The Naivete of Rachel Ray

"Oh, this is so fun and easy to make! First we'll harvest the wheat for the roll and grind it up! Then we'll pick the perfect heifer, slaughter it, and slow roast it over an open flame just like the settlers did! Now let's go over here to our organic onion patch and pick out the onions we're going to saute! And when THAT'S done, we'll go back to my family farm and pick 16 vegetables that we can throw in the food processor to make our steak sauce. YAY! ISN'T THS FUN?!?"

If you love to cook, this probably won't appeal to you; but if you would rather order out than cook a meal any day of the week, you will most likely understand where I'm coming from in this post.

So there I was on the treadmill at the rec center yesterday, flipping through the channels on my personal little television set. There is not much on TV during the early afternoon, unless you're into soap operas or "People's Court," so I settled on Rachel Ray. She is helping a girl lose a lot of weight - I want to say 50 lbs. but I didn't pay much attention that part - by the time her senior prom rolls around. A commendable enough task, no doubt. The girl complained that she didn't know how to cook healthy meals and that she was living on a steady diet of boring turkey burgers. Rachel Ray swooped in to save the day and show her how to cook more interesting healthy meals.I thought I might be able to learn something, so I turned up the volume.

The goal of this particular cooking lesson was to trick this girl's mind into believing she was eating something fattening and delicious. I smirked a bit as Rachel informed her that spaghetti squash got its name from being so similar to that carbo-charged devil, spaghetti. She said once you cook it and hack it apart with a fork, it looks and "feels" like pasta. I noted that she said "feels" instead of "tastes." It may look like yellow vermicelli, but it doesn't taste like spaghetti. I know because I make squash pretty often.

Rachel then taught her how to make her very own nutrient-rich marinara sauce using garlic, eggplant, a can of whole tomatoes, and a whole red pepper. You slice the eggplant and pepper in half, drizzle them with olive oil, and broil them for 45 minutes. As for the garlic, you chop off the bottom stem part and broil the whole bulb also for 45 minutes. When the eggplant is done, you scoop the middle part into a blender. You remove the seeds from the pepper and throw that into the blender, too. Then you squeeze out the guts of the garlic bulb into the blender, add the can of tomatoes, and voila, your very own healthy marinara sauce.

I watched as Rachel Ray hacked up the squash and poured the sauce over it right in the shell. They oohed, aahed, and yummed it up. So healthy! So delicious! So...so...

See, here's the thing. That's an awful lot of veggies to buy for one meal. Not cheap, either. I'm not even sure I could fit it all in my oven at the same time. I think the girl was thinking the same thing. You could read it all over her face. Actually, you could read a couple of things all over her face.
-Won't all these vegetables give me diarrhea?
-Why does Rachel Ray keep saying she loves me when she doesn't even know me? Is that an Italian thing?
-I don't care what you say, Rachel. Spaghetti squash is not as delicious as real spaghetti.
-You know I'm just going to go out and buy a jar of sauce, right?

When it was all over, Rachel asked her, in her best cheerleader voice, "Wasn't that FUN?!?" That poor girl gave her the most bewildered smile. I know that smile. It's the same smile I gave my dad after a 3-hour algebra tutoring session in which I got 3 out of 50 example problems correct and at the end he said, "Now, that wasn't so bad, was it?"

I'm lazy, so the thought of cooking a bunch of veggies for 45 minutes, waiting for them to cool, and then blending them is too much. Too, too much! I'm going to have to wash at least 2 cookie sheets and then clean out my blender... and it's a Rachel Ray blender, no less! Why would I do all that when all I gotta do is buy a jar of sauce and sprinkle a bunch of garlic powder in it? Maybe throw a carrot in my much smaller, much easier to clean electric chopper. Yes, my dishwasher is finally in good working order, but it's still easier without the extra cookie sheets and the dang blender to wash. I have better things I could be doing with my time, like spending quality time with Jesus, praying for the persecuted church, or watching my  new favorite show, "Psych."

Sure, taking charge of your health requires a little work. If that weren't the case, I wouldn't have been watching Rachel Ray on a treadmill. Exercise can best be defined as "necessary work." But broiling and liquefying a bunch of veggies are a waste of time. If Ragu can do it for me, I refuse to do it for myself. And how about some protein there, Rachel Ray? You've got the fiber down, but where's the protein? I am half the size of that girl on your show, and I'm outrageously diabetic. Type 2, the kind you get from eating too much real spaghetti. I'm guessing that girl is either diabetic or on her way there. SHE NEEDS PROTEIN!


I am weary of Rachel Ray after she duped me 3 years ago. I had cable then, and I was watching her show one day when she started blabbing about the amazing new Rachel Ray blender that had just hit the market. My eyes glazed over as I watched her process veggies, fruits, made bread crumbs, even turned a baby squirrel into a delicious high-protein smoothie. (My memory might be a bit fuzzy on that last part.) I envisioned myself making breakfast smoothies every morning before work (back when I had a lousy office job) and the next thing I knew, my husband gifted me with one of her blenders. I had never owned a blender/processor before. I was excited until I realized what a pain in the butt it is to clean one. I made about 5 smoothies and it now sits covered in an inch of dust in the corner of my kitchen.


Rachel Ray makes it look easy, but anything looks easy when it has been pre-cooked before the show. It's not that easy, people. It's not that quick. It requires effort. I think we can all agree that any meal that requires unnecessary effort is not a meal worth cooking. Of course, when I say "we" I mean, you know, those of us who couldn't give a rip about creating kitchen art and just want to get to the eating part.

Open that bottle and heat it up. You can work it off later while you channel surf on the treadmill.

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Ready For Healthy?

My house is stocked with healthy food. The patch goes on tomorrow. I rejoined the rec center. I am ready to exercise. All I need now is a sports bra that fits and a pair of shorts that don't ride up. Adamame beans and running, here I come.

The discount grocery store we frequent is a great place to get fat. If you want candy, cookies, chips, and Doritos, that's the place to go. Today I went to pick up shampoo and body wash and apparently God (or maybe Richard Simmons) was smiling upon my shopping list. Frozen broccoli (and not just the nasty stems), the aforementioned adamame beans, frozen strawberries and blueberries, all $.99 each. I loaded up. Granola to go with yogurt and fresh peaches also found its way into my cart, not to mention super ripe, super yummy-looking tomatoes.

I also learned from my sister-in-law - whose children are incredibly picky eaters - and my friend Rachael how to fool yourself into eating healthy stuff. Husband doesn't notice the flax seed meal I put in the spaghetti sauce and chances are he won't notice the carrots when I pulverize them and add them, too. I can also grind broccoli to a pulp.

I lost 40 pounds doing the same thing in 2003. I was swimming daily, too. That's my plan for going back to the rec center. Swimming is easy on your joints, and no one can see your fat butt underwater unless they're really looking, and that would mean swimming head-first into the wall.

The battle will be kicking the cigarettes once and for all. I was in bed last night coughing, trying to figure out what on earth motivates me to light up anymore. Force of habit, or that's what I came up with. I don't like how they taste, smell, or make me cough. When I think of replacing my morning cigarette and coffee with a jog on the treadmill, I cringe, but I know something will have to replace my normal routine.

So I'm sitting here drinking lemon water and, yes, I am smoking. I'm almost done with this pack and then the patch goes on. I'm not sure how that works with swimming. It might not last a full 24 hours on my body. This is going to require determination.

There is a spider on my deck whom I've named Charlotte. I don't like spiders but I'm not afraid of them, either. As long as something can't fly, I don't worry about it too much. Charlotte is small, not hairy, and has interesting markings on her legs. She's a very determined little spider and I guess that's why I don't have the heart to squish her. I play a cruel game with her. Every day I come out on my deck and see that she has spun a brand new, triangular web in the corner where the fence and the wall meets. Every evening, I burn it down. I don't just do it to be mean. The corner of my deck looks like the Auschwitz of the insect world. It's disgusting. I take my lighter and burn it down, but every night she comes out and does it again. On rare occasions, I spot her peeking out from the corner. She looks up at me, jumps about five feet in the air, and disappears into her little hole. She entertains me.

It's really sort of an epic battle for both of us. She feels compelled to spin her web, capture, and kill, but there is a giant human with a Bic lighter who has other ideas. I get it. I eat healthy, I start exercising, I disguise who I really am with foundation and eyeliner, but there's a giant cream-filled donut waiting to burn me.

In a weird sort of way, I'm pulling for Charlotte. Pin It