Somebody pinch Rachael Ray. Less than a decade ago, after suffering through one too many New York City muggings, she left her job as a buyer for a gourmet food market and retreated to a cabin in the Adirondack Mountains. Friends worried she'd "end up a cranky old spinster" with no one to talk to but her cats, said Ray. She was inclined to agree.

Instead, Ray today is the chatty, giggling star of two top-10 rated shows on the Food Network: "$40 a Day" and "30 Minute Meals." Newly published, her fifth cookbook, "30-Minute Meals 2," last week was at No. 5 on the New York Times' bestsellers list of advice/ how-to paperbacks. (At No. 6? Ray's first "30-Minute" cookbook, published in 1998.)

"If you gave me the choice between winning $10 million in the lottery or having my life as it is today, hands down I would pick my life," Ray, 35, said as she sat poolside for a late-morning interview at the Sunset Marquis Hotel in West Hollywood. "I'm even happy in the city now."

The money-or-your-life decision may soon be moot, as Ray becomes the increasingly visible -- and successful -- focus of public attention. How she got that way is a story of happy accidents, seat-of-the-pants marketing plans and a determination that belies the giddy exclamation-point cheeriness of her public persona.

Her timing ain't bad, either. Last month, the Food Network -- which shares a parent company with the Ventura County Star -- changed the way it airs its programming. With a figurative flip of the switch, viewers on the East and West coasts suddenly were able to watch shows at the same time rather than three hours apart. The move effectively bumped Ray's "30 Minute Meals" from the nobody's-home-in-California time of 3 p.m. to the prime weekday dinner-making hour of 6 o'clock Mondays through Fridays. "$40 a Day," which shows Ray galavanting across the globe in search of money-saving travel tips, now airs at the audience-friendly hour of 6 p.m. Saturdays (check local listings for additional times).

To make the most of this new exposure, Ray last week flew to the West Coast for a getting-to-know-you tour that included visits with local media and book-signing appearances in stores that carry her cookbooks. During a stop at Sur La Table in Thousand Oaks, Ray was greeted by Agoura Hills resident Abby Gore, 3 -- among scores of other young fans.

"I guess I'm just goofy enough to seem like a cartoon," Ray said by way of explaining her particular appeal to children. "I have this goofy laugh and wave my hands around a lot."

For time-strapped adults, the attraction is more obvious: Ray offers the promise of quick, home-cooked meals. That she often uses commercial mixes, frozen or canned vegetables, packaged fresh pasta and store-bought cookies and cakes to cross the finish line in the appointed 30 minutes is beside the point.

"(The idea) is not just to make it fast, but to please the palate as much as the dish that took three days to make," said Ray, whose recipes include quickie versions of traditionally time-intensive dishes such as cioppino and her father's gumbo. "Just because it's 30 minutes doesn't mean it's not as good."

Like Sandra Lee, author of "Semi-Homemade Cooking," Ray is one of a new breed of anti-Marthas, cooks who proudly make use of convenience foods available in supermarkets across the country. She has her reasons.

For one thing, Ray jokingly surmises that she may suffer from attention deficit disorder, laziness, or both. "I don't know that if I had all day and the world's largest garden that I'd cook any differently," she said.

Ray admits to an almost allergic aversion to measuring spoons and cups ("They're annoying to me") and an abiding impatience with anything that slows the process of getting dinner on the table. Thus was born the "garbage bowl," the counter-top receptacle into which she tosses everything from shrimp peels to plastic bags during cooking sessions on the retro-kitchen set of "30 Minute Meals." "I save myself both time and steps running back and forth to the garbage can and recycling bins," she writes in "30-Minute Meals 2."

Ray's need for speed breeds a certain informality: During an episode featuring Chorizo and Shrimp Quesadillas with Smoky Guacamole, she sniffled audibly while chopping onions and then flubbed a final line of dialogue as she bid adieu to her viewers. What other TV cooks might consider outtakes remained in Ray's show.

"Once the tape is rolling we never stop," she said. "The more mistakes people see me make, the better."

Family apron ties

Ray's mother is Sicilian. She describes her father as "Cajun Creole." As though that combination weren't enough to seal her fate as a foodie, she also spent time working in the family's restaurant in Cape Cod, Mass. When they moved to New York, she continued to watch and learn from her mother -- "the head chef of the only cooking school I've ever attended," said Ray.

Much later, she saw a newspaper ad for a job at one of her favorite places in the world: the food hall known as Macy's Marketplace in New York.

"I begged my way into a managing job," said Ray, who started at the candy counter and soon was moved to the fresh foods department.

Her boss there was Michael Corsello, whom she credits with starting her education as a food buyer. "We carried 300 varieties of cheese, 30 kinds of smoked fish, had caviar wars with Zabar's. ... He taught me everything," she said.

When the marketplace closed, Macy's offered Ray a job as a fashion accessories buyer. Instead, she went to work as a food buyer for the gourmet market Agata & Valentina. But after she was mugged twice, Ray returned to her childhood home near Glens Falls, N.Y. It was more than a year before she found a similar job, this time as food buyer for the Albany market Cowan & Lobel. When potential customers told her they were too busy to shop, she lured them in with a series of cooking classes called "30 Minute Mediterranean Meals."

A local TV station taped a story about the popularity of the classes, then offered Ray a once-a-week cooking segment, which was shot in people's homes. The companion cookbook followed.

When the Food Network came calling, "I warned (them) that I was beer-out-of-the-bottle and that they were Champagne," Ray writes in her new book. She's still amazed they signed her on.

A new round of "30 Minute Meals" episodes will start airing in October. Due in November is another "30-Minute Meals" cookbook, devoted to the subject of entertaining -- just in time for holiday gift-giving and party-throwing.

"I have this nice balanced life now," Ray said. "I have my cabin in the woods and an apartment in the city."