Ya Gotta Start Someplace

Many of you may know by now that my fav station on cable TV is the Food Network. I watch this station more than any other, and am pretty familiar with all the chefs. I love to cook, although it’s been a habit that’s only existed for the last 12 years or so. 

I have to laugh at the irony of my hobby. Here I am, the girl who grew up on Jeno’s Pizza Rolls (once  my sis and I got to be teens, my mom became a BIG fan of frozen food after we rebelled against eating the produce from Grandpa’s garden) and the girl who lasted 1 day in Home Ec in 9th grade, and now cooking and food are my favorite pastimes.  I think the cooking gene skipped straight from Granny to the grandkids, right over my mom, who’s would rather be gardening than in the kitchen (the gardening gene skipped over me, btw).  However, unlike my grandmother, I’m not an intuitive cook — I have to have a recipe floating around to work from, although I’m improving a bit in this area, but am FAR from Iron Chef material..LOL.

Back in 2003 I saw Rachael Ray’s show for the first time and thought she hosted the coolest cooking show I’d ever seen.  Up until that time my cooking show viewing had been limited to Julia Child on PBS, and  Julia made cooking seem complex and tedious.  Rachel, however, was making very imaginative dishes in only 30 minutes and seemed very down-to-earth and completely unpretentious.  Better yet, she actually seemed to do all the meal prep herself in front of the camera without the aid of the magic TV elves that help the star of a cooking show get through an episode.  I respected that alot.  And, the fact that she’s pretty, has a great sense of humor, and laughed when she screwed up just made her instantly likable.

And, I felt like I had alot in common with Rachael.  She was about my age (she’s 5 years younger); she grew up  around Glens Falls, NY, and I had lived about 1.5 hours from there when I lived in MA and used to go over the border to the Albany area regularly; she used to work at the gourmet food store Cowan and Lobel in Albany, which was one of the places I loved to visit when I traveled to Albany; she guest starred on one of the local Albany TV channels that I used to watch all the time; and she shopped at Price Chopper, the same store where I did my grocery shopping.  It seems like I should have bumped into Rachael during the time I lived in MA, but if we ever crossed paths, I don’t remember.

I’ve been watching Rachael’s meteoric rise to fame with great interest.  At one time she was doing 4 shows on the Food Network in addition to publishing a new book every year, and I often wondered how she did it. I wondered where in the world she found the energy to go, go, go all the time.

Then her magazine came out followed by her daytime TV talk show in 2006.  In between she’s partnered with kitchen appliance manufacturers and kitchen utensil manufacturers and come out with her name branded appliances and utensils (I’m probably going to buy her Furi knife).

Finally, the Food Network profiled her on their Chefography series, and I watched it with great relish tonight.  Now, I know Rachel’s secret — she just works like a dog..LOL.

One of the reasons I love this series so much is that I find it so inspirational — people are following their passion and their skills and are doing well and making a difference in the world.  Isn’t that what it’s all about, anyhow?  Yes, sure, money and fame are nice, to some degree, but the thing that gets me out of bed in the morning is that I have a ball doing what I do, just like Rachael and Emeril and Ina do.

That’s one of the reasons I’m so passionate about helping service business owners succeed online — getting paid to live your dream and follow your passion is a life-changing experience, and I love to help people discover that big "ah-ha" and helping them along that path.

Are you doing what you were put on this earth to do?   Today is not too late to start?

And, before I forget, here’s a link to one of my favorite Rachael Ray recipes — Lemon Spaghetti.  I make it with tortellini instead of spaghetti, though, and use a full cup of heavy cream. It’s best if you put the cooked tortellini into the prepared sauce and let it sit for 15 minutes or so to soak up that heavenly lemon flavor.  It is truly divine!