Continued from page 3

Rachael Ray: All The Dish!

By Liza Hamm and Michelle Tauber

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

Ray (ca. 1970) recalls a childhood of "good food and good storytelling." Photo by: Courtesy Rachael Ray

It's a rare moment of stillness for a woman who was reared amid the kinetic hustle-bustle of restaurant life. The middle of three children of James Ray, 76, now a retired book publisher, and Elsa Scuderi, Ray and her siblings Maria, 47, and Emmanuel, 32, were expected to pitch in at the family's restaurant in Cape Cod, Mass. "Nobody says, 'Here's how you peel a potato' – they just say, 'Rachael, peel a potato,' " says Ray. "My first memory in life is grilling my thumb to the griddle in our restaurant on Cape Cod."

While working at a specialty grocery store in Manhattan, Ray hit a dramatic turning point in 1997 when she was mugged in the foyer of her Queens apartment. "This kid comes in behind me – next thing I know he shoves my face up against the door, jams a gun into my back and says, 'Give me your bag.' I flipped the top off the mace my dad had given me when I moved to New York City, spun around and started screaming."

The following weekend the culprit returned. "The whole thing was in slow motion," she says. "He dragged me down the alley and beat the crap out of me with his gun." Within a week, Ray moved back upstate. "Dude, I got mugged twice within one week! Wouldn't you want to leave?" she says. "It freaked me out for a year." She also realized that the New York City rat race hadn't been doing her any favors: "I thought I had this great life, but I had a lousy one. I worked 100 hours a week. If you're going to work that hard, it should be for something with your name on it."

Still, the beginnings of her self-created empire were hardly by design. Working at another gourmet store in Albany, N.Y., she noticed that the prepared food sold well but basic groceries did not. After failing to persuade local chefs to teach 30-minute cooking classes, Ray did it herself. They became so popular that a local TV station put her on-camera. "I'd serve wine on the sly and play theme music," she says. "It was just a huge party."