Here’s My Ego
(Let’s get that out of the way.)
I’m a three-time bestselling author who built one of the longest-running food websites in the world, Steamy Kitchen, back before people even knew what a food blog was. Over the past 20+ years, Steamy Kitchen has had more than 55 million unique visitors and 410 million page views. It’s been featured on the Today Show, The Early Show, Fox Business, Oprah, Martha Stewart Living Radio, and in Tim Ferriss’ The 4-Hour Chef.
I’ve taught on national TV, been a columnist for Discovery Health, The Learning Channel, The Tampa Tribune, Creative Loafing and I’ve had recipes published in magazines and books you’ve probably seen on your mom’s coffee table. I’ve built companies, created passive income, and cracked the code on the 4-Hour Workweek dream. I’ve even been one of the chef stars on ABC’s Recipe Rehab.
But none of that is really who I am.
Who I Really Am
I was born in Hong Kong and raised in the midwest. My earliest years were filled with chaos, trauma, and a desperate need for safety. As a kid, my escape came in the form of Choose Your Own Adventure books, the ones where you could make a choice and suddenly find yourself on a completely different path. Those stories gave me a sense of control I didn’t have in real life. Looking back, I can see now that they weren’t just books. They were blueprints.
And somehow, without even knowing it, I’ve been writing my own version ever since.
The Steamy Years
In 2005, I started Steamy Kitchen on a hunch, and a whole lot of homemade Chinese recipes from my mom. I didn’t have formal training, but I was scrappy, curious, and willing to teach myself everything: food photography, video editing, coding, email marketing, live TV. I studied Oprah, Martha, Rachael. I built my own imaginary boardroom, asked myself what they would do, and then did it.
And it worked.
I got a cookbook deal within six months. National TV spots followed. Brands called. Sponsors paid. I built an entire career out of wok-fried rice and digital hustle before social media even existed. I mastered the metrics. I learned how to win the algorithm.
And then I lost myself.
When the Numbers Became the Point
There was a stretch of years where everything looked perfect from the outside. I’d hacked the 4-hour work week. Passive income was rolling in. I was learning to quilt, raise chickens, and grow aquaponic lettuce on five acres of land.
But I was miserable.
I had time, freedom, money… and a deep, hollow ache that wouldn’t go away. What started as burnout quietly turned into depression. What felt like creative freedom became isolation. I stopped writing for joy and started publishing for numbers. I knew how to go viral, but I couldn’t feel myself anymore.
I was disconnected. From my work, from my body, and from the life I’d built. I spent years bouncing between different antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds, all of which just left me feeling like a zombie.
And Then Everything Changed
My son Nathan was diagnosed with epilepsy, and it forced me into full-blown crisis mode. And despite my best efforts, none of the medications helped. The pain only got worse. He was suicidal. And in trying to save him, I accidentally started saving myself.
I discovered cannabis medicine, functional movement, and alternative healing. I watched my son’s symptoms ease. I watched our family shift. I gave up a 27-year alcohol addiction. And I started experimenting in the kitchen again, not with recipes, but with remedies. CBD oils. Herbal infusions. Anti-inflammatory teas. And in the process, I found my way into a new world: plant medicine, psychedelics, and deep ancestral healing.
The Shift
Seeking alternatives to the traditional meds that had let me down, I researched psilocybin to heal my own body and mind, wrote the Microdosing Guide & Journal, a comprehensive guide to safely creating and tracking a medicinal mushroom journey, and travelled to psychedelic conferences to teach what I had learned. My husband and I spent a full year living on tribal land, as a guest of a federally recognized Native American tribe, to help them build one of Nevada’s fastest-growing cannabis labs. Together, we created a production facility from the ground up, manufacturing live resin vapes, infused pre-rolls, snowball flower, and more. Our products powered brands like Stiiizy, Cookies, Planet 13, The Presidential, Rove, Curaleaf, and many more.
Leveraging my lab experience, I began formulating potent skincare topicals and wellness tinctures using peptides: compounds that support the body on a cellular level. What started in a cannabis lab expanded into a full exploration of natural, effective, science-backed ways to support healing through the skin.
I’m also proud to be a regular columnist for Vegas Wellness Magazine, where I get to explore the weirder, deeper, and more personal sides of healing. Over the past two years, I’ve written about everything from plant medicine to the emotional weight of clutter and why healing rarely looks like what we’re told it should.
Somewhere along the way, social platforms decided I was too controversial. My accounts were shadowbanned or wiped entirely for speaking openly about cannabis and mushrooms, erasing a decade of community in a single algorithmic sweep. That’s when I realized how much of my voice had been shaped to fit someone else’s rules.
I stopped spinning for social and started building something better.
Where We Are Now
Steamy (Test) Kitchen is my love letter to wellness, good food, plant medicine, and the body’s innate ability to heal. It’s a modern space where science meets kitchen craft, for people who are tired of asking for permission to feel good and want to take healing into their own hands.
Yes, we make products. But more importantly, we teach people how to use the ingredients already in their kitchen to create powerful, personalized remedies. Whether you’re here for skin support, nervous system care, or a return to simpler ways, you’ll find guidance grounded in nature, not trends.
This is wellness without the fluff. Just real knowledge, real ingredients, and real power put back where it belongs: in your hands.
This Is My Real Work
These days, I don’t care about pageviews or algorithms. I don’t do social media. I’m not chasing comments or engagement. I just want to write. I want to create from a place that’s real and whole and sovereign. Whether five people read my words or fifty thousand, I’m finally writing what I want again.
I’m reclaiming Steamy Kitchen. Not as a food blog, but as my space. A living library of everything I’ve written, everything I’ve created, and everything I still want to explore.
If You’re Still Reading…
Thank you.
I’m not here to be everyone’s favorite. I’m here to live honestly and share what I’ve learned. If something I’ve written speaks to you, I hope you stick around.
Just me.
Writing.
Healing.
Creating magical moments.
And choosing my own adventure every damn day.
— Jaden
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Meet Our Team
Andrea C.
Andrea is a Vegas-based creative from Los Angeles with twelve years of managing experience and eight years of marketing expertise. She manages the team and crafts content, copy, pitches, and press releases for Steamy Kitchen, with the goal of channeling Jaden’s uniquely inspiring outlook on life into a palpable brand voice as dynamic as she is.
In her free time, Andrea can be found reading, writing, sculpting, rummaging through thrift stores and antique malls and buying plants to add to her ever-growing collection.