Katie Couric made a guest appearance on the Rachel Ray show today, which was a re-air from October.

Excerpts:
• On Diane Sawyer becoming World News anchor: “I think it’s great. First of all, I have a lot of respect for her…She’s very accomplished and has done a lot of extraordinary work. I think it’s great because the idea that men are outnumbered on the big three evening newscasts is really very unusual and extraordinary…”

• On what she misses about the Today show: “I…of course miss Matt. I was watching the other day and Ann had some funny story about a kid bowling. I sort of got the tail end, she said, ‘Obviously it must not be up his alley.’ And…then Al says something like, ‘Spare me.’ And Meredith said, ‘I’m not going to be involved.’ I’m like, ‘No, you should say, ‘Al, your mind is in the gutter!’…So I miss sort of having fun and joking around with them…”

• On her ‘dream interview’ list: “Fidel Castro, I would love to interview him…Kim Jong Il would be fascinating…Hugo Chavez would be interesting…Mahmoud Ahmadinejad…I’d love to interview Harper Lee, who has never done an interview, who wrote To Kill A Mockingbird.”

In a column bylined by Fidel Castro, published in state-run newspapers, the former Cuban leader says President Obama “misinterpreted” Cuba’s offer to discuss various issues with the United States.

But also in the column are several references to the person who asked the President the question about Cuba during his Sunday news conference in Trinidad — ABC’s Jake Tapper.

“Journalist Jake” is quoted as part of a transcript put in the column by Castro. Later, he writes, “When he stated, responding to Jake, that today, 2004 seemed like eons ago, that was superficial.”