Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Recipe for success requires a little restraint

The ingredients are in place for Rachael Ray's talk show to be a hit, if she can master the mix.

By JANET K. KEELER
Published September 19, 2006

	[Handout photo]
	Rachael Ray

Rachael Ray on Rachael Ray reminds me of the new girl at work trying really, really hard to fit in.

She talks too fast, too loud and too much. She's a little too chummy when she needs to take time to let relationships develop. On Day 1 of her new nationally syndicated daytime talk show, she was exhausting.

"I can't put a sentence together and they gave me a show," said the Food Network star who, thanks in part to Oprah Winfrey, is getting a shot at entertaining a wide audience.

Ray's got that wrong. It's not the sentence she can't conquer; it's the period at the end.

That's not to say that Ray won't grow into her new role as the ringmaster of a live audience. "For five years, I've been talking to vegetables," she said. Remember Ellen DeGeneres' first weeks as a talk show diva? Rather dismal. Now she's an Emmy winner.

Time will tell if Ray will allow her guests to shine, or even simply speak. The two best segments in the frenetic debut were guest Diane Sawyer confidently and calmly sharing some of her favorite things (a lighted lipstick tube) and Ray skydiving with a woman afraid of heights. Neither time was the star of the show talking.

The oddest bit was a video tip from a viewer who dries her lettuce on the spin cycle of the washer. Don't try that at home unless you want to pick green bits from your unmentionables.

Ray brought plenty of her kitchen tricks into a spanking-new studio that looks like a hip New York loft apartment complete with living room and kitchen. She descends onto the set from a caged elevator (Very Rocky Horror Picture Show.) Weirdly, though, the studio audience is on a spinning turntable. Trying to keep up, no doubt.

Understandably, Ray seemed most comfortable when she was cooking, though she did cut her finger in her attempt to make a meal in less than seven minutes. She actually pulled it off in under six. If you log on to www.rachaelray.com this morning, you can get the ingredients for this afternoon's meal. Clever idea.

But we already know Ray as the architect of speedy meals. It'll take a little more time to see if we want to hang out at her fake apartment day after day.

Janet K. Keeler can be reached at jkeeler@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8585.

[Last modified September 19, 2006, 06:00:45]