Who

Rachael Ray is the relentlessly perky TV personality with her own cloying lexicon who turned a show on the Food Network into a sprawling media empire. You either love her, hate her, or you've never seen her show.

Backstory

Ray grew up in the food business: As a kid, her family owned three restaurants on Cape Cod and her mother later managed a restaurant chain in upstate New York. Rachael's own food career started when she dropped out of Pace at 20 and took a job on the candy counter at Macy's. When Macy's wanted to move her from food to accessories, she quit and went to work at the Upper East Side gourmet food store Agata & Valentina in 1993. When she was mugged at gunpoint in front of her Queens apartment two years later, she bolted, abandoning the city for Albany, where she became a buyer at a gourmet market called Cowan & Lobel. Ray started teaching a series of cooking classes at the store to move more product off the shelves; fatefully, one of those classes was "30-Minute Meals," and her popular demonstrations soon landed her a weekly gig on the local news and a cookbook.

Ray's big break came in 2001, when she was invited to appear on the Today show at the last minute after several other guests had cancelled. She drove through a snow storm to reach New York and prepared a handful of soups alongside Al Roker; the brief segment made such an impression on executives at the Food Network that they called her the next day to set up a meeting. Ray's first show debuted on the network in 2002. A slew of books, TV shows, magazines, and product endorsements soon followed.

Of note

The small-town girl is busy assembling an empire and she ain't stopping for nobody. Ray now has 11 books out as well as four cooking shows—30 Minute Meals, $40 a Day, Inside Dish, and Rachael Ray's Tasty Travels—and in 2005 she launched a magazine, Every Day With Rachael Ray. In September 2006, she moved from cable to the more lucrative world of syndication when her daytime talk show, Rachael Ray, debuted with Oprah Winfrey as co-producer. And if all that wasn't enough, she's also been busy capitalizing on her trustworthy, girl-next-door image as the spokesperson for a long list of brands, including Burger King, AT&T, Nabisco, and Dunkin' Donuts. Not surprisingly, her bank account has been expanding nicely: It's been estimated by Forbes that she rakes in $18 million a year from her various businesses.

For the record

Rachael Rayisms, little words or phrases she's invented on her show, are either endearing or revolting, depending on your take. They include "yum-o," "stoup" (a cross between a stew and soup), "sammies" (sandwiches), and "EVOO" (extra-virgin olive oil), which actually made it into the Oxford dictionary in 2007.

Drama

Ray's detractors are legion. One well-publicized site, Rachael Ray Sucks, features a constant stream of angry comments from people who can't take her catchphrases, quibble with her recipes and generally despise her upbeat, overeager personality. (Noted grouch Anthony Bourdain has described her as "a bobblehead" and "vomit-inducing.") Foodies aren't too impressed either, taking issue with Ray for her lack of professional qualifications and her seemingly amateurish approach to the craft. Ray occasionally manages to shock even her diehard housewife fan base, as was the case in 2003 when she participated in a sexed-up pictorial for FHM, which included a shot of her in her bra, licking chocolate sauce off a wooden spoon.

Personal

In September 2005, Ray tied the knot in Tuscany with entertainment lawyer (and aspiring rocker) John Cusimano. He became tabloid fodder in November 2006, after a Florida woman alleged he'd paid her for kinky sex sessions in which she was asked to spit in his face and perform "other degrading acts too graphic" to utter. Ray and Cusimano live in an apartment in the Village with their dog, Isaboo. In June 2008, she bought a three-bedroom home with a view of the Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in Southampton for just under $3 million. Ray also has a cabin in the Adirondacks.

True story

Ray attributes her husky voice to the case of the croup she had when she was a kid.