In the chap­ter titled “Lose My Num­ber,” the author reflects on the thrilling yet often over­whelm­ing expe­ri­ence of host­ing par­ties. The ini­tial excite­ment can quick­ly turn into stress as logis­ti­cal details such as shop­ping, cook­ing, and orga­niz­ing take prece­dence. This real­iza­tion inspired the author to write her sec­ond book, *Bare­foot Con­tes­sa Par­ties!*, which she was excit­ed about, despite a hec­tic sched­ule filled with book sign­ings and media appear­ances fol­low­ing the suc­cess of her first book.

Dur­ing a vis­it to Takashimaya, the author became aware that peo­ple might rec­og­nize her, lead­ing to the deci­sion to hire an assis­tant, Bar­bara Libath. Ini­tial­ly hes­i­tant to ask for help, she soon real­ized Barbara’s sup­port was invalu­able. Bar­bara not only assist­ed with every­day tasks like gro­cery shop­ping but also orga­nized pho­to shoots and man­aged cus­tomer com­mu­ni­ca­tion, sig­nif­i­cant­ly eas­ing the author’s work­load.

As the author worked on *Bare­foot Con­tes­sa Par­ties!*, she sought Bar­bara’s per­spec­tive on recipes, empha­siz­ing the impor­tance of clar­i­ty for novice cooks. Their part­ner­ship flour­ished, and Bar­bara even­tu­al­ly worked full-time, bring­ing pos­i­tiv­i­ty and an ener­getic dynam­ic to the kitchen.

Addi­tion­al­ly, the author recounts her unex­pect­ed ven­ture into tele­vi­sion. After being approached by Martha Stewart’s pro­duc­tion team to host a cook­ing show, she felt skep­ti­cal about cook­ing on cam­era. Yet, she agreed, think­ing there was lit­tle to lose. How­ev­er, the real­i­ty of film­ing proved chal­leng­ing, with over­whelm­ing sets, scripts that didn’t res­onate with her style, and chaot­ic days that took a toll on her home life with her hus­band, Jef­frey.

Despite the pres­sure, the author per­se­vered, assert­ing her vision for the show. How­ev­er, after a par­tic­u­lar­ly chaot­ic shoot where a sewage mishap occurred, she decid­ed to end the film­ing alto­geth­er, con­vinced she would­n’t return to tele­vi­sion. Yet, Eileen Opatut from Food Net­work con­tin­ued to express inter­est, prais­ing her authen­tic­i­ty on cam­era, which ulti­mate­ly reignit­ed the author’s con­sid­er­a­tion for a cook­ing show.

The chap­ter explores themes of cre­ativ­i­ty, col­lab­o­ra­tion, and the unpre­dictabil­i­ty of career paths, high­light­ing the author’s tran­si­tion from a pri­vate culi­nary life to pub­lic acclaim, all while nav­i­gat­ing per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al chal­lenges along the way.