Your girl is back in the midst of this crazy summer heat picking up strong here in Portland. Summer is here and I'm ready to embrace everything it has to offer, from berry picking, sun staying up past eight pm, and delicious cocktails to keep me cool.

Life has been very busy the past month. I've taken on a new promotion (so bossy...in the good way), taking on new clients for personal chef gigs, all I do is cook and cook and I'm okay with that. With all these new additions in my life, I'm learning to sit down and look back on all my accomplishments and stop overthinking the bad. I'm my own worst critic, so I'm working on being my own cheerleader.

I'm slowly reducing baking projects, with this heat kicking up I don't know if I can manage that kitchen heat?! When I do, I fill up on the refreshing chef juice to keep me going. Chef juice of choice recently...this delicious Korean mule cocktail hits the spot. Back when I was 21 I was working in a few Korean BBQ restaurants, cooking till late late late, and the reward at the end of shift was cold bottles of soju while sitting in parking lots. At times it was always mixed with beer or this delicious treat of an upgraded Moscow mule. Instead of vodka, we using soju, very similar to vodka, but made with rice, barley or sweet potato. My go to has been Jinro from the start, they also come flavored in green apple, plum, peach (told it taste like peach ring candy), but I usually like to keep it classic.

Haven't always been the biggest vodka fan, so subbing soju in this makes it super refreshing paired with ginger beer, fresh ginger, and lime. I tend to be very picky when it comes to ginger beer. I've had some that are just too sweet it makes me sick.  It overpowers my drink no matter how much extra booze goes in.  So after all the samplings for the right flavor, I have found the holy grail and it's so affordable compared to others, Trader Joe's!  Can't get enough of this delicious beverage, I put this into spiked lemonades and other drinks.