So, I have had the amazing fortune to get to know a fellow food blogger named Jaden Hair of the super popular food blog SteamyKitchen.com. It turns out, she actually lives quite close to me, so we have decided to mix our talents together to help each other out with our respective ventures; my video skillz and her everything skillz! It’s quite the delicious partnership from my end, I must say…one of the perks is being fed Jaden Hair food, including miso soup, ground beef lettuce cups and oh yeah, last week there was that popcorn with shaved goat cheese and truffle oil. No bigs.

And another one of the cool things recently was that Jaden, as a correspondent for the Tampa Daytime TV Show, got to go tape an episode a couple weeks ago, and I got to be her assistant! This was my absolute first time in a TV studio, so I was beyond excited, and I wanted to share some pics and video with you so you could see what it was like!

Here’s a pic she took from the studio kitchen when she was just about to go on. Note Yours Truly in the background between the first and second camera!

Jaden made a delicious spring rolls recipe for this episode. It wasn’t a live show, but it seemed like it, because she was such a pro, she had all the things worked out beforehand so she could do it all in one take and be done with it! I learned so freaking much on this visit with her, including:

• how to make spring rolls (yum), and actually the wrapping takes a lot of practice! i should know, based on how many i messed up while we were preparing beforehand! :P
• some tv studios don’t have working sinks in the actual tv kitchen, so you have to walk 2 minutes just to get to the one that works, and every time you need to use it (a lot while cooking, obviously) you realize why she would need an assistant! almost made me feel like we were camping
• Jaden prepared three different scenarios ahead of time in case they changed the timing of her segment at the last minute: what she would prepare in case the segment was cut really short, what she was going to do originally for her 4 minute segment, and what she would do if they needed her to take up more time. she ended up with the usual 4 minutes, so she did a quick “how to slice cabbage with a mandoline” and then an explanation of how to roll and fry the spring rolls!
• tv show hosts sometime appear creepy because they’re talking to various other crew members on their invisible ear phone things, but you can’t hear the other people, so it really seems like they’re talking to themselves a lot
• there is so much hustle involved with tv – there are always last-minute changes and the host really has to think quickly so much!

Here are a couple of videos that I shot with my iPhone from behind the scenes looking while she was taping – Jaden was such a natural!

The beginning of the segment where she talked about how to slice cabbage:

And here’s the end where they got to eat!

I swear everyone in the studio must love when cooking segments come on because people get to eat the deliciousness! These spring rolls were a big hit, and if you’re interested, here’s Jaden’s spring roll recipes on her blog!