Ray keeps her sunny side up

NEW YORK -- "This is all real!" Rachael Ray chirps toward the end of a recent taping of her upcoming syndicated talk show.

She's referring to "Girls' Night In" -- so what if it's actually the middle of the day? -- a segment in which she and a real-person guest, today a retired New York police officer from Staten Island, engage in real chit-chat and sip real white wine.

But she could easily be talking about so much else: The real props, such as the traffic-cone-orange O'Keefe & Merritt range for baking tostadas. (Even her guest seems surprised that it's hot -- this is a TV set, after all.) The real junk in the junk drawer. The real home remedies supplied by "real-life moms," according to a promo. And, yes, the really accessible food Ray really digs into at the end of the show -- today a shrimp-rimmed martini glass filled with gazpacho.

And then there's Ray herself, the Food Network star who's expanding her milieu from the kitchen to the whole house with Monday's premiere of her daily hour-long show, Rachael Ray (check local listings). Genuine or ginned up, an aw-shucks Everysister or a shrewd marketer, Ray is doing her darnedest to convince that she's the real girl-next-door deal -- that "down-to-earth star" is no oxymoron.

"I seem to be a good conduit for people," says Ray, 38, in her dressing room between tapings. "It's that, 'Sure, I could do that if she could.' So I guess we're popular because I'm hugely common."

Ray roars one of her well-known, sorority-girl-during-a-night-on-the-town laughs. "I had better not become especially good at any one thing. I'd be out of all nine of my jobs."

In addition to her talk show (185 episodes), she's still churning out 100 episodes for her four Food Network programs, the best-known being 30-Minute Meals. She has a Reader's Digest-published magazine, Every Day With Rachael Ray, that has just gone from bimonthly to monthly. She has a line of knives from Furi and cookware from Anolon (which "I literally designed on a napkin") and even a furniture collection from Laneventure.

This fall she comes out with her 16th cookbook, 2, 4, 6, 8: Great Meals for Couples or Crowds.

A lot of pasta-bilities

All of which means the former "upstate New York blue-collar girl," as she writes in Express Lane Meals, the "hep hick from the sticks," has ascended to the white-tablecloth world. Forbes ranked her 81st among the top 100 most powerful celebrities for 2006, Ray's first year making the list. She's the top chef, ahead of Wolfgang Puck, Emeril Lagasse and Mario Batali.

She has become a pop-culture reference. On last week's Nip/Tuck, a character made chicken tetrazzini, saying that her daughter "saw it on Rachael Ray." (Ray calls it "Tremendous Tetrazzini.")

And, of course, she's courting criticism, from foodies who protest her penchant for prepackaged products -- and from those who would simply like to stick a pin in her perkiness.

But with her oven mitts on so many pots, is Ray building her brand or diluting it? "I only do the stuff that I like or feel or want," she says. "To not try if you have an idea for something would be boring, so why not?"

And her fans are buying it up.

"They love her sense of spirit and her sense of adventure," says Terry Wood, president of creative affairs and development for King World, which is producing the talk show. "I think they're ready for an hour of Rachael Ray."

For a studio that seats 115, the show has had more than 25,000 requests for audience tickets.

It all comes back to realness, Wood says. There's no script or cue cards. There's no one talking in her ear.

"Her ability to be herself on TV; that's what's so appealing. When she steps in front of the camera, she's not trying to be something she's not. She's Rachael Ray."

Wood, who helped bring Dr. Phil to TV, finds parallels between the two. "She has this ability to connect. That's what Phil has, and it's rare."

It also helps that she has the blessing of Dr. Phil's mentor, Oprah Winfrey. "The audience does not ignore that," says programming consultant Bill Carroll. Winfrey is a fan of Ray's -- she's a guest on Day 2 -- and her Harpo Productions is one of the show's backers.

Moreover, in New York and Philadelphia, two of Rachael Ray's 180 markets, the show is airing at 10 a.m. after Live With Regis and Kelly, "probably one of the most sought-after time periods in syndicated television," Carroll says. "I mean, that's where Oprah started."

But unlike Oprah, Rachael is light on heavy discussion, expert commentary and weepy moments. And Rachael is more of a saucy smorgasbord than the show's other obvious analogue, Martha.

Sure, there are traditional, home-centric pieces and celebrity visits. But there are also set crashes (Las Vegas, CSI:NY) -- to let viewers "see the actors in their native environment," Ray jokes -- and stunts that demonstrate Ray's more raucous side (she jumps out of an airplane in the premiere).

With "better-than-most" chances at success, "expectations are very high," Carroll says.

A little 'corny,' for sure

Erika Galan, for one, plans to tune in. "She's like everybody. She doesn't think she's better than everyone else," says Galan, 33, a stay-at-home mom of two boys who has journeyed to the show's midtown studio from South Brunswick, N.J. "She doesn't mind being corny," with her self-proclaimed Rachael-isms like "Yum-O!" and "Delish!"

Some segments seem ripped from a 1950s women's magazine. Those home remedies? Apply moistened cigarette tobacco to soothe bee stings. Dunk your fingers or toes in mouthwash to treat nail fungus or athlete's foot.

And sometimes it's not just her recipe ingredients that are canned, or at least seem that way. Despite assurances that nothing is scripted, the Staten Island guest, Janine Velez, 41, says, "I think there's a little blood in this," while grating pepper jack cheese for the tostadas.

"Sweetheart, that's not blood, it's peppers," Ray says.

Galan is watching from above in the mezzanine's VIP section. Today there aren't enough special folks to fill it out, so a smattering of very regular people such as Galan occupy the space. "We want the normal people to feel like celebs," Ray says.

There's democracy downstairs, too. "We want our celebs (first up, Diane Sawyer) to come on and just feel like they can hang out like normal people," Ray says.

She had a hand in designing the homey, Mediterranean-rustic set: lots of exposed brick walls and brightly colored art created by kid fans. It is literally built around the audience, which today consists of mostly thirty- to seventysomething women who took at least one bridge or tunnel to get here. Their seats are bolted to a kind of Lazy Susan, which rotates to face Ray whether she's perched on the edge of the patio, shimmy-shaking a pan in the kitchen or playing foosball in the garage.

Ray "doesn't mind making fun of herself," Galan says.

While taping a promo post-show -- "Hang around and check out my new show today at 9!" -- she moans, "That sounded desperate." When she's asked to pose in her dressing-room doorway for a photo shoot, she groans, "This is so dorky."

It's her very goofiness that turns others off, even if they're not necessarily turning her off.

"She is the proverbial train wreck," says Melina Iacovone, 40, an ad executive from Amsterdam, N.Y., not far from Ray's hometown of Lake George. "You have to stop and watch. She is like Howard Stern: You almost have to tune in and watch" in "horrid fascination."

"How many words can she mangle, how many words can she make up," how many stories can she repeat? "I just want to say: 'Rachel, get a new script.'"

To which Wood says: "What I love is they're watching. We welcome all of it."

Ray doesn't seem worried ("There isn't anyone on the planet that's universally loved by everyone else"), and with her new show, she's not looking to change the opinion of, say, members of the Rachael Ray Sucks online community.

"Because at the end of the day, I still can't bake, and I did (once) use a store-bought pierogi, although I made my own sauce!"

But "do I think that we're going to find people that maybe haven't been watching Food Network, and they say, 'Hey, I could see myself doing all that!' For sure."

Or maybe that should be, "For real."

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