2006/10/06
Slate has a neat article up trying to defend Food Network media queen Rachael Ray from foodies.
The author, Jill Pellettieri, points out that foodies seem to dislike her because she is essentially anti-gourmet. She favors prepared, store bought components and ingredients as opposed to fresh ones and starting from scratch. This, she suggests, is her greatest strength - that "she understands how Americans really cook."
I'll give her that. Something can definitely be said for simple, blue collar cookin'. Rachael Ray's schtick is her show "30 Minute Meals," in which she whips up rather simple recipes ( and that's not a knock, I think simplicity can be the essence of good cooking ) in 30 minutes, all the while acting ditzy, friendly, and generally goofy. But when Pellertini tries to whip up the same recipes in 30 minutes, she fails miserably. Some take her as long as an hour and a half.
I personally am a very fast cook. You learn to be fast by being the only cook on staff several nights a week at a popular, mismanaged Thai restaurant, especially when everyone else on staff, except for fellow EatFoo writer Adam Rugg, is completely useless. But this is not the average cook. The average cook is what Gordon Ramsay would call "a limp dick in the kitchen." What's the point of making average recipes for the average cook if the average cook can't do it in a reasonable amount of time?
It all became clear when I was at a local Borders looking for a GRE book this past weekend...
I swung into the cooking section to see if they had Alton Brown's "I'm Just Here For the Food." ( They had it, but I refrained from buying it because I realized I could get the book for a third of the price on Amazon. ) There was an entire shelf packed with cookbooks by Rachael Ray, with her smiling aloof face staring at me. This brought her recent FHM spread into my conciousness. I choked back a little barf so as not to embarrass myself in the middle of Borders the same way I did so in an Ale House years before.
It's not that she doesn't take an intellectual approach to cooking. After all, I beleive cooking is for everyone, even the moronic. It's also not her personality, although I will admit that I am not a fan. There is an entire blog devoted to hating her, but I think they focus their attention on the wrong thing. They focus on her personality, and the way she looks, two things that have nothing to do with cooking. If you're going to dog her, at least dog her about something that remotely has to do with her cooking.
What I don't like about her is what I stated in the opening sentence. She is a media queen first, a cook second. She has ambitions to be an Oprah, or a blue collar Martha Stewart. She seems to be more about her celebrity and her brand and her popularity more than she is about her food. The FHM shots are the most disgusting example of this. Why on earth, if you really love food and are serious about food, would you need to do this? Do you just want to make money, or do you really get a kick out of understanding and making great food? She'll do whatever it takes to further her career, but not her food. You can act and look however you want. Hell, you can even be naked. If you make great food, or you understand food science deeply, I don't care. Just deliver the goods.
Oh yeah, the food. Take for example her Thai Salad with Peanut Dressing. She uses peanut butter in the dressing.
Peanut Butter!
Posted by Chris Santoro on 2006/10/06 @ 11:13 | EatFoo 1.0 Posts