Et tu, Rachel Ray?

Most people who know me know that I'm very undomesticated and rebellious as far as doing my 'womanly duties' of cooking and cleaning. I abhor Martha Stewart, the Barefoot Contessa, and that other annoying chick that wants you to keep it upper-crust, keep it snobby, and ALWAYS keep it semi-homemade.

However, in the last few years, since D's first skin illness when I had it beat into my head from Craig Hospital about whole, organic foods and nutrition as one of the main keys to beating his skin/osteomylitis problems, and from having kids of course, I've tried to do much better and have learned a lot and become a better cook in the process.

One of the the only cooking show I really liked was Rachel Ray's 30-Minute Meals. It was practical, down-to-earth, doable from the standpoint of having a full-time job and then coming home and having to cook for a quadriplegic. Most of all, it was unpretentious. She was all, "yeah, get the store bought dough," and "just get the already grated cheese if you don't have time to grate it yourself," and "if you don't have fresh parsley on hand, just use some parsley flakes." I could deal with that. I do have to say that she sucked at the desserts, though. I'm sorry, but canned peaches with almonds and spray whipped cream in a dish does not a dessert make. A dessert must include chocolate, usually required baking, and can't have fruit as it's main ingredient. Those are just the rules.

In any case, since I hate cookbooks and Rachel really didn't measure anything, I could just watch a show, write down some very general notes about it, and cook it the next day. Only in my case, they were always 45-Minute Meals. But then I never had all the ingredients and pans and everything perfectly lined up and ready to go like she did, I didn't have her knife skills or her $300 knife, and she didn't have two little creatures wrapped around her thighs every five minutes.

I think it is funny that so many people like Martha Stewart harshly critiqued Rachel Ray. It almost made me like her more. They said she took too many store bought shortcuts. That she was the stale beer in the Food Network's fine wines. Stuff like that. That is why I hate Martha Stewart. It isn't because of what she does or how she does it, if you want to cook and stuff like Martha does, fine. It was that she acted as if your life wasn't worth living unless you lived like Martha.

Do you have friends that are Martha followers? I've had some. Do you find yourself dreading going to their house for dinner parties? Me, too. It's uncomfortable and not relaxing. Everything is "just so." Everything is overdone. Everything is a big deal. My main fear as a blind person is that I'm going to set my crystal goblet down a little too close to the 4 million votive candles lit on the table and set the origamied-out-of-recycled-from-the-tea-party-doilies doves on fire. I just want to sit back and have a nice meal. I don't really care that you spent five hours embroidering fall leaves on a linen tablecloth. I probably won't even notice. Now, there are Martha Stewart hobbyists out there. Extravagant entertaining is their hobby. It is a nice hobby because you can share it with others. That's great. But it is when the hobby becomes a way of life and you have to spend the whole dinner party complimenting the homemade centerpiece and asking for the recipe instead of talking about anything real where I draw the line at RSVP-ing in the affirmative. I'd rather eat my dinner through a feeding tube in a coma than talk at length about the dried flowers crumpled in a bed of lavender oil and paper mached into your napkin rings. Oh, maybe I already am in a coma from talking about it.

Which brings me to another reason to bitch. Really, I am okay with the fact that some people like to cook, decorate and entertain. But why, WHY do I have to partake in discussions about Martha's latest good thing based on the sole fact that I am female? How many family gatherings have you been to where after dinner, the men sit around and talk about interesting things and the women go into the kitchen and do all the cleaning up (after doing all the cooking) and jabber about Martha Stewart, Oprah, and their menstrual cycles. I don't mind helping to clean up, but I'd pretty much rather stick needles in each of my orifices than have to talk about the appropriate womanly things. The other thing I tend to do is to get irritated at the three hundred ways I could have made the job easier and more efficient. I guess that isn't the point, though. In the past ten years, I've stopped doing it. I sit with the men. (Gasp!)  It actually is partly because it is very difficult for me to be of any use in someone else's kitchen. I can't see where to put things, I can't hear what the other women are saying as they run around and clean up. I mostly just end up standing in the center of the kitchen looking confused. It is much more enjoyable to sit with the men and talk politics. So that's what I usually do, but I know that merely because I am a woman, I've made the wrong social choice.

Anyway, back to Rachel and what I was getting at. In watching 30-Minute Meals, I knew Rachel was, uh, perky. Perky is fine. I can handle perky when its just positive, high energy people. But when it gets frenetic, that's when I need to limit my time with the Perkies. You know when perky people are so beyond perky that they've absolutely sucked all the energy out of the room? I remember once D and I went to Costco with a friend who is a very nice person, but can be frenetically perky. Watching her in Costco was like watching human pong. She was literally bouncing from isle to isle, proclaiming her love for every item in the store. Everything was Wonderful! Amazing! The Best Deal Ever! I've Never Seen Anything Like This! Literally, it was like, "Oh My GOD!! Look at these BALL POINT PENS! I have to HAVE these!!! I can't stop jabbering about the miracle that is costco without using Lots! Lots!!! and LOTS!!!! of Exclamation Points!!!!!!!" D said something about how his chair was going low on batteries and how he was going to wait for us. We both ended up walking out without buying anything. D asked me why I didn't buy what I came in for, and I said, "Oh, I don't know. I think I lost my will to live in about Isle 3." "Yeah," he said, "it wasn't my chair who was losing power, it was me."

But I forgave Rachel Ray for saying "Rice OVERBOARD!!!" every time a grain of rice veered out of the stir-fry. And all of her other pithy comments and constant running chatter because, hey, it must be hard to fill up a half hour of airspace when you are only talking to vegetables. And she was doing something useful. So, Rachel and I went on with our happy, little relationship of her telling me shortcuts to mostly whole foods cooking, and me ignoring her little "Oh, deLISH!!" commentary.

And then I saw some of her new talk show.

Rachel Ray, I've tried so hard to like you. I can actually do a real patriarchically approved girly activity like like cooking and watching cooking shows because of you. Now you go off and think you can have a talk show? Don't make me hate you.

Have you seen it? She just needs to chill the fuck out. I mean, I might have to go back and rethink my position about ADHD diagnoses and Ritalin. She is annoying as all get out. She says she has more to say than to talk about vegetables, and I can understand that, but so then don't have Diane Sawyer on and start talking about slut shoes. It just may be that women can handle a variety of other topics besides how to dry salad without a salad spinner. (Put it in the washer on the spin cycle? Oh, you're so funny Rachel, but I don't see me picking lettuce out of the washing machine just so I can put the dirty diapers in happening anytime in this universe.)

Why does everyone have to have a talk show anyway? Why is being good in something like basketball (Magic Johnson) or being on a TV show as a kid (Tempest Bledsoe) suddenly mean you get to have a talk show? Why is it always a talk show?

You all know I'm very depraved about the whole talk show thing. You know I don't do well with any of them (Although I like Ellen occasionally. She is not trying to change my life by giving me a  makeover. She just wants to make me laugh.) I get at least one or two hits a day from people who have googled "I hate Oprah." That will probably end up being the legacy of this blog. It is the most read post I've ever written. So, Rachel, please, take the giddy desperation down to under 11 on the hysterical meter. Don't make me have to write an I Hate Rachel post.

Comments

[Susan]

Ahhhhh. Rachel Ray. That poor dear NEEDS A VOICE COACH!

Her shrill, grating voice drives me batty. The food looks great - but oh - that voice!

Now,Ina Garten and Paula Deen are FAT, which tells me that they eat their own cooking. Bless them both! Plus, neither are shrill and yappy-voiced. Love 'em!

[shannon]

I know nothing of her talk show. I like the cooking show but it's on when I am cooking. And I refuse to have a t.v. in the kitchen and I couldn't deal with the distraction anyway.

Seems like less is more with Rachel.

I have a cookbook you might like though. It's Cooks' Illustrated's "Quick Recipes" and it's all under an hour, mostly whole food with those occasional Rachel-style shortcuts. My first and favorite cookbook. I don't have many, I'm picky!