TVSquad

Every time I've heard Rachael Ray speak lately (not on her Food Network shows but on her daily syndicated show, which is more current), I've noticed that her voice has been even more raspy than usual. She has always had a deep voice (except when she gets all excited and high-pitched), but it has usually been smooth. Now it seems incredibly scratchy, like she has a permanent sore throat. Turns out there's a reason why.

Ray has a benign polyp on her vocal chord. She'll have day surgery in December to remove it. Now some of the tabloids have reported that Ray was worried about throat cancer, and I bet a lot of people believed that because of they way she has sounded lately, but the polyp is benign. A spokesperson says that "Rachael is the picture of health" and that's a common, quick procedure which won't affect the taping of her show.

Fans of Rachael Ray rejoice! Haters of Rachael Ray can continue to seethe a bit more.

The enormously chipper Ray, who is all over television and the print media these days, has just signed on for another two years at Food Network. In addition to her very popular 30 Minute Meals program (60 episodes per year, as opposed to a previous 80 per year) Ray will host a new program titled Rachael's Vacation, which will have Rachael traveling around the world showing viewers her favorite sites, restaurants, and markets. Frankly, this seems like a combination of $40 a Day and Rachael's Tasty Travels, just without the budget.

Are you a closet foodie? Can you whip up a five-course meal with only seven ingredients? If your doctor takes a blood sample does he (or she) find equal parts of blood and extra-virgin olive oil? Do you say 'Yum-O' a lot? If you fit into one or all of the categories mentioned above then future ruler of the world Rachael Ray is looking for you.

Ray, host of her own talk show as well as 30 Minute Meals, $40 a Day, Rachael's Tasty Travels, and five or six other shows I'm probably forgetting to mention, is starting a nationwide search to find a culinary savant who cooks and bakes for their family and church and not for the customers at their five-star restaurant. Rachael and the producers of her talk show will narrow the choices down to five promising cooks, who will be whisked away for two intense weeks of competitions and challenges to see who is really the best.

This is really great news, because I was truly afraid that Ray wasn't going to have enough work to do an might find herself unemployed of something.

Yup, the coffee and donut chain has hired the host of the syndicated Rachael Ray, the host of 30 Minute Meals, the host of Tasty Travels, the maker of her own knives and olive oil, and the editor of Every Day With Rachael Ray magazine to be their new spokesperson. As Rachael herself puts it: "Having grown up in the Northeast, I have a longstanding and deep appreciation for Dunkin'."

Besides being their spokesperson, Ray will actually help come up with new food and beverage products.

Great, Rachael Ray on caffeine. That's all we need.

Two chefs enter. Only one will be left standing. The reigning queens of food porn Rachael Ray and Giada De Laurentiis will go head-to-head on the November 12th edition of Iron Chef America.

Rather than have to handicap Ray's game, the Chairman will be pairing up both ladies with one of the Iron Chefs. De Laurentiis with Bobby Flay. Ray with Mario Batali.

Alright, the Chairman is actually doing all the fancy pairing because the Food Network told him to, but Ray would get trounced otherwise. Nothing against Miss 30-Minute Meals, but De Laurentiis has some serious skills care of Paris' Le Cordon Bleu and Wolfgang Puck.

Here's hoping the secret ingredient is the tears of failed homemakers.

Are you a Martha Stewart person or a Rachael Ray person?

I don't know if it's on the par of Mac vs. PC or Coke vs. Pepsi, but when it comes to their TV shows, I think we lean towards either one or the other. They're on at the same time in the Boston area, and I've been watching them the past week to see what the differences are, what their strengths are, their weaknesses, etc. Here's my special investigative report.

Inspired by this article, I decided to make a list of my top five favorite Food Network shows. None of that silly Top Chef or Celebrity Cooking Showdown nonsense. Just straight-up Food Network.

1) 30 Minute Meals with Rachael Ray: Okay okay, Rachael Ray is incredibly annoying. Her voice is always raspy, she always finds a reason to giggle, she constantly says "Yum-O!", and she firmly believes that "EVOO" takes less time to say than "extra-virgin olive oil". But, I've got to admit... those Cordon Bleu burgers were pretty damn good. Really, I have tried out several of her recipes without any problems, taste-wise or time-wise (always under 30 minutes!). Granted, I don't sample all of her recipes, but the ones that I've made so far have been fantastic. Once I got over her excessive enthusiasm and too-bubbly personality and gave the actual food a try, I was able to enjoy the show a lot more. Maybe you anti-Rachael people should give her recipes a go instead of just complaining about her oddly-shaped body (eh, I'm not gonna lie... It didn't make a great FHM spread, even after the extreme airbrushing).

April 24th begins the annual "TV Turnoff Week". For seven days we are to turn off the boob tube and focus on other activities inside and outside our home. For instance, talking to the other members of our family or walking out the front door into that space full of yellow light and green grass. I think we call that the outdoors.

Of course, the purpose of "TV Turnoff Week" is the total opposite of what we do here at TV Squad, which is, um, report on television. So, as a public service to you we present this special episode of The Five: Reasons to not turn off TV during 'TV Turnoff Week'.

You can post comments on TV Squad articles:  We love your comments, even when you say we're messengers of Satan because some of us don't like Pearl Jam. However, if you don't turn the TV on, you're not going to be able to comment on any of the shows that we review. That will make all of us sad, and probably make our bosses even sadder. We'll end up losing our jobs, which will have a domino effect for all of our other blogging sites. Of course, that will cause AOL to go out of business, and the Internet will probably collapse unto itself. Dogs and cats will fight, cows will stop giving milk, and, yadda yadda yadda. We'll eventually be beating each other over the heads with clubs in order to grab the carcass of a dead brontosaurus.