Dick's Barber Wins Cooking Prize on Rachel Ray Show

"Show business is for show business," said Kara McKay, best known in Enumclaw as a long-time hair stylist at . "It's not for the guests."

This was McKay's conclusion after she thought she was headed to the Rachel Ray Show in New York in November to help her friend Ruby Dee promote her new cookbook. Neither realized that instead, they'd be pitted against each other in what was called the Rival Ray Cookoff. The episode aired last Wednesday, November 23 and can be viewed online on the Rachel Ray Show website (look for the Rival Ray Cookoff and Rival Ray Champ segments on the horizontal navigation bar).

Their theme was the 'rollover meal' -- or what to do with your Thanksgiving leftovers. McKay presented her Thanksgiving Shepherd's Pie while Dee put the spotlight on her Thanksgiving Leftover Enchiladas.

Ray told the pair that it would be New Yorkers on the street who would decide the winner of a giant trophy and more alluringly, a $1,000 gift card to Whole Foods.

And in the end, McKay won. But "it was kind of a bummer for my friend," she said of Dee. "She's such a great cook. ... Ruby's owned restaurants and done catering and she and her husband have a rockabilly band called Ruby Dee and the Snakehandlers."

The music was where the two have a mutual connection -- greater than their cooking, she said.

"Cooking is just a hobby for me," McKay said. "I enjoy cooking. ... but the Shepherd's Pie recipe was something I pulled out of thin air."

Dee, on the other hand, makes a tremendous effort in her Thanksgiving meal. "You call it 'Thanksgiving basics,' but hers isn't basic," she said. "Everything is this planned, gourmet cuisine."

As part of the 'show business' of the Rachel Ray Show, viewers assumed both McKay and Dee got to cook their recipes at Rachel's Loft -- set up with a number of attractive appliances from sponsor GE.

That's not how it actually worked, McKay said. The cooking was done elsewhere, and that's where the disadvantage for Dee became apparent.

Whereas McKay's recipe called for standard items that can be picked up at a store like feta and Gruyère cheeses and bacon, Dee's recipe in fact needed her to cook her Thanksgiving turkey, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce her way before they were incorporated into her 'leftover' recipe.

Instead, the show's producers supplied Dee with standard ingredients. "She was really relying on the integrity of her ingredients," McKay said.

And to add double insult to injury, Dee didn't have much of an opportunity to promote her book, Ruby's Juke Joint Americana Cookbook.

But it's a lesson in how show business works, and McKay said her friend told her she would return to the show if asked, particularly to promote her band. "I think that any attention is promotion," McKay said. "And no matter what, we had fun."

Her Own Entrepreneur

Around the time McKay was in New York with Dee, she was also interviewed on Transformation Talk Radio about what she does back home in Seattle when not cutting hair at Dick's.

Since 2009, McKay has been actively building a life and body coaching business called Sacred Sassy Life (www.sacredsassy.com), and it's been taking off to the point that she is likely going to pull back on her commitment to Dick's in 2012.

"I love cutting hair but working with women and helping them develop a healthy relationship with your body is such a passion for me," she said.

But having worked for 20 years at Dick's, a business co-owned by her mother and aunt, letting go of her current schedule will be bittersweet.

"In 20 years, I've had customers who were babies and are now going to college and getting married," she reflected.

Still, she concluded, "I think women need that [a healthy body image] more than men need hair cuts."