Jax's Artistic Journey...

I've been secretly tinkering with my WEBSITE during breaks in writing and graphics work. I finally spent an hour or two yesterday to finish up my re-design. Of course, I'm really old school and use actual design before importing and tinkering on dreamweaver. I really should be upgrading to Wordpress but I've been too busy to really dissect the software. I know how to change images on a pre-created template but it's a matter of learning all the CSS and language to give the look a polish finish. It's about making everything more seamless and easy to upload on the run. For now, I do all the uploads on all the changes from my home office. I'm one of those computer girls who learned everything through reading about things and then trying them out. I don't have formal training so I'm a bit slow. I'm an artist, not a code developer so I get lost at times. One of my goals is to get more savvy with Wordpress in 2010. I want to be able to get all my websites up to par and it would most likely be less time consuming than the work I do now. This can only be good for my new clients as they'll be able to get better rates...the bonus is that they'd be maintaining their own sites unless they choose to have me do it...which I'm fine with that too.

I know, it's all about change and going with it. There's a lot of things I am quite innovative about but web design is something I haven't really chosen to move forward on. I guess in my mind I enjoy the old school techniques but if I can produce more and faster and provide a slick design...I should really start learning it. A brain can only hold so much at a time but if worse comes to worse, I'm paying someone to give me a quick tutorial. At least I wouldn't have to be digging around and can save all that research time for my books!

Anywoo, I'm usually over at Hooked on Romance on Mondays but since I'll be with my family most of September, I'll have awesome guest bloggers in my place. You really should go visit them. I know most are giving away books so don't miss out on freebies!

Oh...There's going to be awesome September 1st releases!

My dear friend Kristen Painter has her first novel ALL FIRED UP released through Samhain Publishing. It's a wonderful book and I had the pleasure of reading it many eons ago in it's original form. I loved it then, and I still love it now.

BLURB:

Desire can heal the coldest heart—or burn it to ashes.

Alrik Gunn knows from bitter experience that change isn’t always for the better. From the woman who annihilated his Viking clan to the goddess who tricked him into centuries of slavery, betrayal has dogged his existence. The Goddess of Love is going to let him avenge his family, but for a price. As a Phoenix—a merchant of change—he must grant a human woman three chances to change her life.

When former Irish dancer Calleigh McCarthy tosses a carved-bird statue that belonged to her ex into a roaring bonfire, she unwittingly summons an honest-to-god Phoenix. A sexy, irresistible Viking who offers her an unbelievable bonus—three get-out-of-her-crappy-life-free cards. She’ll take it, even if it means guarding her cautious heart against the dark pain behind Alrik’s eyes.

Alrik has vowed never to let love sway him again, but Calleigh’s innocence and kindness throw him off balance. Yet even as his need for revenge fades and his love for her grows, he is bound to let her make her choices without interfering.

One wrongly chosen word, and any chance for happiness—for either of them—will go up in flames.

Then there's my friend Louisa Edwards whose debut book CAN'T STAND THE HEAT is already garnering great reviews. This is one of the juiciest books you'll ever read! I totally love anything to do with food and a studly younger version of Gordon Ramsey only makes it yummier...I got a freshly printed copy in my hands a week early. I guess Walmart was so excited they put it on the shelves...my gain. :)

BLURB:

For sharp-tongued food critic Miranda Wake, the chance to spend a month in Adam Temple’s kitchen to write an exposé is a journalistic dream come true. Surely Miranda can find a way to cut the hotshot chef down to size once she learns what really goes on at his trendy Manhattan restaurant. But she never expected Adam to find out her most embarrassing secret: she has no idea how to cook.

Adam’s not about to have his reputation burned by a critic who doesn’t even know the difference between poaching and paring. He’ll just have to give the tempting redhead a few private lessons of his own—teaching her what it means to cook with passion…and doing more with his hands than simply preparing sumptuous food.


Let me know what you think of my website re-design. :) Inquiring minds wanna know.

I grew up in the kitchens. Mostly, I did prep work, cash register, bussed tables or waited on people but I rarely had the need to cook. Then there were years where I managed my parent's restaurant, but that's for another time. I spent thousands of hours in the kitchen and often I'd watch the chefs work their magic during the daily rush. During lag time, we'd make fancy dishes and experiment. Whenever it was super slow, I'd create my own dishes to see if I could copy the chef or something I'd seen on tv. I never formally cooked until I was in my early twenties and everything I learned was from watching and visualizing the ingredients in my head.

In his twenties, my father was awarded certification to cook for generals and presidents, although he never chose to be a culinary chef and only enjoyed cooking at home. He had a love of entertaining and for most of my childhood years we had dinner parties at our home every weekend. My mother is also very creative. She had the natural ability to sew what she liked without use of a pattern and cook what she wanted if she liked what she tasted. I've been blessed with some of my mom's creativity and my dad's culinary skills and affinity for fine cuisine.

I guess I just stumbled across the revelation that I could cook. One day I decided I wanted to cook and I just did. It was strange, like a hidden memory that I tucked away and it was so instinctual. I think it was during busy season at our restaurant and we were short-handed so I opted to be the fried rice girl. Don't laugh...but there's really a position for a kitchen assistant to cook all the appetizers and fried rices! And boy, did we get zingers of orders for those things. So much so that I would dream about it in my sleep! I'll admit, I was a bit spoiled. Mom and dad or chef would always cook for me when I was hungry. If they weren't available, my siblings would do it. It wasn't until I went to college that I was forced to cook for myself...soon, I was cooking for my roommates. During those college years, every Friday I'd have to drive two and a half hours home to work in the restaurant and make it back to school early Monday morning in time for class. It was a haul and I had two speeding tickets and a car accident out of the weekly drives...Those were the most grueling times and I certainly didn't have a life. This went on for a few years but the more I cooked, the more I became obsessed about food and various cuisines. Food OCD, is what it was.

That leads me to here....I am an adventurous eater...I'll try anything once...and if I really love it, I re-create it. Recently, I had a craving for Olive Garden's Pasta e Fagioli in a bad way. My friends caved in and we decided to go there. I had my soup but it didn't satisfy the craving. Yesterday I had a desire to experiment. As you can see, in this picture to the left, it's simmering on my stove. This was my first attempt at ever making this soup and I was sooooo proud of myself...it turned out way delish! I made enough to feed me and Mr. Right for a few days.

Tah-dah! The final product and just seeing and tasting the results...it's made me all excited about my love of cooking all over again...

I'd like to add that my friend Louisa Edwards inspired me with her culinary skills. She's FABULOUS at it! Thanks for reminding me that cooking can be a therapeutic art form....