My Love/Hate (But Mostly Hate) Relationship with Rachael Ray

I was just doing some web browsing, clearly procrastinating despite the fact that I have a memo due tomorrow which I have not started, and I learned that some marketing firm has declared Rachael Ray the most popular of all "hosts, moderators, announcers, radio and television commentators, and other media commentators." Wow. Supposedly she beat out Oprah. I mean, come on now. Oprah?

Nobody who knows me will be shocked to learn that Rachael Ray (or, as I like to call her, Raytard) drives me completely insane. She makes me want to shoot somebody in the face. I know that may seem extreme, but please allow me to list a few of her most annoying qualities and habits. I just might convince you.

• First of all, she comes up with these cutesy expressions that are actually just retarded. Easy isn't just "easy," it's "easy-peasy." She's constantly going, "Let's run a knife through it!" I once actually heard her say, "I wasn't fallen off the turnip truck yesterday, don'tcha know."
• On top of this, she unnecessarily abbreviates things. The most egregious of all her abbreviations has to be EVOO. "Let's drizzle on some EVOO, extra virgin olive oil!" Like, she doesn't just say the abbreviation, she then says the entire phrase afterwards, rendering the abbreviation useless. She does this every time.
• The woman is also constantly complimenting her own cooking. She'll run spastically around the kitchen yelling "Gee, this smells AWESOME already!" and telling the audience how "totally psyched" she is to eat whatever extraordinarily random thing she's in the midst of preparing.
• And, for longtime viewers, you will note that she used to be kind of fuglier than she is now, but all at once she got some highlights and then got engaged and started waving her left hand all over the place like she was swatting flies.
• Here are some more, according to the "Rachael Ray Sux" community blog: "Rachael Ray is annoying for many reasons but here are a few: she is repetitive, she talks with her hands way too much, she giggles incessantly, she puts olive oil and chicken stock in everything, she wears really ugly clothing, she talks out of one side of her mouth like she's had a stroke, she looks like "The Joker" when she smiles, and she can't stop talking about her family."
• Last but not least, she posed for FHM, and it was really just disgusting how ridiculous she is. Pictorial evidence:

No, in case you were wondering, I don't feel bad about bashing her mercilessly... because I also find myself strangely drawn to her shows. I couldn't really care less about "Rachael Ray's Tasty Travels" (barf), but "30-Minute Meals" is oddly fascinating. I've wound up glued to the TV, wondering if she was going to finish on time (I once saw an episode where she didn't), hoping she would be embarrassed in front of the American viewing public. Watching her scramble to beat the clock is actually really mesmerizing. And really, her recipes are kind of interesting in a "wow, I could make that recipe from ingredients I bought at 7-11" kind of way. Like the Boston Globe food blog notes, Julia Child this woman is not. But you have to admit that she's doing a good thing for middle-class working adults who don't have time to whip up something out of Gourmet magazine that takes three hours start-to-finish.

Now, I've never seen her talk show. It may be better than her Food Network shows; it may be worse. (Yahoo! News calls it "potentially annoying.") But I think I'm going to steer clear of it for now. No matter how entertained (genuinely or sadistically) I might be, watching her on TV raises my blood pressure even more than eating one of her cholesterol-infused culinary concoctions.