Martha Stewart tries to trash Rachel Ray

[HMG] In what has the legs to become a culinary cat-fight, cooking maven Martha Stewart is claiming Food Network star, Rachel Ray is no match for her talents.

Graciously granting ABC her first TV interview since serving time behind bars for insider trading, the 68-year old former cookery queen told Nightline the 41-year old upcoming chef is not worthy to share her position.

“She told me she could, but she cannot bake,” is Stewart’s first snide review. “She just did a new cookbook which is just an edit of a lot of old recipes…and that’s not good enough for me.”

While serving her sentence at West Virginia’s Alderson prison in October of 2004, the decorating doyenne took part in a homemaking contest.

And with all her huge ‘talent,’ her team came dead last.

Still on the subject of books, Stewart then pushed the knife further into her young rival’s back; Claiming she always tries to publish something that is ‘unique and lasting’, Martha tells ABC her books are designed as, “Something that will fulfill a need in someone’s library.” While Rachel’s output, she claims with lip-curling bile, “is…different.”

Then citing Rachel’s ‘bubbly personality’ as though its possession were a federal crime, Stewart says Ms. Ray is “more of an entertainer than a teacher, like me. And that’s not what she’s professing to be.”

Us Magazine then asked Rachel her reactions to this? Did Martha’s bile-laden prose make her mad?

“Why would it make me mad?” Ray inquired. “Her skills are beyond mine, that’s simply the reality of it.” But she quickly regrouped; “That doesn’t mean what I do isn’t important. Martha just has a better skill set than I do….I’d rather eat Martha’s food than mine, too.”

You can see Martha’s entire, self-serving sermon when ABC airs it at 11.30pm Thursday night…