1. Buy a frozen pizza
2. Cook it
3. Eat it
4. Repeat

1. Preheat oven to 400 if you're cold
2. Open the refrigerator
3. Get out a lot of stuff
4. Make a big pile
5. Take at least 2 bites of everything
   (including butter, dressing, and spices)
6. Put everything away
7. Repeat

1. Get in the car and start driving
2. Accelerate to 35mph
3. Roll down the window
4. Lean head out window
5. Repeat
   (Warning: Eating too much air will give you gas)

About seven years ago a cult cooking show from Japan called “Iron Chef” consumed my attention. The network hosting this cutting-edge program was the Food Network. There must be more great shows on this channel if this one is this bizarre, I thought.
     True, I was a late comer (a poser, if you will), since FN had been around since 1993. By ‘99 it was cruising at warp speed with its flag ship, power house show “Emeril Lagasse”.
     The Missus and I soon had our heroes: “Good Eats” (Alton Brown), “The Naked Chef” (Jamie Oliver), “Iron Chef”, “Barefoot Contessa”, and a few others. We also had our villains: Boby Flay, Emeril, Sandra Lee, and Mario Batali. Then, we had our ambivalences: Giada De Laurentiis (who teeth-talks so much I call her “Teeth”), Tyler Florence (who puts me to sleep sometimes, some­times gladly), and of course, Rachel Ray.
     Rachel amused us at first. We would catch her on “$40 a day” and “30 Minute Meals”. She seemed plucky. She seemed a little too plucky. No, I mean she seemed really damn plucky. Think pre-mad Hal 9000 computer with ADD kind of plucky.
     My thought was that FN had somehow transported Ray from the past or future or that she was an android, because the anachronistic phrases she used always gave me a “Waaa?” kind of look on my face: Too cool for school? Yumm-oh? Oh, my gravy? Spoonula?! I convinced myself she was a robot… one with cheese parameters embedded in her neuron-pathways. I mean, only a programmed automaton would use the acronym EVOO for extra virgin olive oil ad nausea.
     But all good things pass, as they say, and so did my fascination with the Food Network. Ratings and merchandising seemed to start going to their heads; money-making paradigms replaced quality and heart. FN seemed to be over-expos­ing everywhere, saturating the market with their chefs with the most appeal, selling chefs off to larger networks for maximum coverage.
     And such is the destiny of our poor jaded Rachel Ray. Darth Oprah soon had a new apprentice, Ray being guest many times on her show. This was PR in order to promote Ray’s new daytime talk show that O was producing.
     She was seduced by the dark side of cash. With five shows, multiple magazines appearances, books, product placements, and a steamy new marriage, our little RR seemed to be surveying her new empire with a tired, spent gaze. Proof of this for me came the very moment I saw her on a saltine cracker box, smiling, airbrushed into another dimension amid over-highlighted hair.
     I don’t watch daytime TV that much. The Sangamon Star doesn’t pay so I have to do a day-job thing. But, on a recent snow-day, I had a chance to sit around the fire and rekindle my interest in all that daytime TV has to offer, see what RR had done with herself since our parting. Since now I only knew her as the floating head on a cracker box, I was boggled by what I saw.
     Further gone was the boisterous, rich dark-haired, laid back/hyper, firecracker of yore, and in its place (actually I don’t think she stayed in one place for more than .005 seconds) was this mega-jittery, highlighted-to-the-max, exhausted-looking creature. She looked exactly like FN had forced her to carry “The One Ring” the past two years. Rachel had always talked a lot, and a voice can strain after many years of doing so. But I’d always had this theory that she smokes. I used to smoke and I think I know what a smoker’s voice sounds like. When I heard her voice, I thought, “Man, did she switch to menthols?” She sounds like one of the Bouvier Sis­ters from The Simpsons. That’s just speculation, but it is food for thought.
     About her new show, I’ve noticed a common theme with these daytime talk things. The hot ticket today is bringing out a poor “unfortunate” soul and giving them a bunch of crap they probably don’t need. Darth Ray mixes O’s formula with cooking now. Aside from the plastic/waxy impression everybody on the show (especially you guys in the audience) gives me, seeing a tired, haggard Rachel perform this tired, haggard premise just left me with a hollow feeling. I mean, just cook, RR, and talk to me like you used to as if I’m the only one in your kitchen with you, not as if you were addressing your nation.
     And, instead of giving the audience an iPod each couldn’t they give the cash to a homeless family somewhere near the studio? I think that would be good television. Why, it could mean a couple show’s worth of material filming their reaction and what they do with the money; then, we could have a reality show about where the homeless family goes from there. And then, they could start a whole series with a new homeless family a day.
     Why, that would create countless new celebrities and marketing possibilities. Hey, I might be good at this franchise-empire-building thing. But no, I know that once you strike down that path, forever will it dominate your destiny. Consume you, it will.
     In the future, though, I hope RR slows down a little, cuts back on the menthols, and removes the caffeine IV. I sure would like to see that plucky Ray of yesteryear again, and a good start would be to not see her so much!