Rachael Ray

My children attend public school in New York state, not too far from New York City, so it shouldn’t surprise me that we have a diverse student body.  But when we sent out a survey asking where the parents of the students were born, we heard of 35 different countries!  We sent the survey as part of something we call International Day-every other year we dedicate a whole Saturday to celebrating foods and cultures from around the globe. We wanted to make sure as many countries as possible were represented, so we sent out the survey and then of course asked the parents to volunteer on International Day to cook and serve foods from their native lands or ancestry. The [...]...

My 8-year old son has developed a passion for drawing.  One day he just picked up a pen and paper and started drawing volumes and volumes of artwork, mostly centered around this one character, Arnold, from the cartoon Hey Arnold!  Hey Arnold! was a popular show on Nickelodeon in the 1990’s, so I never knew it as I was too old when it came out.  Although it doesn’t air now either, my son somehow found the show through Netflix or one of the other On Demand sources.  He instantly related to this character with the football-shaped head, and would create stories and illustrations of this guy and his friends.  At first, he would draw scenes from the shows he had [...]...

I had never been to South America before last week yet had always wanted to go - I had visions of partying all night in Buenos Aires, skiing in Patagonia, dancing on the beach in Rio and exploring the wonders of Machu Picchu, the lost city.  When I was invited to have a culinary tour of Chile, I jumped at the chance, realizing I knew so little about this beautiful country.  I asked if I could bring fellow blogger, Evette Rios and luckily they agreed!  Here are my favorite memories. Chile is a crazy place geographically speaking, as it extends over 2,000 miles down the western coast of South America, yet is only a couple hundred miles wide. The top of [...]...

I know it sounds strange to be touting the benefits of candy, but we did have a positive moment with it recently, my son and I that is.  He was taking a lunchtime elective at school called “Sweet Treats” where a few parents taught the kids how to make sweet recipes.  They weren’t for the most part too terrible-there were smoothies and other fruit-related recipes, but one day they taught the kids to make “candy sushi,” which was about as bad as it gets.  The kids took fruit roll-ups (hardly fruit), smooshed a rice krispie treat all over it, added some gummy worms and rolled it up, cut it sushi-roll style and added a Swedish fish atop each piece for [...]...

Recently my son had to do a school project where he chose a holiday that had some relevance to him, from anywhere around the globe.  Being that his mother is of Sicilian descent, he chose Christmas in Italy.  The most interesting thing to him was when he learned that Italian children do not expect a visit from Santa on Christmas day, instead that day is reserved for the celebration of Christ’s birth.   During this season, Italian kids do something I find to be rather touching-they write a letter to their parents, thanking them for all they have.  What a nice tradition to uphold-it gives children a chance, before the gift-giving and receiving (it’s coming) to reflect and pay homage to [...]...

I am from Buffalo, NY, home of the infamous Buffalo Chicken Wing, so as you can imagine, I have a strong opinion about wings in general.  We all have our preferences-drummers vs the two-boned wing, meaty vs thin, crispy skin or juicy and moist, hot and spicy vs mild, and on and on. So when my boyfriend asked me to try making wings at home, I at first thought this would be an insurmountable task, one that can only be performed by the famed wing fryers in Buffalo that I knew so fondly growing up.  The truth is, they are easy to make at home and there are so many recipes that are completely different from the classic Buffalo hot [...]...

Our little town, just north of New York City, was humbled by Sandy.  I can’t say we were devastated, despite the fact that most people here lost power, because devastated should be a term reserved for places like Breezy Point, Queens, where 50 homes were destroyed, or Seaside Heights, NJ, where you can see the boardwalk rides floating out to sea.  Devastated is New York University hospital who lost power and then had generator failure and was forced to move people out of the hospital, patients in need of critical care. No, in our neighborhood we did lose power and tree limbs flew all over the place, but everyone I know nearby is safe and sound.  Somehow, my house was spared [...]...

I made an amazing Mushroom Ragu this weekend, inspired by the great Lydia Bastianich.  I have been making this recipe of hers for years, but when I saw her on Rachael’s show last week, it reminded me how much I love it. In typical Lydia, northern Italian style, she makes this dish often to be tossed with pasta or stirred into risotto, but just as often with polenta.  Instead of taking the easy way out, by making instant polenta and topping it with this mushroom ragu, which would have been amazing, I decided this time to make polenta from scratch, which was almost just as easy and took only a little bit longer.  Then, in a buttered casserole dish, I spread [...]...

As many of you know, I am Sicilian-American,  What I don’t talk about much is the fact that my boyfriend of three and a half years, is also Sicilian-American.  It took me 38 years to find him, but when I did, it just made sense.  You know how people say, “you just know” when you meet the love of your life?  That’s how I felt when I met him and ever since. Sure we’ve had our ups and downs, but we always make it through because the love is there underneath it all. This past week he surprised me and I still can’t believe it is true.  We traveled to Sicily to visit his mother’s family, who happens to live near [...]...