One night in October 2002 at home in her tiny studio in Midtown, Manhattan, Akiko Katayama made a deal with herself: She was not going to bed until she had devised an action plan of what she wanted to do with her career — what she really wanted to do. And so she burned the midnight oil — spurred on by "anger and frustration" — right through until daybreak arrived and she had concocted a business plan.

At the time she couldn't have foreseen that in executing her career-altering master plan, it would take her away from the humdrum world of cubicles and meetings and land her on TV as a judge on "Iron Chef America" and to hosting her own radio show — "Japan Eats!" — from a cabin in the garden of a pizzeria in Brooklyn.

But to go back to that fateful night in New York, Katayama recalls being so angry with herself for not being able to change her career or not doing enough to make it happen.