Class Warfare: Ruth Reichl vs. Rachel Ray By Reese Schonfeld
When I started the Food Network, I was sure we would do no harm. How could programs showing world class chefs concocting wonderful meals hurt anybody? How could learning about healthy eating or how to lose weight or where the best restaurants were, how could that hurt anybody? We hired Julia Child and bought all her old shows from PBS. We showed Jacques Pepin's PBS shows and did a documentary about him. Marion Cunningham, the west coast disciple of James Beard, and Barbara Kafka, his east coast disciple, both did shows for us. We found bold new chefs, like Emeril (who made it possible for American men to cook with no suspicions about sexual orientation), Mario Batalia and Bobby Flay, and turned them into TV stars and nationally recognized brand names. Ruth Reichl (wearing a wig to disguise herself from the New York restaurateurs whose restaurants she critiqued for The Times) did a week's cooking with Ms. Cunningham.
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Reese Schonfeld: Class Warfare: Ruth Reichl vs. Rachel Ray