Food Network Star Becomes Daytime Hostess
Jul 17, 9:26 AM EST
The Associated Press
Rachael Ray is everywhere with her Food Network shows, best-selling cookbooks and lifestyle magazine. Now, she's adding daytime talk show hostess to her crowded resume.
The high-energy cook who shows America how to whip up inexpensive meals in 30 minutes promises her hour-long syndicated show, debuting Sept. 18, will present "can-do" advice about cooking, travel, relationships and pop culture trends.
Don't expect her to be bound to a couch like hosts of more conventional talk shows.
"I want to laugh and eat something in every show," Ray said Sunday at the Television Critics Association's summer meeting. "It's very important to me that everything is accessible. People love that sort of friendly advice and that sense of community when you get advice from a peer instead of an expert."
Unlike
Ellen DeGeneres,
Tony Danza and
Oprah Winfrey (whose Harpo Productions is a producing partner), Ray's show won't be celebrity-driven. Instead, she expects famous guests to cook with her or play foosball.
She added Winfrey has been "a huge and continuing influence" on her.
"She tells me to be myself," Ray said. "She doesn't chime in or call up and say, `This is how you can be more like Oprah.' She's pretty busy with her own job."
Besides, Ray couldn't change her outgoing ways.
"We're talkers in my family. We're very loud, talkative, volatile people," she said. "I got a big mouth. My husband is a lot like me. He doesn't bruise easily."
Ray said she planned to have her husband — lawyer and musician John Cusimano — cook and play music for her on the show.
Ray's show has been picked up by stations nationwide, said Terry Wood, president of creative affairs for King World and CBS Paramount Domestic Television.
It will air at 10 a.m. in New York, 9 a.m. in Los Angeles and at 3 p.m. in other markets, Wood said.
A veteran guest of Winfrey and David Letterman's shows, among others, Ray knows what she does and doesn't want to try on her own show.
"I'm really tired of seeing makeovers and date things and everyone is 20," she said, explaining she recently taped a piece on seniors dating.
"I want to go from another angle. I want old and young to want to watch the show. I want it to be fun and interactive for all ages."
With all her traveling, cooking and eating, how does Ray manage her weight?
"I don't," she said, laughing. "I buy jeans with stretch. Everything I have has stretch in it. I haven't known my weight since I was 12-years-old. I have enough pressure. I don't care about any fashion enough to give up food."
Ray's everywoman persona makes for interesting interactions with her fans.
"They hit me on the arm and give me a recipe," she said.
And for those Ray devotees who try to make her recipes in 30 minutes, the cook herself suggested taking it easy.
"It's kind of creepy if you actually go home and set an egg timer," she said. "If I open the wine before I start cooking, it takes me a good 47 (minutes). If you've never picked up a knife in your life, it'll probably take you an hour."
