Cooking Light Subscription: Everyday With Rachael Ray

Everyday With Rachael Ray

Ray teaches simple recipes that she says can be completed in 30 minutes or less, although critics claim that her concept does not include preparation.[8]

Ray says that her Sicilian maternal grandfather, Emmanuel Scuderi, and her Cajun ancestry serve as a strong influence on her cooking. She uses ingredients such as fresh herbs, garlic and chicken stock to boost flavors. She believes that measuring "takes away from the creative, hands-on process of cooking" and instead favors approximations such as "half a palmful". To critics of her shortcut techniques, Ray responds, "I have no formal anything. I'm completely unqualified for any job I've ever had."[5] She acknowledges that she cannot bake because it requires measured ingredients, that she cannot make coffee, and that she burns bread under the broiler.
On her television programs, she has used catchphrases such as "E-V-O-O" (extra-virgin olive oil), "yum-o," "G.B." (garbage bowl), "Oh my gravy!", "entréetizer" (entrée-sized appetizer), "stoup" (cross between a soup and stew),[9] and "choup" (thicker than a soup but thinner than a chowder).[10] In 2007, The Oxford American College Dictionary announced the addition of the term EVOO, short for extra-virgin olive oil, which Ray had helped to popularize, and credited her with coining the phrase.[11][12]
The set of 30 Minute Meals uses a yellow Model 61C Chambers stove from the 1950s, notable for its top-opening broiler, super-insulated oven, and unique Thermowell.
On November 12, 2006, Ray and Mario Batali defeated the team of Bobby Flay and Giada De Laurentiis on an episode of Iron Chef America during which cranberries were the secret ingredient. On March 18, 2007, Food Network debuted a Rachael Ray episode of its special Chefography series, on which she stated that "the worst day of [her] life" was Iron Chef America, admitting to being anxious about it for weeks before. She also told commentator Alton Brown that she was "a cook, not a chef."