Ray’s hot recipe
Who would you rather hang out with this summer — Oprah or Rachael?
If good clean fun is your bag, pick up Rachael Ray Every Day. But for those determined to get that thinner waistline and a roadmap to inner peace, O, The Oprah Maga
zine is the mag for you. Certainly, O is the more complete package. There are articles for younger women, including one that says to think twice before having sex on the first date; and those for the 50-plus crowd about how to deal with nagging back pain. Don’t sit or stand all the time, Dr. Tara Narula advises.
The layout of Rachael, meanwhile, makes it much easier to read, although the magazine amounts mostly to colorful recipes. These include 16 fast dish ideas, like Nashville Fried Chicken Fingers, Smoky Italian Pork Burgers and Rum and Coffee Cocktails. Party!
Ray mentions her husband, who in one pictorial designed the perfect burger and who in another is credited with coming up with the name “Moxie Spot” for Ray’s pop-up fashion shop. This makes a case that Rachael is a mag for wives — or at least those who cook.
For example, there are 11 (11!) tricked-out hot dog recipes for your kid’s baseball games, and recommendations for bed-andbreakfasts equipped with dream kitchens. Then there’s a list of cooking festivals, such as Heritage Fire in Napa, Calif., where 3,500 pounds of whole beasts will be cooked over live fires.
If that doesn’t bring sweat to your brow, how about grilling breakfasts? Recipes for grilled French toast and fruity breakfast sausage skewers show grilling isn’t just for lunch or dinner.
O isn’t so big on slaving away in the kitchen. The magazine suggests foods that you can buy on different Web sites, like Maine gelato and gummies infused with bubbly, rather than recipes.
O includes beauty tips like how to treat different kinds of hair, but little of it says fun. Clothing selections are found in O’s special denim guide, which it calls a “sea of blue.”
And of course, O has pages of book recommendations, many of them geared toward inner peace. Some of its articles and advice columns, meanwhile, aren’t exactly the freshest copy: like, uh, the feature that reveals your greatest enemy is often yourself. Whoa, you don’t say?
On the positive side, we liked the personal memoir from the daughter of an Episcopalian priest who forgives him for being gay after he starts sending her daily postcards that she eventually reads.
Still, contrast that with Rachael’s recommendations on the best ice-cream-making machines, summer-proof makeup for steamy days and “rock-and-roll” picks for summer fashions.
With the summer heat beating down, we prefer to let loose at the beach with Rachael Ray.