How much would you pay to see a cage fight between Martha Stewart and Rachel Ray? Like, all of our combined checking accounts, right? Because Martha would take that bitch down. Martha was interviewed for Nightline this week (it hasn’t been aired yet), and Martha dishes on her daytime chef/lifestyle queen competition. Martha sniffs that Rachel’s “new” cookbook is full of all of Rachel’s old recipes, and “that’s not good enough” for Martha. But Martha admits that Rachel isn’t doing any false advertising, claiming that Rachel is “more of an entertainer … with her bubbly personality, than she is a teacher, like me. That’s not what she’s professing to be.” Us Weekly got in touch with Rachel, and she’s smart enough not contradict the queen of all:

Martha Stewart says Rachael Ray can’t hold a candle to her in the kitchen.

In her first television interview since serving five months in prison in 2004 for lying to investigators about a well-timed stock trade, Stewart, 68, talks to ABC News’ Nightline about rebuilding her brand — and slams Ray, 41, one of her TV competitors.

“Well, to me, she professed that she could — cannot bake,” Stewart says of Ray in the interview, airing Thursday. “She — just did a new cookbook which is just a re-edit of a lot of her old recipes. She — and that’s not good enough for me.”

When it comes to writing a book, Stewart says she want to publish something that “is a unique and lasting thing. Something that will really fulfill a need in someone’s library.” Ray, she says, “is different.”

Stewart says Ray is “more of an entertainer … with her bubbly personality, than she is a teacher, like me. That’s not what she’s professing to be.”

Do Stewart’s remarks make Ray mad?

“Why would it make me mad?” Ray asks. “Her skill set is far beyond mine. That’s simply the reality of it.”

Ray adds that “that doesn’t mean that what I do isn’t important too… I don’t consider it needling. I really just think she’s being honest. She does have a better skill set than I do when it comes to producing a beautiful, perfect, high-quality meal.” Says Ray, “I’d rather eat Martha’s than mine, too.”

[From Us Weekly]

This is why Rachel Ray pisses me off. Rachel is basically admitting that her deal is doing everything half-assed, from lifestyle stuff to food. Which is fine – there are a lot of busy people out there, and not everyone has time to make Martha Stewart-quality food or crafts. But what I hate is the smaller point Martha is making – that Rachel is profiting (big time) from this half-assed sh-t. That Rachel is considered some kind of foodie, or that she’s even fit to be mentioned in the same breath as Martha pisses me off, but that Rachel is so successful at being this cheap, budget, half-assed version is asinine. Rachel should be ashamed of herself if she put out a “new” cookbook that had all of the old half-assed recipes as her other cookbooks. Disgusting. Team Martha forever.

Martha Stewart on November 5, 2009 (with her french bulldogs Sharkey and Francesca, I threw in a picture of the puppies). Header photo of Martha is her at a Halloween benefit gala, not doing anything half-assed, on October 30, 2009. Rachel Ray pictured on April 2, 2009. Credit for all: WENN.