who we are when doing business in the Steamy Kitchen family water closet, my son, Andrew has kindly made name tags. In true gentlemanly fashion, he also has thoughfully made a blank name tag for visitors.

“D” for dad, “N” for Nathan, “M” for Mama, “A” for Andrew,”Blank” for guests of the Steamy household (the marker is taped on the other side of the door)

Andrew informed us that when we go use the potty, we have to find our name tag and move it up higher next to the door knob.

The tags are dual purpose. In addition to reminding you who you are, it also notifies others whether or not you need to wear a clothespin on your nose, gas mask or a hazmat suit before entering.

Efficiency is his middle name…

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A couple of months ago, Sarasota Magazine called and asked to feature me as their “NoiseMaker,” quite appropriate as I can be a pretty gregarious, controversial gal. You see, I live in a city where the average age of the patrons at Outback Steakhouse is twice mine. This land of Sarasota is paradise. It’s where the rich retire. It’s a city full of restaurants where you’re guaranteed that 3 out of the 5 appetizer specials are “gummable.”

OH GOSH. I’m just kidding.

Sorta.

I do love this area, even though I miss my San Francisco grocery stores and ethnic corner eateries, living here actually inspired my cooking career, a fun story for another time.

So when John, the photographer for Sarasota Magazine showed up at my doorstep, I already had rehearsed in my head how I was going to convince him not to take a boring ol’ shot of me smiling-happy-holding-a-wok-spatula-pretending-to-cook-in-the-kitchen pose. YAWN. Thank heavens John was cool. In fact, he suggested that we photograph me eating on my Balinese day-bed.

We had to take several shots before John and I were happy with the lighting, pose, setting and of course, my LOOK. Because I had to decide if I was going to look:

a) Giddy

b) Hungry

c) Insane

We chose the “Draping Seductively Over the Balinese Love Lounge” look.

I’m a thirty-frickin’-five year old mother of two and I can still look hotter than habanero sunbathing in july.

yeeeesssssssssss………

oh and yeah, THAT is how Scott, Nathan, Andrew and I eat dinner every night. On dry-clean only embroidered silk.

Sometimes friendship comes in the form of a beautiful, silky, hand-made apron from Cookie Baker Lynn

The apron is gorgeous! Thank you Lynn!

Then, there are other times that friendship comes in a big box of miscellaneous animal parts:

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Two Christmases ago, I asked for a Buddha Bowl, a beautiful and organically designed bowl that has a clever hook for your thumb so that it snuggles firmly in the palm of your hand. Perfect for eating a bowl of ice cream or drinking some warm miso soup while lounging on the couch, making good use of the extra $125 we paid to get the couch sprayed with Scotchguard stain repellent. I was very protective of my Buddha Bowl, certainly something with my god’s name attached to it deserved some sort of exclusivity in my household, meaning ONLY I MAY USE IT since it was my little precious thing. Ok, so I wasn’t quite aligned with the spirit of Buddhism, but hey, kitchen stuff trumps religion.

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I am sooo bad about keeping secrets. It’s just way too stressful to remember what I can say and can’t, to whom and in what situation, you know? I don’t want the responsibility of keeping a secret, as I’d much rather use that energy for doing more useful things, like this.

Cuz here’s the deal. Secrets take up brian space. The thousands upon thousands of secrets that I’ve kept since I was 4 years old are still in my head. Seriously, I’m running out of room in my brain for any more secrets to add to my repertoire. My brain is dangerously close to running out of virtual memory and either I need to reallocate brain cells (just delete my stupid superhuman skills) or get a brain transplant, preferably from someone with an IQ greater than 73 and with social skills higher than an ovulating hyena.

But dear friends and family, DO NOT ask me if I want to hear about a secret. Because my other quirk, called INSANELY CURIOUS, trumps all.

Recently, with all the non-disclosure contracts that I’ve had to sign for possible Steamy Kitchen business deals, my brain has gone into virtual brain dump mode and have been using the blog as my outlet. I’ve had to come online at 3am, write a post, dishing out all the dirty details and publish. Then I quickly delete it.

Urge, fixed.

Until I forget that the rest of the world doesn’t live in my time zone. The ungodly hour of 3am Monday morning is 10am Monday morning somewhere in the world, the ideal time for cyberslacking at work, which, by the way is done by 75% of the American workforce, costing us something like $170 billion annually. I’d be curious what percentage makes up blog-whoring. WOOHOO! Go bloggers!

So, in this coming year, I’m going to play a bit more on this blog, expanding my posts outside of just recipes. Because with this (AHEM) new cookbook deal in the works, I won’t be able to post as many Modern Asian recipes as I’ve had in the past.

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