For the past year, Andrew has been asking me, “Mama, can I do a cooking show with you?” and I’ve kinda resisted, mainly because a 5 year old boy…specifically MY 5 year old boy is quite unpredictable. How do I know that he’s not just going to blurt out my dirty laundry on LIVE TV???

There’s no bleep button on the control board (I’ve checked) and even if there was, how would I signal the producer to bleep out the part when Andrew would spontaneously shout out, “My mama dances naked on the bed to ‘Careless Whisper.’”

Like, totally embarrassing to let the world know that I still, even after the gerbil incident (wait, was that a different dude?) and knowing that he’s so totally gay that I’d fling my naked body at George Michael if he rang my doorbell. Read the full story

I’m getting so close…I can smell it! So far, I’ve written 90 recipes and shot over 65 photographs…but I’m a little behind - and still have 30 more photographs and another 15 recipes to go.

I must give great thanks to a hardcore team of testers who have been relentlessly testing, suggesting and tweaking my recipes for the past couple of months. I’m sure by now, they are all Asian’d out at dinnertime! But big hugs and eternal thanks to Katherine, Susan, Phil, Susan, Daphne, Arlyn, Diana, Michael, Patsy, Shasta, Renee, Helen, Kim, Claudia, Regina, Silvia, Joon, Jaime, Susan, Joel, Richard, Bonni, Marion, Audrey, Carmen, Christine, Brian, Rory, Tina, FriedApplePie, Gail, Robin, Lexi, De Hendrix, Tauie, Danielle, Jennifer, Sarah, Ashley, Cindy, Lisa, Jeff, Owlhaven, Barry, Juliana, Madam Chow, Kathleen, Lynn, Sara, Sowjanya, DmOrtega, Melanie, Suganya, Patsy, Andrea, Wiffy, Margy, Patti, Ed, Valerie, Eneri, Marvin, Jude, Joel, Emily, Lynne, Sandy, Courtney, Will, Anne, Melissa, Shana, Micha, David, Nicola, Margy, Jim, Laura, Ric, Tiffanie, Claire, Betty, Thuy, Kindra, Xavier, Shasta, Patti, Foodiebear, Lauriel, Dickie, Cinzia, Li-Chia, Su-Eng, Jacqueline and Christina.

While the testers have done a fantastic job, I’m a little behind. I still have about 15 more recipes and another 25 photos to take. I will say that I totally underestimated how long it would take to write this book. I mean, I write on this blog twice a week and write for the newspaper weekly and it’s like no big deal. And you have to understand that I CRAVE spontaneity and loathe anything that has to do with deadlines, long term planning or being a responsible human being.

Let me tell ya, the ONLY hesitation I ever had with agreeing to write a cookbook was having this massive, dark cloud hanging over me called a deadline. Not just a regular “due by next Monday” thing, but a MASSIVE BEAST of a deadline called 18 month project. Read the full story