ABOUT

Photo: GH Kim Photography

About Me

I was born in Seattle, Washington, and grew up as a missionary’s daughter traveling and tasting cuisines from all over the world. Growing up constantly moving, I had my fair share of pivots and turns along the road – not to mention failures.

Rather than calling my experiences “wins and losses,” I’ve learned to view them as “wins and lessons.” Because when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade! In other words, from learning what it means to hit rock bottom and then discovering what it means to live out your dream, the one thing that never changed was my love of food. 

Food is powerful. It can bring people together and even open up a brand new paradigm – like this blog!

After business school, I moved to Southern California continuing my career in project management. Thinking this was finally my career path, little did I know that the true purpose of my move to the Golden State was to meet the love of my life — the Japanese-American, sports fanatic, food loving, man of my dreams — Ken Yokota (now husband and baby daddy). 

Photo: GH Kim Photography

Cooking has become a cultural and (dare I say) integral part of our marriage. Rather than being just a form of sustainability, good eats have become an adventure to explore and experience recipes together bringing us closer together with each bite. 

From the start of the pandemic, so many life altering events happened: I lost my job, canceled my wedding (6 days before the date), and painfully had to say goodbye to my unborn child to name a few. What felt like a loss ended up being a blessing in disguise as all of these moments opened different doors that helped my blog grow and transform to what it is today. 

• If I didn’t lose my job, I would’ve never started my now full time career: anayokota.com 
• If I was never forced to cancel my wedding, I would’ve never experienced such overwhelming love and support from my community to discover the direction of my future. 
• If I didn’t experience a miscarriage, I wouldn’t have been able to help so many women (and men) through their losses on and off the blog. 

Though it didn’t start this way, Anayokota.com has developed into a Korean-Asian food blog with recipes and resources using simple and fresh ingredients. I wanted to focus on making delicious, easy, and creative recipes accessible to the everyday foodie, explorer, and home cook. 

Every recipe, tips and tricks, and resources have been carefully tested (and almost always re-tested) so they can be translated to easily understandable and accessible articles for you. If I don’t believe in it, it’s not on the blog. If I won’t eat it, it definitely won’t be on the blog. 

We still live in sunny California and love game nights, traveling, and fruit tarts. Most importantly, we are over the moon as we learn how to be parents to our rainbow baby, Jaden! 

Photo: Love and You Studios