The Naptime Chef

I am so excited to share the first of many blog posts from my trip to Thailand with Sea Cuisine. I hope you all enjoy reading about my seafood eating adventures as much as I enjoyed the trip!

We first glimpsed Bangkok at night as our car inched through thick late night traffic to the hotel. The streets were alive with locals doing their daily shopping at the dozens of night markets for food and clothes, endlessly bargaining for a better deal on this or that. Despite the steamy night heat the atmosphere was vibrant, intense, and cheerful. Down narrow streets people stood next to stalls eating small healthy meals: steaming bowls of noodles with shrimp, skewers of fish balls with chili sauce, and bags of fresh chilled pineapple. They spoke with each other as they ate, presumably catching up on the day. If we hadn’t been so totally exhausted from the plane ride we might have jumped out for a quick snack ourselves. With all bowls of fresh noodles and freshly roasted fish staring us in the face we could hardly wait for our Thai seafood quest to begin. Read Full Post on The Seafood Spot…

I am thrilled to report that next week I have TWO book events in the fabulous city of San Francisco. Please see the dates and times for both events below. Feel free to come along and bring friends – the more the merrier! I am so excited to visit one of my favorite cities for a week of fun and food. I can’t wait to see what new and exciting food adventures await and, of course, to meet all of you. If you have any questions about the events, or tips on what I should see, please leave comments below! I will be in the city for the the entire week (even doing a live TV appearance on Friday!)

1) Sunday, April 15th, from 3 – 4pm
Omnivore Books
3885 Cesar Chavez Street
(415) 282-4712
Book signing & Light fare

2) Thursday, April 19th at 7pm
Books, Inc.
2251 Chestnut Street
(415) 931-3633
Talk & Book Signing

I just can’t get enough of Charleston, South Carolina. Last week we made our fourth annual trip to see my parents and had a total blast. We visited a lot of our favorite spots from 2009,  ate with our friends from 2010 and hit some of the must-sees from 2011. Be sure to check them out if you are in the area sometime. This year our vacation was not all just playing and eating, this time there were some awesome book events too. Here are some of the highlights from my trip last week:

Come over and check out my latest Naptime Chef Cooking Show with OXO. I am giving away great OXO products and have a terrific recipe for Chocolate Zucchini Bread!

Since we are all gearing up for Easter this weekend I thought I’d stop in with some festive naptime cooking recipes that are perfect for your holiday meal. These can all be made in advance and are totally family-friendly. I hope you have a wonderful celebration planned wherever you are!

Every so often I get a cookbook in the mail that stops me in my tracks. My infatuation with it could be for many different reasons, in the case of The Book Club Cookbook it is because I love reading. As you know, I am never at a loss for reading recommendations. Need some new great novels, memoirs, or cookbooks to read? I could suggest thousands. The Book Club Cookbook, as the name insinuates, celebrates novels of all kinds through food. The authors worked with popular novelists to decide which recipes would pair well with their work. The result is this clever book that is fun to cook from and would even to be a blast to use for adding food themes to book club meetings.