Kitchen closing
‘Rachael Ray’ bids farewell to daytime TV
After 17 seasons of weekday food and fun, the kitchen is closing for “Rachael Ray.” That’s the program that goes by that name, not the title personality, who is already looking toward new media horizons for herself.
The last episode of her syndicated talk show airs Wednesday, May 24 (check local listings for times), and it’s sure to celebrate many of the top moments Ray has put forth over the better part of the past two decades — both as a culinary and lifestyle authority and as someone whose interviewing skills have developed considerably during the run of the program (which won the Daytime Emmy for outstanding talk show three times, twice in the “entertainment” category and once in “informative”).
“I’m a good cook who learned how to talk to anybody over time,” the ever-lively Ray says in assessing the longevity of her eponymous show, “and that’s because of practice. I have always believed that anybody in America can be successful at anything if they can close their eyes and see themselves trying it. If you’re not ashamed of where you come from, you never have to be ashamed of where you might go.”
When “Rachael Ray” began in 2006, its bubbly host already was widely known for the cooking shows she made principally for Food Network, including “30 Minute Meals,” a concept the former waitress and pub manager originated while she was a buyer for an upscale food market in Upstate New York. She parlayed that job into classes she taught to customers, which drew the interest of an area television station; the segments she did there paved the way for NBC’s “Today” to feature her regularly, then for Food Network to begin showcasing her.
Recurring spots on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” progressed to the point where Winfrey became an executive producer of Ray’s own talk show from its inception. However, recent Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame inductee Ray maintains she’s never been overly concerned with how she fares as an interviewer of other celebrities, despite how many of them have passed through “Rachael Ray.”
“I just don’t think that translates to people who do what I do, service people,” she reflects. “You never think about how you did; you think about the customer. I think Howard Stern is the greatest interviewer on the planet. He grew into it because he was grateful for the job he had, and I think of it that way. If you do anything long enough, you’re going to be better at it than when you started.”
Throughout the run of “Rachael Ray,” the host (a major advocate for the people of Ukraine, as seen on the show) has had a true partner — if not always on camera — in her husband, musician and lawyer John Cusimano. Besides contributing melodically to the program, he effectively became Ray’s co-host when the coronavirus pandemic forced her to halt the usual method of production on her show, normally taped in a Manhattan studio. The couple headed upstate to their home in Lake Luzerne, N.Y., and did a bare-necessities version of the program from there. (A fire ravaged the house in the summer of 2020, but they rebuilt it in a little over a year.)
“I crossed a line for the first time,” Ray muses. “I never thought I’d be able to say I loved working from my home, because a few years ago, that was the thing I was most afraid of … that anybody would cross the barrier of coming into my home. No magazines, no TV shows. I was so strict about it because it was my safe place, just for me and my family. Then with the pandemic, I had no choice. And then after my house burned down, I really had no choice! We had to live in one bedroom with one bathroom, and we had to tape from our guest house for two years. It was a weird time.”
As for what lies ahead for Ray, she intends to work again with many of her “Rachael Ray” colleagues in channeling much of her focus and energy into her new venture, Free Food Studios. It has a commitment for an A&E series — for that network’s Home.Made.Nation initiative — tentatively titled “Rachael Ray Meals in Minutes,” the first effort in a new library of programming she intends to build with fellow producers she has worked with before. She also plans to nurture new talent in the food-show space.
“There’s tons of great content out there, now more than ever,” Ray reasons. “We’re going to be working on platforms on multiple levels. The world is constantly changing in that way, and I feel so lucky as an American woman in her 50s to still be relevant. It’s exciting and cool, and it proves the point that you can do anything you want. I feel that I’ve been given so many great opportunities.”