TV Star Cooks Up Big Business Despite Recession

This is a rush transcript from "Your World With Neil Cavuto," October 12, 2009. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

NEIL CAVUTO, HOST: Yum-o. It`s fancy out and frugal in.

Well, foodies still fretting after hearing "Gourmet" magazine is closing after 70 years.

My next guest is still cooking up big business, despite a slowing economy, though. In fact, she could be the reason why "Gourmet" is going.

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: Rachael Ray`s shows, books, and magazines focus on making affordable meals. Her latest is called "Rachael Ray`s Book of 10."

She joins me right now.

Good to have you.

RACHAEL RAY, FOUNDER, RACHAEL RAY NUTRISH: Thank you. Thank you.

I hope we had nothing to do with "Gourmet" closing. I was a huge fan of "Gourmet."

CAVUTO: I think it was all your fault... RAY: Yes.

CAVUTO: ... because they`re elitists, and they put, you know, fois gras...

(CROSSTALK)

RAY: That`s actually not true. I think that "Gourmet" did a really good job in the last few years, really. They had terrific, fast and affordable.

I think they really tried...

CAVUTO: What was fast in "Gourmet"?

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: I always...

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: ... eight hours...

(CROSSTALK)

RAY: No. For a long time, they have had a eat it fast and fresh type column in there.

I think they were trying really hard to adapt to what people could afford to cook...

CAVUTO: Right.

RAY: ... and time-wise and pocketbook-wise.

I am very sad, for one, to see them go. I was a fan.

CAVUTO: All right.

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: But you — I was strategy I was in a bookstore recently, and I was not kidding. I think you were the whole table and section, that all your books or there. Well over 14, it seemed like.

RAY: You know, we have — we have had a concept that I have stuck to since day one with the books. I will not price a cookbook for more than a DVD or a C.D.

You know, I think that what I write is pop food. And it`s sort of like pop — other items of pop culture. So, we have always tried to keep the books very affordable. And I think that`s why people can afford to pick them up maybe for themselves. But they also pick them up as a teacher gift or a neighbor gift.

And I think it keeps the books moving, and allow — and certainly allows me to keep up, keep current. The books are really like scrapbooks of everything we have been doing on the show and in the magazine. And it`s a collection of that content. And then I add on to that.

And the viewers really decide our content.

(CROSSTALK)

RAY: ... always changing.

CAVUTO: My crackpot theory on you is — I`m not really into shows like this. I barely can boil water.

(LAUGHTER)

CAVUTO: But you`re very — you seem very real. And you seem very energetic.

RAY: Thank you.

CAVUTO: And you don`t — there is nothing elitist about you. And a lot of these shows, they seem to have their nose particularly stuck, you know? I don`t see that with you.

RAY: Well, I think the one common thread between the daytime show and the programming that we do on Food Network with "30 Minute Meals" and certainly our magazine...

CAVUTO: I don`t buy that 30-minute thing, by the way.

RAY: It is. It really is.

CAVUTO: You know, I don`t buy it. I don`t buy it.

RAY: In fact, in the cookbook that I`m working on now — it will come out next year — we are going to do a section where you can go online and watch, no commercial breaks, with a clock running, the meal being prepared start to finish, and prove it.

CAVUTO: Rachael, I`m not buying it. I think that`s your scandal. That`s your Watergate or cooking-gate.

(LAUGHTER)

RAY: That`s why we`re going to do it. We`re going to — interactive.

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: Are you including in that 30 minutes all the pre-pro work, the chopped onions, the chopped...

(CROSSTALK)

RAY: Watch our show.

(CROSSTALK)

RAY: There`s no pre-chopped onions. They`re mine. They`re a mess. They`re not beautiful to look at. But they`re mine.

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: So as soon as that clock goes, you are starting right from the get-go?

(CROSSTALK)

RAY: Those are 30-minute meals. They really are.

(CROSSTALK)

RAY: They`re 30 minutes. That — see, this is why — but I am glad you brought it up, because the next book I`m working on, it`s kind of a multimedia thing. That`s what we`re going to do.

CAVUTO: All right. We will see. We will see, Ms. Smarty-Pants.

(CROSSTALK)

(LAUGHTER)

CAVUTO: Here is how I think you are cutting time, too.

You abbreviate a lot. And one of them is E-V-O-O. Now, it took me a long time to understand you were talking about extra virgin olive oil.

RAY: Yes. Well, if you keep saying it over and over again...

CAVUTO: Then say extra virgin olive oil or olive oil.

RAY: It takes too long. And for years...

CAVUTO: Well, E-V-O-O? That would be like me saying all ibid or P/E multiples.

(LAUGHTER)

(CROSSTALK)

RAY: I don`t know. It started years and years ago. I was cooking on Food Network. And you stand there long enough and you do four shows a day, and I just — it just came out of my mouth.

CAVUTO: I kid, but it hasn`t hurt your popularity.

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: Your people know right away. Oh, she`s — extra virgin olive oil.

Is there a difference between extra virgin olive oil and run-of-the- mill...

(CROSSTALK)

RAY: ... quality olive oil. Even E-V-O-O in the grocery store. Grocery store-Quality olive oil, you really can cook in. Really good, fruity...

CAVUTO: But you wanted extra virgin?

RAY: Yes, but there`s...

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: This is not the dirty swill that I might pick up. You want something with some...

RAY: No. In fact, the swillier the better, when it comes to extra virgin olive oil.

CAVUTO: OK.

RAY: But you would get that at a specialty store, and it would be really fruity. And you would not be able to see through it.

(CROSSTALK)

RAY: But grocery store-grade, you can cook with.

But my original point about all of the products that we work on, I think that what makes them successful when it comes to our viewership and our readers is accessibility, that there is a real can-do factor. And people really can literally see themselves, envision themselves in their mind`s eye going anywhere we go, cooking anything we cook, making anything...

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: Well, I like that you make a mess.

RAY: Yes. We show our messes and our successes.

CAVUTO: I ove that. I like — Graham Kerr, he never made a mess. Remember the Galloping Gourmet?

RAY: The Galloping Gourmet, I loved him.

CAVUTO: He always had a SWAT team of elves running around cleaning up all that...

(CROSSTALK)

(LAUGHTER)

CAVUTO: But you make a mess. I like that.

You have gotten some pretty big stars on your show. And Bill Clinton was the one that stuck out. Now, he was talking about childhood obesity.

RAY: President Clinton came on the day we launched our Yum-o initiative.

CAVUTO: How did that go? Right.

RAY: He has been on since, and we just did a panel discussion together literally this past weekend during the Food and Wine Festival..

It has been a wonderful partnership with his Alliance For a Healthier Generation. Our Yum-o Web site does an enormous amount of interactive work with his alliance.

And...

CAVUTO: And you want us all eating healthy, right?

RAY: You know, I think there is a difference between eating healthy I — you know, and I have heard recently in the news people talking about getting rid of bake sales and stuff as a way to...

CAVUTO: What do you think of that?

RAY: I think that is silly. I really do.

I think that eating whole foods, even including some butter and a little sugar and...

CAVUTO: You think bake sales are silly? This is a Fox News Alert right now.

RAY: No, I think — oh, I think bake sales are brilliant. I don`t think we should eliminate them in connection with childhood obesity.

CAVUTO: Well, the food police are saying just throw a couple of carrots and celery stalks.

RAY: You know, I think Jessica Seinfeld and the success of her book says ixnay to that. You can have...

(CROSSTALK)

(LAUGHTER)

CAVUTO: Well, you`re right about that.

(CROSSTALK)

RAY: ... whole food brownies. You can put healthy ingredients into lots of baked goods. And it`s not about...

CAVUTO: But you`re extending this way beyond human. I mean, you do that Nutrish and good food for dogs, right?

RAY: Our good food for dogs goes a long way to help a lot of animals in need. By first quarter of next year, we will have raised over $1 million. One hundred percent of my proceeds go directly to animal rescue.

CAVUTO: You never confuse the two? You are never giving the dog food to the people?

RAY: No, but I will admit that I have tried the Kibble.

CAVUTO: Have you really?

(LAUGHTER)

CAVUTO: I got to ask you this.

When you were doing the thing you can live on $40 a day eating in any city, including New York, clearly, you are not tipping people.

RAY: We were tipping them 15 percent. And I always went behind...

CAVUTO: You were not, no.

(CROSSTALK)

RAY: Oh, yes, we were. Oh, yes, we were.

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: ... again. You were?

RAY: Yes, we were. We put it right up there on the screen.

But I went behind, and we all grossly overtipped, because we would sit in someone`s station for hours to film there, you know? So, we grossly overtipped.

CAVUTO: And you still — still...

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: ... the $40.

RAY: We made the 40 bucks. But I drank water a lot. I was eating alone. It was not a luxurious...

(LAUGHTER)

CAVUTO: Rachael Ray, you are really a galvanizing, energetic force.

(LAUGHTER)

CAVUTO: We need a more like that on TV. Best of luck with everything else — although no more books.

RAY: Thank you so much for having me.

CAVUTO: You have just crowded out the bookstore. You are like Bill O`Reilly with a spatula.

(LAUGHTER)

CAVUTO: Very good seeing you.

RAY: Thank you. Thank you.

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