Media Phenomenon

It's recently struck me how much of a phenomenon that Rachel Ray has become. I started watching her Food Network television show, 30 Minute Meals when my oldest son was about a year old. It was sort of a segue from nap to dinner or playtime, and I like to think we both enjoyed it. Plus, I liked her idea of shortcuts. So many chefs out there are interested in adding special, hard-to-find, expensive ingredidents, and using all manner of gadgets I do not have in my kitchen in creating these fancy concoctions that just aren't fit for me and my family. But I digress...

Anyway, I think at the time she had a couple of cookbooks out there based on her TV show (or else the show was based on the cookbooks...) But now, she's absolutely everywhere! She has oodles of cookbooks, she still hosts 30 Minute Meals but does $40 A Day too, she does a radio show, has a magazine: Rachel Ray's Everyday, a cookbook for kids, and I think she'd being syndicated for a Houston morning show. Wow! All this has happened only in the last few years. She's turned into a superstar, seemingly overnight.

I don't know how she finds the time to come up with enough recipes to power all of these formats. I suppose now she has a test kitchen like Martha Stewart with all sorts of people cooking up easy meals. The more the merrier! Maybe this will start a cooking revolution! No more garnishes...no more napkins folded into swans! No more setting the table! We'll all serve ourselves from the stove and only pull out utensils we'll actually use. Sounds fantastic, doesn't it?