Me

Lucky.

by Koko on March 15, 2013 · 2 comments

in Alaska, Me

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I am so lucky.

I have a job that lets me travel home when Q leaves for work.

I have family that welcomes me back eagerly.

I have a room waiting for me just like how I left it (with a few small tweaks).

I have friends ready to pick up right where we left off.

I have a fiancee who just wants me to be happy when he is away.

And I have so much love and support from every direction.

The past year has been kind of crazy. I moved to Alaska, I left one job and started another. I began my Masters. I got engaged. I planned (and am still planning!) a wedding. I made new friends. I had so many new and wonderful experiences. I left my comfort zone. I (we) bought a car. And I really started feeling like an adult for the first time.

Every time I come back to LA and leave again, I am filled with mixed emotions. I am SO beyond excited to see Q and recount all the exciting adventures he has had these past 3 weeks (lots more on that to come when I have permission to talk about it :) ). I am eager to get back to our home and have my own space again. I have an amazing 2-week subbing job with a 6th grade class that I absolutely love that starts right when I get back. I can’t wait to set up a new study space for me in our place and continue to work my butt off in my classes. But I’m also a little sad to leave my friends. And puppies. And parents. It’s always a hard transition after being home for 3.5 weeks to go back to normal life in Alaska. It’s cold and a little lonely and I don’t think I’ve quite hit my stride there yet. Yes, I have a job and a few friends and we are social, but I’m not 100% me yet. Alaska has brought me and Q so much closer and I wouldn’t trade these past 10 months for anything, but I’m pretty excited to live back in the continental US again.

So that’s all. I’m so lucky. Thanks for supporting me through it all.

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Santa Ynez Bachelorette Weekend

by Koko on January 27, 2013 · 0 comments

in Me, Travel, Wedding, Weekend

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This was truly one of the most fun weekends of my life. My girlfriends are my everything. They planned the best and most “me” bachelorette weekend I could have ever imagined. We drove up to Santa Ynez on Friday and arrived at our amazing rented home by early evening. We were in the hills of Santa Ynez and it was SO peaceful, beautiful and quiet. It was just perfect.

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We cooked dinner, drank wine and talked into the wee hours of the night on Friday. We woke up well rested on Saturday and had a day of wine tasting at the local vineyards. It was so much fun!!

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IMG_6690 Couldn’t resist the vineyard cats!

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We all took naps to recover before heading out to dinner at a local Mexican restaurant. After dinner, we came home, lit a fire in our fireplace and kept chatting. It’s amazing how we’ve known each other forever yet can talk until 2AM every night. This morning, we took a walk around our neighborhood before heading home with a pit stop at Anderson’s Pea Soup for lunch!

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pea soup

Overall, it was one of the best weekends of my life. I adore my friends. I love how we make one another better, stronger women and how we support each other no matter what. What a weekend!

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WCR Annual Conference

by Koko on January 19, 2013 · 0 comments

in Baking, Cooking, Learning, Me

My mom introduced me to WCR (Women’s Chefs and Restauranteurs) 2 years ago when she took me as her guest to the Annual Conference in Pasadena. WCR is an organization of women in the food industry (chefs, restaurant owners, writers, farmers, sommeliers, bartenders, front of the house people) who support each other in this mainly male-dominated industry.  This was at the very early stages of me starting a blog and becoming the foodie that I am now. That initial conference was a big turning point in my desire to learn to cook and bake. I was so inspired by the caliber of women in the food industry around me and also by their desire to help the next generation. This was a real case of women helping women and I was awestruck.

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When I initially was planning my trip to Los Angeles and Paris with my mom, we saw that the 20th Anniversary Conference was going to butt right up to the end of our trip. We debated coming or not, were we crazy trying to fly directly from Paris into the conference? But in the end, we decided to do it. This year’s conference was a knock out. From the sponsors (KitchenAid, Bon Appetit, La Brea Bakery, Tabasco, Newman’s Own, Agnus Beef, etc.) to the chefs in attendance (Cat Cora, Elizabeth Falkner, Joyce Goldstein, Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken), this was a spectacular event. The two-day event was filled with general sessions and also 3 break-out sessions (I learned about California Cuisine, Hakka and Peruvian Cooking and If There Is A CookBook In Me).

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There was a fabulous Gala dinner Thursday night held at the Ferry building.

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The food was all prepared by women chefs and the menu was designed and created by different women chefs in the area. It was SUPERB! Five courses – a beet salad, fish crudo, short ribs, a cheese dish that tasted like smore’s and a chocolate cake.

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The second day ended with a celebrity chef competition. Three celeb chefs (Cat Cora, Lee Anne Wong and Amanda Freitag) coached three teams of chefs in a “Chopped”- like competition. SO fun to watch live.

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Overall, it was a wonderful event to be a part of and I am so lucky to be a member of such a renowned group of women in the industry.

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And it’s not over yet. Today my mom and I are joining a small group of WCR members on a tour of Napa! xoxo

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My Favorite Posts of 2012

by Koko on December 31, 2012 · 1 comment

in Best Of, Me, Q

Yesterday was your favorite posts of 2012 and today I list my favorite posts this year. 2012 was a big one: the proposal, having Q come home safely from a year in Afghanistan, and moving to Alaska were some big ones! Since I recently did a 26 Things in Year 26 post that covered a lot of the bigs of the year, so I mainly loaded this post with favorites from the last 6 months of the year (because who likes repeats!). Here are my top 10  posts of 2012 on Koko Likes.

10. An Anchorage Weekend – One of my favorite weekends this year was when Q and I went down to Anchorage to visit our friends, The Bulls. The Army brings friends into your lives and then moves them away, we are just lucky that our friends only moved a one-hour flight away!

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9. Shrimp, Avocado and Brown Rice Bowls – YUM. This recipe was out of this world and combined a few of my favorite foods.

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8. Creamy Tomato Soup – Q and I created the perfect “it’s so cold outside, let’s sit by the fire and have grilled cheese and tomato soup” recipe. This meal will always remind me of cold nights in Alaska.

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7. Honey Whole Wheat Bread and Cheesy Beer Bread - I did it, I overcame my fear of making bread and baking with yeast! These were two of my first successful loaves (the Cheesy Beer Bread is impossible to screw up) and they got me started on my new love of baking bread!

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6. Q’s Holiday Ball - I loved getting to celebrate Q and his peers during his holiday ball. And Q looks SO handsome in his dress uniform. It was a blast to get dressed up for the first time since moving to Alaska that made me really happy.

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5. What I Wear in the Winter - Everyone asks “What does -40 feel like?” And the answer is “REALLY cold, but manageable.” In this post, I gave you a glimpse into the many layers I put on everyday just to go to the grocery store. It was a fun one to put together!

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4. Weekly Meal Planning - I started this weekly series about how Q and I plan out our meals each week in November. Q and I are BIG planners when it comes to food. There are so many pros: healthier, cheaper, and you actually look forward to what you are going to have for dinner! And I loved hearing that so many of you are going to start trying this in the new year.

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3. Q & K Go Camping - This adventure was so far outside of my comfort zone and yet I did it and really enjoyed myself. There’s something about being the only humans around for miles and seeing nature that close that is a once in a lifetime experience. I will never forget this trip.

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2. 10 Things I’ve Learned Living in Alaska and Winterizing – These two posts really gave you a glimpse into my life now. Sometimes it even surprises me that this ex-celebrity personal assistant born and raised in Los Angeles is now substitute teaching in Alaska, but I wouldn’t want it any other way. This year has been full of big changes and I have enjoyed living in the moment more than ever.

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1. Life Update – This was a fun post I wrote filling you in on what’s happening in K & Q world. There’s so much on the horizon for us: a possible move, a wedding, travel. It’s going to be quite a year!

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