I’m currently in San Francisco (yay!) and this afternoon, I’ll be cooking live on View From the Bay which is also streamed live online. It’s on at 3-4pm and I think the cooking segment is on towards the end of the hour.
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Then tonight I’ll be at Omnivore Books from 6pm-7pm with a quick talk, booksigning and jackpot giveaway from my tour sponsors, Scanpan, Chefs Catalog, Earthy and MacSpeech.
Oh, wait til you see the goodie bags…I think I have enough for each event that I’m doing here in SF.
Elise of Simply Recipes is spending the next 2 nights with me. Where is she gonna sleep?
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Tomorrow (Saturday) I’ll be spending some time with the good people over at Foodbuzz and will be at the Metreon for book signing 2pm to 3:30pm.
Saturday night is a cooking class at Sur La Table in Union Square 6:30pm. We’ll be making this:
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I Love L.A.
I’ve just come back from Los Angeles where the highlight of my trip was walking into a Barnes & Noble hand-in-hand with my Mom and showing her the Steamy Kitchen Cookbook on the shelf. I had the camera all ready to capture the moment, gave it to Dad and the moment he was JUST about to depress the trigger finger, the manager walked by and said no-no to cameras in the store. Party pooper.
I also taught at Sur La Table in Los Angeles…my first class at my favorite splurge store. Not knowing what to expect, I arrived 2 hours prior to start of class ready to start prepping and working to get the class ready. When I arrived in the LA store, there was a kitchen staff of 4 already at work, prepping everything!
I wanna bring them home!
Wonderful class, fantastic food and lots of laughs.
What an amazing smile…
Got to hang with fun people like Jenny Kayano and Rachael of La Fuji Mama
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Then there was this party that my very very favorite people in the world threw for me….but that’s for another post….
It’s hard to capture the moments on my camera sometimes when I’m smack dab in the middle of the action. Outside of my little food world in my kitchen, there’s no “pause” button or “do-over” button in life while I fumble with my camera.
By the time I whip out the camera, turn it on, adjust, focus and click,
The moment is gone.
And it’s just not quite the same to say, “hey guys, um…I missed that moment, can you spill that drink all over yourself again?”
So for my very first book signing party in my hometown, I handed my beloved camera to Nathan. He’s almost 5, so of course I duct-taped the camera around his forehead, over his shoulder so he couldn’t drop it. With specific instructions on “take a picture of these lovely people” and “take a pic of this yummy plate of food!”, here is Nathan’s take on the evening.
I love the eyes of a 5 year old!
Right after that party, I was off to NYC, where my first event was the NYC Dumpling Festival. Oh…what’s this coming my way?
Hmmm…closer inspection…
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Such a tacky image….but I really do suck at Photoshop. My image was supposed to convey that TLC is giving away one Steamy Kitchen cookbook every day of the week — you can enter every day! I’ve also posted one of my favorite recipes from the book, Sweet and Sour Lychee Meatballs. To enter the contest, all you have to do is comment telling me what your favorite comfort food is!
Enter to win a STEAMY KITCHEN COOKBOOK over at TLC!
(not here – enter over at TLC’s site!)
Snickertini.
Peppermint Pattini.
Starburst Martini.
Almond Joy Martini.
See this sexy woman right here? (my husband saw this photo and said, “cocktails? what cocktails?!”)
This is Jessie Jane Lee, a very talented bartender who helped me mix, taste test some fantastic drink recipes for Halloween.
Come read all about it and the get recipes on Steamy Kitchen on TLC!
I know there are certain foods that I really shouldn’t mess with, one of them being fried chicken. And after all these years of cooking, last week was the very first time that I made real buttermilk fried chicken without tinkering, gourmetizing or ethnic-tizin’ with funky ingredients like panko, garam masala, five spice or corn flakes. Just fried chicken straight up. And it’s all thanks to my good friend Ree of The Pioneer Woman, who just came out with her very first cookbook called The Pioneer Woman Cookbook: Recipes from an Accidental Country Girl.
One of the best parts of blogging is the sisterhood bond that blossoms between us gals. Ree is one of my bloggah-sistahs who will bring over a bunch of cheap single-serve generic wine from the corner market in a brown baggie and chocolate candy to our hotel room and giggle until the late hours with the gals. I love that we’re both on our book tours at the same time, me takin’ on the big cities of the two coasts and she taking her entire family to blanket the middle of the U.S.
If you are lucky enough to be near any of the cities that Ree and family will stop at, please do go seek her out. She’s loving, genuine and I promise she’ll make you giggle too.
I promised Ree that I wouldn’t ethnic-tize her fried chicken and she promised me she wouldn’t try to country-tize my Chinese Broccoli and Beef when she cooked from my book! I’m proud to say that despite all the temptations of my spice drawer, I kept true to my word.
How to make Buttermilk Fried Chicken
After mixing the flour with the spices, pour in the buttermilk and milk mixture. Use a fork to stir it up a bit until it’s a crumbly, shaggy mess. Shaggy is good. Shaggy means maximum crisp, crunch and happy times.
Now take a piece of buttermilk-soaked chicken and cover it in that flour mixture. Notice I didn’t say “dip” – you want to press that flour into that chicken good! More flour = more happiness.
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