Rachael Ray is calling out a New York Times article titled "I Was a Cookbook Ghostwriter" by Julia Moskin, saying it "inaccurately implied" that she uses ghostwriters to write her cookbooks. To quote the article: "Rachael Ray alone has published thousands of recipes in her cookbooks and magazine since 2005. How, you might ask, do they do it? The answer: they don't."
Well, Ray says she does. The Food Network star tells Eater, "In well over a decade of writing recipes for many cookbooks, television shows, and magazines, I have not now nor have I ever employed a ghost writer." On the occasion she does get the recipe from another source, she says it is clearly marked, often in the title of the recipe (as in Jane Fox's Famous Tortilla Soup). She does note that she is glad the piece "celebrates the unsung heroes that are ghost writers, [but] I simply don't use them."
Specifically, she says that a chef quoted in the piece, Wes Martin, is a "valued colleague" and friend who has done food styling, photography, and other assorted work for Ray over the years, but has not ghostwritten for her. While he has developed "a few desserts for [Ray] over the years," he's always been clearly credited.
Her most recent book, Rachael Ray's Look + Cook, does credit several photographers, stylists, and illustrators in the copyright, but no co-authors or recipe-developers. Martin is the first person thanked in the acknowledgments as one of a "whole team of food stylists who helped me take thousands of pictures." Photographers, friends, family, editors, and an assortment of unclassified people are also thanked.
Ray also said she was not contacted for fact-checking purposes. Here are Ray's tweets on the matter:
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