Who Is Rachael Ray Anyway?

I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome all of you who found this post via search. Lots and lots of Rachael Ray (Rachael Ray!!) searches these days. But now that you're here, let's get down to business, shall we.

First order of business: somebody please tell Martha Stewart that there's a new Martha Stewart in town. Because holy ravioli, this Emmy award-winning, half-Italian New Yorker with the quick and easy cooking style is freakin' everywhere. First it was the Food Network where I first encountered her ditzy breezy cutsy wootsy style in 2005. Now look what she's selling:

• Magazine: Everyday with Rachael Ray (actually comes out every 35th day or so).
• Products: Has her own line of santoku knives even though she's never had formal training in cooking. She also sells T-shirts, olive oil, books, CD's, and more.
  
• Show: "Rachael Ray" is backed by Oprah and debuted only a few months ago. Everyone's clamoring to get on there. This in addition to her other 4 shows on Food Network.
• Endorsement: She's got a big deal with the Nabisco people. Incidentally, those Nabisco folks are going crazy with the product placement these days. It's just disgusting the way they are able to weave their products into magazine editorial.

She even has her own...

• Word: That's right, she has her own word. It's EVOO - an acronym technically, but Oxford picked it up as slang for Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Well, it is a long name for a cooking product.
• Fan Club: Lovable kooks with too much time on their hands have made themselves a fanclub with pictures and polls and message boards and links and oh my god I think I just swallowed my gum. Let me put it this way, when some people get to the front of the line at her book signings...they faint.
   
• Anti-Fan Club: Populated by people who probably hate it when people come up with a cutesy word like EVOO that catch on...who cringe when the see a "Yumo" t-shirt and who refer to Rachael Ray as "Raytard". I just know some of you are going to click this.

That's a lot. And...after a long day of cooking in front of cameras, energetic Ray unwinds by preparing spagetti carbonara for her husband, John Cusimano, who apparently likes to pay hot women to spit on him when Rachael isn't around.

Rachael Ray exudes self-depreciation. Even when she brags about her food, you know it's not tied to her ego - she just thinks it tastes...in her words, "Yumo." It should taste yumo too, since she zhuzzh's the dishes with lots of garlic, butter, "EVOO" and broth. Now with the help of her magazine and talk show, Rachael's brand is branching out into promoting things outside the food world. Music, for example. And pet things.

Give her another year and she's going to be a billion dollar industry. If she doesn't overexpose herself too fast.  As it stands, I am hearing her name 2-3 times A DAY for the past four weeks. Someone needs to do an intervention.

My theory is that it's hard to know when it's too much when you're in the thick of it. Racheal Ray should be thinking now about how to ration her exposure so she doesn't burn everyone out on her bubbly kookiness. That would be a shame.  It's already starting to happen.