(Look for three exclusive recipes from The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook to be posted on the Daily Loaf today and tomorrow: Three Pea Stir-Fry, Thai-Style Chicken Flatbread, and Lettuce Cups.)

I first met Jaden Hair two years ago, in the drizzled, muddy parking lot of an organic farm stand. She came to my attention thanks to her blog — steamykitchen.com — which had hit the local Sarasota scene a mere six months before and had already garnered a national following. She had brought Spam-fried rice to the CL offices just because we commented on her site.

The two of us bought produce, hit the grocery store for seafood, then retired to a teaching kitchen at the now defunct Chef's Table in Sarasota, where she whipped up Seared Scallops with Mango-Melon Salsa & Coconut Rice for our $20 Menu Challenge. I didn't write about it then, but the scallops didn't have a good sear, the rice was undercooked and the kitchen, by the end, was an unholy mess. A week later, I asked her to write a recipe column for CL.

Jaden has never been a restaurant chef, and never went to cooking school. Until just a couple of years before she started steamykitchen.com, in January 2007, she wasn't even much of a home cook.

This article appears in Oct 29 – Nov 4, 2009.