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Rachael Ray soars higher into foodie fame

By JANET K. KEELER
Published May 11, 2005

	[Food Network photos]
	SHE’S EVERYWHERE: Rachael Ray’s TV shows includes 30-Minute Meals. She also graces the covers of her many cookbooks.

Have you noticed on Rachael Ray's $40 a Day that she can only afford water with lemon to wash down most of her meals?

And wouldn't you like her just once to not think everything she eats is "soooo good?" Surely, something must be soooo so-so.

Nevertheless, we're feeling more and more like bystanders in Rachael Ray's world. The evidence:

* More than 10 cookbooks, most with her wide, sunny smile on the front, have sold 2-million copies.

* Three Food Network shows, each featuring her unfailingly cheerful schtick, have made her the network darling. 30-Minute Meals is the network's most-watched show.

* The hollow edge santoku knife has been around for ages; she made it famous. She has a deal to promote a version by Furi see it at www.surlatable.com

* She's a cover girl, most notoriously posing in a short-short apron for laddie mag FHM in 2003.

* She cooked in a bikini at the South Beach Food and Wine Festival in March. She draws hundreds to book signings and cooking demonstrations around the country.

* And come September, Ray launches Every Day with Rachael Ray, a lifestyle magazine that has Reader's Digest clout behind it.

Ray says the magazine will reflect the "can-do factor" of all her other ventures. September is also the month she plans to marry John Cusimano, a New York entertainment lawyer by day, rocker by night.

Time for a wedding planning book.

Is Ray in danger of flying too high? Has she "mutated into a media beast" as MsMolly suggests on the Internet Rage Diaries (http://schmeiser.typepad.com)

If she follows the path of other celebrity foodies, there's still room for a line of cookware and a restaurant or two.

But Rachael, take a tip from Emeril Lagasse. When network TV comes calling with a sitcom script, run the other way.

"How simple (delicious, easy, gorgeous, yummy) is that?"

"EVOO" (extra-virgin olive oil)

"My daddy," "my mother," "my sister"

"I don't bake."

"Remember, a good meal is never more than 30 minutes away."

[Last modified May 10, 2005, 14:22:57]