Rethinking Rachel Ray? Not Bloody Likely

While I may be rethinking chains, I'm not quite ready to rethink Rachael Ray. However, I have to recognize that not everyone finds here as viscerally repulsive as I do. One of those people is my very un-Rachael Ray like pal, Mary Elizabeth Williams, who tells us all on Salon why exactly she's sold her soul for a meal. Marybeth is the only one I know who could get away with calling a 30-minute meal "a culinary reach-around." From Marybeth:

Ray does not exist to wine you and dine you. She is here to wham-bam thank-you-ma'am you, an abundantly useful strategy. I may find her personality considerably off-putting. I may feel guilty for turning to her again and again at that certain hour of the evening when I need gratification. Rachael Ray is my dinner hooker -- fast, reliable, a sure bet. Her critics can bemoan the meteoric rise of the warp-speed dinner; they can turn up their noses at her "sammies" and burgers. But not every meal can be a truffle-infused work of art. Most nights, you're just grateful for a little culinary reach-around.

She's as full of accepting guilt about her dinner hooker as I am about chains. My sistah! Whole article at Salon (don't forget the annoying ad to watch to read it for free.)