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Parody Provides Ray Of Hope For Rachael Haters

Elizabeth Hilts is so befuddled with Rachael Ray's' immense popularity, that she decided to write a parody.

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By JEFF HOUCK

jhouck@tampatrib.com

Published: November 28, 2008

Updated: 11/28/2008 05:11 pm

It's fashionable to beat up on the Princess of All Food Media, Rachael Ray.

There certainly was an abundance for humor writer Elizabeth Hilts (below) to play with in her book "Every Freaking Day With Rachell Ray" - a parody of Ray's Every Day With Rachael Ray magazine.

In addition to the mag, there are the two main series Ray does on the Food Network. Then there's the daily talk show. And the Dunkin' Donuts commercials. And the seemingly endless stream of cookbooks. (Her latest, "Rachael Ray's Big Orange Book," is in our holiday book review this week in this magazine, as is Hilts' book.)

"One of the reasons I decided to do this book was the ubiquity of Rachael," Hilts told me last week by phone from her home in Connecticut. "And she's so gleefully mediocre. I'm befuddled why that has translated into such immense popularity. I'm just befuddled by it."

Hilts' book tags RR on multiple fronts, from the cutesy vernacular (Yum-o! EVOO, etc.) to the kitschy cast of peripheral family members to her decidedly lowbrow recipes. The faux sandwich recipe for a BLD (bologna, lettuce, deviled ham) was scarily on-target.

"A lot of her recipes are so weird and look completely inedible," Hilts says. "That made doing this really hard because how do you make a parody of something that is already so bordering on the unbelievable?"

It grates on Hilts that Ray made $18 million last year and yet she continues to present herself as a sassy girl next door.

"I don't know about you, Jeff, but I don't think my next-door neighbor made $18 million last year," Hilts told me. "She had the destination wedding. She has the $2 million weekend home in the Hamptons."

One more thing: "You know that goofball giggle? It doesn't fool me, not one little bit. She's not sharing a joke with me. She's laughing all the way to the bank. It's a cocktail party laugh.

"And in so much that she has decided to make herself a public persona, she's gonna have to take the shots for it."

You can read more of my interview with Hilts on my blog, The Stew, at www.tinyurl.com/TheStew.

SHELLS A-POPPIN'

If you're looking for a unique gift, you could do worse for the food fan in your life than giving the gift of a cooking class or seminar.

For example, we like the looks of an upcoming session on oysters called "The Shell Game," which takes place from 6 to 8 p.m. Dec. 10 at The Ritz-Carlton in Sarasota. The class, which teaches how to buy, prepare and preserve the bivalves, includes tastings of four different oysters (Washington West Coast, British Colombia West Coast, Wianno Prince Eduard Island and Blue Point Oyster Nantucket Sound), along with a glass of pinot blanc from the Paul Blanck winery.

Cost: $40 per person, plus tax and gratuity. For reservations, call (941) 309-2090.

CAN WE JUST SKIP THE REST OF 2008?

What's on the menu for restaurants and hotels in 2009? According to New York restaurant consultants Joseph Baum & Michael Whiteman Co., we can look forward to:

•A return to home-cooked comfort food as a result of economic pressures.

•Increased popularity of Asian noodles served in broth. (Examples: pho, laksa, ramen.)

•An upswing in consumption of offal dishes.

•Breakfast becoming a round-the-clock offering.

•Luxury restaurants allowing more a la carte ordering.

•A surge in smaller-plate, tapas-style servings.

•An increasing number of one-night, underground, invitation-only restaurants.

•Oh, and the hot buzzwords/ingredients for the upcoming year will be: maple syrup, Brussels sprouts, mozzarella bars, shisito peppers from Japan, porchetta, duck eggs, Nutella, Korean food, Peruvian cuisine, salt as the new trans-fat and attacks on energy drinks.

•Also, chickpeas will be the vegetable of the year. One can only imagine that trophy.

GOLF SHOT, JUST RIGHT

Got a chance last week to chat with James Foley, a kitchen manager for Outback Steakhouse in Raleigh, N.C., who was in the Bay area to play a little golf at Old Memorial Golf Club in Tampa.

A few weeks earlier, Foley played in the first Outback Steakhouse WE Cup, a charity golf tournament in Holly Springs, N.C., that raised more than $160,000 to benefit the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

During the tournament, Foley's name was picked out of a hat to participate in the Coca-Cola Million-Dollar Shoot-Out. The task: to hit a hole-in-one from 165 yards.

Even with 10 players taking a swing, these types of things turn out to be more about the shoot-out than the million dollars.

Foley, 28, who learned to golf as a teen in his native Ireland, took his favorite 7-iron out of his bag and took a nice, smooth swing. A small bit of breeze drew the ball eight feet to the right of the tilted green, which then poured the ball slowly into the hole. The ecstatic golfer took off running for the green, then stopped and gave a Tiger Woods-style fist pump.

"It was the longest six seconds of my life," Foley told me. "All the stars aligned that day."

He loves the company he works for, he says, so he's planning to stay in the kitchen. The money, which if he takes as a lump sum instead of an annuity amounts to about $500,000, gives him a little bit to invest. He isn't planning on buying new clubs, he says.

He's going to need a new 7-iron. The one that won him the cash is going into a trophy frame with the ball that made it into the million-dollar hole.

"I am who I am," he says. "I hit a golf shot. I got lucky. I was more happy about how I hit it than it going in."

To view the hole-in-one video, go online to my blog, The Stew, at www.tinyurl.com/TheStew.

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