Time Magazine interviews Rachel Ray, the popular daytime TV host, cook, and best-selling author, for their 10 Questions with feature.
Self-study activity:
Watch the interview and say whether the statements below are true or false.
1 Rachel's grandfather looked after her when she was a kid.
2 Rachel wasn't a popular girl at school.
3 Rachel and her husband have always ignored what tabloids published about them.
4 Most of the information the press publish about her is false.
5 She agrees with Anthony Bourdain's comments on her.
6 Rachel has been criticized for working for Dunkin Donuts.
7 Rachel used to eat Dunkin Donuts as a child.
8 Rachel loves everything which has to do with fashion.
We are here today for Time.com’s 10 Questions, and bravely submitting herself to the readers questions today is Rachel Ray. Thank you for doing this.
Thank you, I think, in advance.
What were your favorite foods as a child?
My grandfather lived with us and was my caretaker when I was itty-bitty, so I liked everything that old Italian men liked. I liked sardines and squid and calamari, eating calamari with your fingers and anything with anchovies, anything with garlic and oil and I still eat much the same way today. I was not a very popular girl when I opened my lunch sack at the lunchroom, I just cleared out the whole left side of the lunchroom. You could smell my food at 20 paces.
You see, you have lots of negative comments thrown at you in the past concerning both your professional and personal life. How do you not let it get you down?
You know, people gossip about you no matter what you do. If you’re a waitress, you know, there’ll be a couple of waitresses that gossip about you. I mean, that’s just human nature, you know, you have to learn how to deal with that when you’re a little kid on the playground. You can’t let, you know, people calling you names, putting you down or you wouldn’t get very far in life. And, you know, with regards to tabloid press, especially my husband and I, I mean, we've been through the whole gamut of emotions. First we were angry, and then sad and then back to angry, and then frustrated, and then, you know, you wanna hire lawyers and armies to, you know, you get all self-righteous about it, and then at the day, you’re like ‘Really? I don’t have anything better to do with my time or my money?’ And, you know, there's nothing that people write about me when it comes to that, they're just criticizing my cooking skills or something or the fact that I'm, you know, a newbie at it, the whole talk show. Again, there's very little right that isn't true. I'm not a chef. I don't bake. I am loud. I do giggle. I am goofy. After a while my voice is annoying. Yeah. I mean what am I gonna say to that? Call them up and say, ‘Yeah, you know me and you’re so right. I just can’t go on’. I mean, no, of course not. You get up and go to work.
Anthony Bourdain likes to rip you on your show. Actually, this is a combination of two questions. One person asked that, another person asked, would you like to punch him?
No. I actually love and appreciate Anthony Bourdain’s work and I think I… I don’t know if he bashes me. I think everybody has a right to their own opinion and I think, usually when he criticizes me, he’s got a point to make, you know, and, you know, you can’t be all things to all people. It doesn’t keep me from appreciating his work or his books.
How do you choose, more or less, what you endorse? Are there products that you would not endorse?
Well, there are very different, and this goes back to sort of the Tony Bourdain thing. One of the criticisms Tony made of me once, I thought it was quite legitimate and I’ve had a good answer for it but, you know, whatever. He said, you know, you worked with Yum-O! and you’re trying to reduce the child obesity rate working with President Clinton, you're always talking about family's cooking with healthier products. Why would you work with a company like Dunkin Donuts? and Dunkin Donuts came to me and said, listen, you know, we really love who you are and how you work and we want to get healthier. We want to offer our people everything in the building trans fat-free which at the time was a very big deal. I mean, I didn't think he could make a doughnut trans fat-free. And everyone goes ‘wow’. Once in a while I would just soak up and have a Dunkin Donut. Dunkin was my favourite. Do you remember the Dunkid Donit? You ... on it. It was round and it had a little handle. That was fabulous, full of nutmeg and superhot. It was delicious. Anyway, they said, look, you know, we’re making some big changes. We’re going trans fat-free. We’re bringing in a line of healthier foods and we know how much you love coffee, and you know, do you like ours? And I said, Do I like yours? I grew up with it. And, you know, I thought, all right. I do drink gallons of their coffee and they’re wanting to get involved with, and did, our Yum-O! organisation. So I was proud to work with them. You know, in a short term and see where we could go with that.
Now, I did say they were feisty. John wrote in Salt Lake City, Therer’s an old axiom, never trust a skinny chef. Do you have any comment?
What is he trying to say?
I have no idea.
If he’s trying to say I'm too skinny, thank you. I'd kiss you in a really inappropriate way if you were here. I don’t know what he’s trying to say there, I mean, you can trust me because I ain’t skiny. Everything I have has a stretch in it and lots of it, yeah. I've never, I've never loved, you know… the funny thing about being in television is some of these people would expect you to start dressing a little better, you know. You know, when I worked in restaurants and markets my whole life I had three pairs of work boots to my name, thanks to my name, ripped jeans, you know. I never wore makeup. And now this whole world of, you know, long dresses and fancy shoes and stuff, you know, I still trip from time to time, I’m still wobbly on them. I'm not good at it, but I've never loved clothes because I just didn’t grow up that kinda girls girl. I’ve never loved clothes enough to give up food, and I never will, so I’ll remain a proud six.
Key:
1T 2F 3F 4F 5F 6T 7T 8F
