rachel ray

A couple of weeks ago while looking for copywriting jobs on craigslist, I saw an ad that said something like “Nightmare Travel Stories Wanted.” Usually I ignore postings like that, but I was a little drunk after attending a semi-mandatory and fully awkward off-site work gathering. O.K., I was more than a little drunk.

Anyways, the ad said that a national TV show was looking for guests in the NY area with nightmare travel stories, and even though it looked like a scam, I couldn’t resist. I quickly wrote the story of my trip to Ecuador ten years ago (greyhound from DC to Miami, flight to Ecuador, realization that the girl I’m visiting is crazy AND has the impression that there will be some romance between us, two weeks of awkwardness, return flight, greyhound bus breaks down on the side of the road in Georgia for six hours) and emailed it to the address in the ad without editing or spell-checking it.

Five minutes later I got an email from a producer for the new Rachel Ray show, asking for my phone number. At the time I knew of Rachel Ray through my friend Caeli, who is a devoted fan and has several of her cookbooks. I also knew that she had some sort of daytime show coming to network TV. Laughing and skeptical, I replied with my phone number. Ten minutes later my phone rang – it was an assistant producer for the show.

"Congratulations. You made it through." he said, "I loved your story."

We talked for about twenty minutes, during which he had me tell the entire story (I had him in stitches) and asked me several demographical questions. He asked me to send him a couple of photos and told me that they’d be in touch later in the summer and would most likely bring me in to film sometime in September. I sent him a link to the blog and he emailed back to say he loved it.

I have since had the pleasure of watching one of Rachel Ray’s shows. She is somehow delightfully dorky and confident at the same time. She knows her stuff, too. I still haven’t heard from the assistant producer, but there is a good chance that I’ll be interviewed by Rachel Ray in September. I have no idea how I’ll hold up against her perkiness.