Cooking Up The Dough

Ok, I am just going to warn you right up front that this post will mention Rachael Ray, possibly several times. With that being said, feel free to click elsewhere. No, better yet, head down there on the right and check out my archived posts. Alrighty, for the two or three of you still left, thanks for sticking around. I’ll try to make it worth your time, even though you aren’t out any money, which really lowers the bar for me. However, I will try to excel for you. Or better yet, I will actually get to the point of this post before you too navigate to someplace else. Oh hey, The Carpenters’ ‘For All We Know’ just came on the ole Ipod. What a peaceful song that is.

I was reading on Forbes.com recently about the top earning celebrity chefs. (Warning: here comes my first Rachael Ray mention) Would you believe that Rachael Ray is the top celebrity chef? I think her total was like 16 million a year. That even beat out Wolfgang Puck, who when he found out that Rachael (oops, forgot to warn you that I was going to mention her name again, sorry) makes more than he does, probably could be heard yelling an expletive that rhymes with his last name. What? No, not that word. I’m pretty sure most chefs use a duck’s name in vain when they are angry.

Others on the list were people like Paula Deen, Anthony Bourdain and Bobby Flay. Well, actually they were Paula Deen, Anthony Bourdain and Bobby Flay, not people like them, because those would just be impersonators. One name on the list I did not see was Andrew Zimmern, the host of Bizarre Foods. Although when you see some of the stuff he calls food and subsequently eats, I guess the reasons for him not being on the list are self-explanatory. Seriously, if I was served some of the stuff he has eaten; my body would end up looking like the amazing body of 41 year-old Olympic swimmer Dara Torres, minus the really fit physique and girly parts, of course. Well, maybe scrawny Alfalfa from ‘Spanky and the Gang’ would be more like it. I hate honesty sometimes…

I’m not sure why celebrity chefs appeal to us so much. Perhaps it’s because we are foodies and like all things food and food related. Personally, I really can’t cook. I can grill, smoke (and yes I do inhale, especially when it’s a fruit wood) and BBQ very well, but I am worthless in the kitchen, except when it comes to boiling pasta, adding just the right amount of milk to my cereal or unwrapping a just-purchased piece of red meat and marinating it or applying rub. I even clean my hands (with soap!!) after touching all the red, juicy bloody stuff.

When I thought I was going to lose my job because of blogging at work (and you thought big brother wasn’t watching), I had actually started looking around online for local So Cal culinary schools that I could attend and I was really excited about it. So excited in fact that when HR called to tell me I was keeping my job, I replied with a ‘Really, can I ask why,’ which needless to say, was not the reaction the caller was expecting. I thought it would be great to be able to really know how to cook and maybe even get paid for it. With those hopes Ms. Dashed, I am still pretty useless in the kitchen, though I do make a kick-awesome batch of homemade ice cream using someone else’s pre-mixed goodness.

The sweet thing about becoming a celebrity chef is that it allows you to write cookbooks and cross promote them on TV, ensuring better sales than a relative nobody like me who is trying to sell a cookbook about the 101 recipes that avoid using celery but require a pound of mixed cheeses. It also lets them pursue things like a second show, or a third show or appearances on someone else’s show. And then you get your own line of frozen dinners or spices or even kitchen gadgets, utensils and cookware with your mug on them, not to mention mugs - with your own mug on them, which is about as freaky as trying to figure out how long eternity is. It’ll blow your mind, man. Or wo-man, to be politically correct.

And when you really, really become a big time fancy chef, you get to expand your line of items hawking your name to things like dog food. (Warning: Rachael Ray mention forthcoming) I read this morning that Rachael Ray is now selling ‘Rachael Ray’s Delish.’ Yep, it’s dog food and here’s the thing – all proceeds go to a charity for animals and because I like animals, it somewhat prevents me from bashing it, though I am hopeful you’ll do the bashing for me in the comments section. Just understand that I really, really want to bash it. Really badly. So badly. It almost itches, I want to do it so badly. And that’s what she said. Hmmm, now I feel better.