RACHAEL RAY

My husband John’s best friend, Brad Rand, is a member of the Entrepreneur’s Organization. Last night they presented me with a check for $7,500 for Yum-o! How cool is that? The Yum-o! family thanks you, Brad!

Pics from last night:

John, me and Brad:

See ya tomorrow at the book signing!

This past Monday, we popped open “Cafe Una Notte,” or One Night Cafe. When I say we popped it open, I mean literally, we popped up a restaurant out of nowhere. And boy what a night it was. The event was a fund-raiser to benefit my nonprofit organization, Yum-o! and in keeping with the charity’s mission, we flew in 5 high-schoolers, who each has their own passion for the kitchen. Brett Bush, Aria Anatasio, Bernie Roels, Chloe Langis, and Rhiannon Wildman. These kids worked for three days under the guidance of iron chef Michael Symon to create a fantastic feast that blew away professional chefs like Mario Batali and Bobby Flay. Over 70 people came to the event, including President Bill Clinton who gave an inspirational speech on childhood obesity and how his organization, The Alliance for a Healthier Generation, is aligned with our goals at Yum-o! in trying to bring better food choice to kids and families.
Anyway, back to the kids. They worked their tails off and produced an amazing night for everyone, complete with an orange and white, fondant-covered cake that looked so professionally done that no one could believe a 17 year old (Aria) did it! At the end of the evening, we surprised each of the kids with a $10,000 scholarship.

I am proud to say that due to the event, donations from friends and strangers alike, and the proceeds from my new cook book, The Yum-o! Family Cookbook, we are one step closer to achieving the three main goals of the organization-a) bringing awareness to people by getting kids and families in the kitchen, b) literally feeding hungry kids through our partnerships with organizations like Share Our Strength and City Harvest and c) giving scholarships to kids who want to pursue a career in the culinary fields.

Here’s a pic of President Clinton and me with the kids at the event:

We got this letter today and I want to give a big fat congratulations to the rachaelray.com team and you visitors who have helped us make the site the great spot it is!  Keep a-coming back and telling us what you like and what you want to see.  Here’s what the letter said:

“It is my pleasure to inform you that Rachael Ray (rachaelray.com) has been selected as an Official Honoree for the Celebrity/Fan category in the 12th annual Webby Awards.

The Official Honoree distinction is awarded to work that scores in the top 15% of all work entered into the Webby Awards.  With nearly 10,000 entries received from all 50 states and over 60 countries, this is an outstanding accomplishment for you and your team.

Congratulations!”

Hey thanks!  The Webbys are like the “Oscars of the Internet”  Pretty cool!

One of my co-workers from the daytime show, told me about a way of introducing new foods to her 5-year old. Each week they pick one food and her daughter tries that one new food a week.This way, the kid can get a handle on one food only for the whole week instead of too many new choices and tastes at once.  We had Jodie Foster on the show and she talked about how she gets her two kids, who are picky and wacky eaters, to try new foods too. So we decided to launch the New Food Crew on our show’s website-each week we will pick a new food for kid to try. Then they can download a pdf and print it out and mark if they liked the food or not with a smiley or a frowny face.

Give it a try with your kids and let me know what they think.

Boy, what fun I had this year at the South Beach Wine and Food Festival.  One of the most exciting parts was working with kids at the Kidz Kitchen Cook-off where my buddy, Jamie Oliver and I were each paired with an awesome kid cook in an Iron Chef type cooking contest! In the end, the judges called it a tie but really we all won, having fun in the kitchen and whipping up healthy and fun foods. My team made a Monte Cristo sammie on whole wheat bread. Yum-o!

You can read all about the coverage of this event and the others in our news section. Go here!

Hi Kids,

I hope everyone is having a great new year! I am busy taping my new show for Food Network (I got to try snowboarding this weekend!) and taping the day time TV show (check in out on 1/31-we’re on ice), but I am most excited about a special project that is going to launch in April. Following our mission at Yum-o! to help families develop healthy relationships with food and cooking, we are coming out with a new cookbook. The Yum-o! Family Cookbook is a collection of recipes that are good and go for you so you and your family can prepare delicious meals together and teach your kids good eating habits along the way. These recipes are designed to be prepared by kids and adults so you guys can get in the kitchen and have some fun…together. And as an added bonus, you’re going to see some recipes that were sent to us from kids too, which is just too cool. Some of these guys are really itty bitty and it just warms my heart that they are in there making up good recipes.

So keep an eye out for the book in April, but in the meantime, we’ll have fun contests and giveaways before then.

Ciao!

Rach

Check out the Yum-o! organization.

Note:  Rachael’s proceeds from the Yum-o! Family Cookbook will be donated to the Yum-o! organization. 

The North Shore Animal League, one of the largest no kill animal shelters, puts on this annual awards show called the “DogCatemy Awards” , get it?  That is too funny! This year, John and I attended and we were able to bring Isaboo! We rarely get out as a family so we were pretty psyched about that!

Awww, don’t we look proud? You can read more about this event at their website. It was so much fun seeing all of these celebs with their pooches. We didn’t win but one of the winners, Bianca, dedicated her award to Izzy! I think Izzy has a new friend!

Yum-o! has partnered with the Food Network and Share Our Strength to hold cooking classes for kids and families called Operation Frontline. SOS has been doing this for 13 years and this year, we had the honor of joining forces to help carry on the successful work already started. We did classes at the Food Network this October and November and I finally got some pics from the last class.

Read more about what we’re doing with  Operation Frontline and of course, don’t forget to check out Yum-o!’s website with your kids www.yum-o.org.

Here’s one of the dishes we cooked that day-Turkey Bolognese-it’s a rollover meal!

Here I am with some of the kids and families:

I was lucky enough to be one of the guests at the Ferrero Rocher “Sweet” event this past week, which raised money for the Food Bank of New York and Share Our Srength. This event boasted hundreds of desserts created by top dessert chefs and chocolatiers. You should have seen the tables and tables of dark chocolate confections, beautifully decorated cakes, giant lollipops and so much more-it was awesome! Here’s a link to their website describing the event.

Above is a picture of me hanging with my pals including Michael Chiarello, Giada De Laurentiis, Cat Cora and Ingrid Hoffman. Oh and you can’t ignore the girls dressed up as dark chocolate truffles-how funny?

I love book signings because I get to spend a few hours doing nothing but talking to you guys about what you like and what you want to see more of in my books and on TV. Last night we kicked off the book signings in New York City’s Barnes & Noble. We were rocking and rolling until after 9:30! Boy was my hand tired afterwards! It was well worth it and I wanted to share some pictures from last night with you guys:

Check out how many books this person brought? I love it! She’s got me covered!

Here I am with little Ryann-how cute is she?

Lots of people asked questions and gave me new ideas for recipe categories. We talked alot about Yum-o!, my kids charitable organization so you can be sure to see many new recipes on that website coming up soon, including diabetic friendly recipes.

Here’s a shot of the crowd…good thing Barnes & Noble provided seating!

Afterwards I met a few extra special fans…here I am with my hubby John and Joe, a sweetheart!

Thanks for coming and see ya next year!