Rachel Ray is the first one to say she is not a chef, she is a cook. Like the millions of us who have to try day after day to come up with something new or fast or both. Some criticize her for the fact that she uses prepared items from the supermarket, but that is what we all do and she does cook for the average person who does not have the time to prepare gourmet meals all the time. It is the things Rachel ray adds to the prepared items that make her recipes interesting. And you have to admire anyone who can put a meal together in 30 minutes.
Rachel Ray was born Aug25,1968 in Cape Cod Massachusetts. She got her introduction to cooking at an early age. Her parents owned several restaurants, but when Rachel was 13 her parents divorced and her mother and Rachel moved to the Lake George region of Up State New York, a region famous as a summer and winter resort area. Rachel Ray showed a knack for business at an early age. . When she was still in high school, she started and ran her own gift basket business.
In 1995 Rachel Ray moved to New York City and got a job at Macy’s working at the candy counter in Macy’s marketplace. Her talent and energy did not go unnoticed by her bosses at Macy’s and it was not long before she was the manager of the Fresh Foods Department. Rachel Ray paid attention to everything and learned everything possible about gourmet food while working in Macy’s and that knowledge made is possible for her to open and manage Agata & Valentina, a gourmet store in Manhattan. She accomplished this is just 2 short years. Rachel Ray does not believe in taking things slow. It is full speed ahead.
Rachel moved back to up state New York in 1997 and this when her career really took off. She got a job as a buyer and cook at Cowan & Lobel. A market place in Albany New York and this is where the 30 minute meals idea first took root. She began teaching a class in how to make meals in a half hour, the local CBS station heard of it, offered her a job doing 30 minute meals one a week on their evening news broadcast. Rachel Ray published her first cook book in 1998.
In 2001, two things happened that would catapult Rachel from a local celebrity to a national star. A producer from the Today show took and interest in her cook book at the Food Network, in her show. She make an appearance on the Today show and impressed the Food Network so much, they offered her a contract the next day.
In the five short years since then, Rachel Ray has made a major impact on the television scene. She is the star of 4 shows on the Food Network, has written an average of one cookbook a year and is now the star of her own syndicated talk show. She also has her own bi monthly magazine, which is scheduled to go to 10 issues a year in 2007. Will Rachel Ray stop here? Not likely. With her energy and enthusiasm, there is no knowing where she will go or what she will do, probably in addition to what she is already doing as opposed to replacing anything, it at all possible.
Rachel lives with her husband of one year, John Cusimano, who handles the business end of Rachel Ray’ enterprises, and their pit bull, Isaboo, in an apartment in New York’s Greenwich Village and, of course, at their house in Rachel’s beloved Lake George.
