Rachel Ray Can Kiss My Grits

Rachel Ray has gotten on my nerves from day one of her cooking show. I won't get into the why's of my disdain for her, but this post will explain why I'd like to take 30 Minutes and mix her up with a can of whupass.

Remember over the summer when I spent a week in NYC and I was at a restaurant where I spotted Jude Law sitting at a table next to mine? Well one of the people I was with was to appear on Rachel Rays' new talk show. Part of my NYC trip was spent helping M (my brother's girlfriend's sister) buy clothes for different footage scenes that RR's producers would be shooting for the episode she was to appear on.

What started the ball rolling for M was her mother who saw that they needed women who were looking for a relationship to write in so that they could be on the show. M's mom thought this was the perfect and fun opportunity to get her daughter a date.

Cut to the chase, the RR show producers said they wanted footage of M looking at the JDate website, chatting with a first date at a coffee shop, going to a club with her friends, and various other places doing various other things. This was all to show how she spends her time as a professional city girl who is looking for a relationship.

We all thought that the show would be about matchmaking. We imagined M would appear on the show and RR would appeal to the male viewers and plead M's case that she's a wonderful, pretty, intelligent girl who would make a great mate.

The producer who was working closely with M had led her to believe all along that this would be about matchmaking. She was sneaky about it though. The show was in fact about finding a guy, but there was a flip side to it that M was never told about.

Well, the show aired last week and you want to know what the show was really about? Do you really want to know?

It was about desperate girls whose lives revolve around trying to find a boyfriend and who obsess and get depressed over not having one.

OK, I thought that was a little harsh, but hey, at least she's willing to help M find a man.

Not so fast. RR basically ridiculed M in front of a live studio audience after showing clips of her doing things to find a guy like going to the gym to catch a guy's eye, pouring over various dating websites, crying when she'd walk past a couple making out on a park bench.

RR said she thought is was pathetic how girls obsess over not having a boyfriend and that she thought that girls' lives shouldn't revolve around trying to find the right guy.

Granted, she's right, but the way she came off with her soapbox lecture about how SHE was single for 36 years and didn't obsess over men, and then how she kept calling M "sweetie" in a condescending tone was enough to make me want to reach through the TV to throttle her.

"Oh, you thought we were going to help find you a guy. Aw, poor thing. You were wrong sweetie. We want you to go on a man diet", said RR.

For 30 days, M, along with some other women RR skewered during the broadcast, are to partake in a challenge of not thinking about men at all. They can't go on dates, or talk to them...nothing.

SURPRISE!!

THAT was why the producer wasn't forthcoming about the entire premise of the show. What single girl would want to be on a show about going on a dating diet?

The only redeeming factor was that RR handed M a packet of free tickets for shows, free dance lessons, and free certificates to different restaurants all just for her and no one else. She has to do everything by herself.

The funny thing is, although she would like to have a boyfriend, M is nothing like how RR's talk show portrayed her. On the show she seemed like a sniveling, desperate, weird girl who had no other ambition in life than to land herself a guy.

But in real life, she works for a major news cable network, has her own apartment in Manhattan, and has a healthy social life with female and male friends alike.

M was confused about the turn in the shows events, but she's happy she got all of that free stuff.

I still would like to mix Rachel Ray with a can of whupass though.