Rachael Ray Magazine

Rachael Ray Magazine

Out of the Frying Pan

In 1968, Elsa Scuderi, a longtime restaurant manager, and James, a retired book publisher, welcome daughter Rachael, whose first word is "vino." "I was a food snob by age 7," Ray tells the Miami Herald in 2006. With her two siblings, Ray grows up in restaurants from Cape Cod, Mass., to upstate New York. "I went to the school of Mama!" the former Lake George High School cheerleader adds. "My mother didn't like strangers watching her children, so we were all in the restaurants."The Turning GunpointWhile working at a specialty grocery store in Manhattan, Ray is mugged in 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,'" she tells PEOPLE in 2007. She maces him, but he returns the following weekend: "He dragged me down the alley and beat the crap out of me with his gun." Ray realizes New York isn't for her, and within a week moves back upstate.

Rachael Ray Magazine

Rachael Ray Magazine

Rachael Ray Magazine

Rachael Ray Magazine

Rachael Ray Magazine

Rachael Ray Magazine

Rachael Ray Magazine

Rachael Ray Magazine

Rachael Ray Magazine

Rachael Ray Magazine

Rachael Ray Magazine

Rachael Ray Magazine

Rachael Ray Magazine

Rachael Ray Magazine

Rachael Ray Magazine

Rachael Ray Magazine

Rachael Ray Magazine