEL RAY SHOW

And yet on this jam-packed day – which started at 4:45 a.m. and included a Good Morning America appearance, a photo shoot, an interview and a wrap party for her talk show – Ray's rat-a-tat-tat energy appears to be flagging. "I definitely hit the wall," she says with a sigh, exhaustedly sipping a glass of Brunello red wine. Still, if the savvy businesswoman who crafts quick recipes from unfussy foods like premade biscuit dough and mini-cocktail franks is feeling a bit spent, she hardly minds. "I like feeling like an ox at the end of the day," she says. "I like working hard."

It's a singular focus for which Ray, 38, offers no apologies – even when it comes to her marriage to Cusimano, 39. "I can't give a man an enormous amount of attention," she says matter-of-factly. "And John is totally down with that. When men I have dated over the years whined about, 'Oh, you make no time for me' – see ya! I just dumped them. I don't need that pressure in my life." Cusimano, whom she met at a party in 2001 and wed in Tuscany in 2005, "was a big surprise to me," she says. "He came at a point in my life when I had decided, I'm not going to chase [marriage]. I don't think young men or women should feel pressured into marriage. You shouldn't marry anyone, in my opinion, who you have to try hard for."

She is equally frank about her views on having kids – something she says she has pretty much ruled out. "I don't have time," she says. "I work too much to be an appropriate parent. I feel like a bad mom to my dog [Isaboo, a pit bull] some days because I'm just not here enough. I just feel like I would do a bad job if I took the time to literally give birth to a kid right now and try and juggle everything I'm doing."