Why does Rachel Ray suck?

I love food. I love restaurants. I love reading about restaurants and watching shows about restaurants. But try as I might, I can’t love Rachel Ray. Last night I gave her the 743rd try and sat down to watch her $40 A Day and Tasty Travels shows. After an hour of salivating and hurling I felt completely drained. The ideas for her shows are pure gold. Traveling on $40 a day is a great hook for anybody traveling plus its fun to watch towns and cities you’re familiar with be featured. Tasty Travels follows a similar path but puts the pocket book away and allows you to go buckwild. The problem with both shows is Rachel. Sure she’s soft on the old eyes but honestly her voice is like nails on a chalkboard. Personally I like to watch the show with closed captioning. Still a bigger problem is the fact that she is not a food critic. You never see her take a bite and make anything other than an O face. Just once I’d like to see her spit up or send something back. Plus the show is so staged it hurts. Now I know a little something about putting together a TV production and I understand that you can’t really book on the fly but it would be so refreshing to see Rachel try and navigate a restaurant that was already booked solid or to find a place that’s closed on Mondays. Real traveling means that you’re going to come across some misses along with your hits and that’s part of the journey. I’ve been to some of the places Rachel has orgasmed over and they just aren’t that good. There’s certainly a market for something like her shows but find a different host. Maybe Amanda Peet has a good palette.