Every morning, after double checking that I was in fact dreaming, and I am not actually laying next to a completely naked Channing Tatum, my mind quickly pulls itself together and wanders back to where it spends most of its time: food.

I love food. My vast collection of Spanx will tell you that.

I love breakfast food, I love snack food, I love food that most people are embarrassed to eat in front of their peers (some of my most treasured memories were made with a bowl of Velveeta Shells & Cheese involved).

That being said, I’m always on the hunt for new foods to try. New combinations. New recipes.

That’s where you come in!

2016 arrived and it was begging for a new project that combined all of my favorite things. Food made the list, weird. People, just like you, you interesting human being, also made the list.

This year, my goal is to collect recipes from all over the world, submitted by you! Along with your recipe, I want to hear a little bit about how you got that recipe. Ex: Your great-grandma stole it from her ex-bestie’s aunt’s recipe box, and she’s been passing that stolen casserole dish down for years now. What a bad ass.
I also want to hear a little about you! What’s your name? Where are you from? You also need to pass along a photo of that pretty little mug of yours. It would be cruel to deny the world those naturally long lashes!

Make sense? It’s pretty simple, but for those people who don’t like to read directions (like yours truly), lets recap!

Send an email to: itissalmon@gmail.com

1. Your name, your location and a little about yourself
2. That selfie (we both know you got a selfie stick for Christmas. Say cheese, babe!)
3. Your recipe
4. How you got that recipe (that unbelievable story about Gam Gam’s sticky fingers back in ’38)

Easy peasy, lemon squeezy!

Lets do the darn thing!

-M

Monday was my first day back to the office after a 2 week break. Walking in the door, I was greeted with the smiling faces of coworkers putting their resolution of “be a more positive person” to work.

During our weekly Monday morning meeting, the colleagues I work closest with every day and I discussed how we had spent our holidays, the family we’d seen and the movies we’d watched. The exchanging of pleasantries all came to a halt when one coworker uttered an 8:08 a.m., “F*ck”.

I get it. When Outlook freezes and you can’t retrieve 2 weeks of unread email, it can be frustrating! Probably “f*ck” worthy.

My coworker covered her mouth and said “Well, shit. Swearing less was one of my New Year’s resolutions!” Bless her heart. She tried.

Thinking about my coworker’s swear-less-lution made me reflect on my own potty-mouthed past, and how my swearing as evolved over the past 28 years. Come to think of it, I remember the first time I used a filthy word on purpose.

It was 1992, sitting in the bathtub with my brother. Before this gets weird, let me add that I was 4ish, he was 1ish, so some people might think of that as “normal”. There was this interesting word floating around that I wanted to test out, and this was the day I was going to do it. I started out with a whisper and slowly increased my volume until I was shouting at my brother at the top of my 4 year old lungs (kind of like that “penis” game…never played it? Google it).

Long story short, the word was “bastard” and my mom was not impressed. Also, Zest soap tastes a little like mountain waterfalls and a lot like despair.

Flash forward to ’96 (I remember, because it happens to be the same year I peed my pants at school), when I called my on again off again “boyfriend” a “bitch” during an intense playground stand off. No boy in my life flirts with some hussie from the 3rd grade and gets away with it. To make matters worse, he shoved me against a fence and ripped my new Starter jacket! Unforgivable.

I remember going home that day and knowing I had to tell my mom what I had done. It would eat away at me until I couldn’t take it anymore. When I finally spilled my guts, she looked me straight in the eye and said “well honey, Sam would actually be a ‘son of a bitch'”. What a woman.

Like with any teenage girl, my high school years were full of experimentation. Swearing was “cool”. My God, the f word could be used as a noun, a verb, an adjective, ANYTHING. You want to be heard? Stick it in the middle of a word! Abso-f*ckin-lutely. The f word could be beautiful when written in cursive over and over on inside cover of a notebook. Needless to say, My mother would have bought the store out of Zest soap if she had heard the things I was saying.

I was too busy during my college years with other questionable activity to think about swearing. To be honest, I should have spent more time inventing awful words and dropping f-bombs during those 4 years than some of the other shenanigans I was up to. However, that’s a story for another time.

These days, I’m all about swearing with a purpose. I’m an ADULT(ish), after all! There is zero tolerance for a 20 something human with a full-time job who can’t control their language. It’s unnecessary. However, sometimes a “HELL NO”, can be an effective way to get a point across. Sometimes Outlook freezes on a Monday morning, and you can’t just sit there and restart, you’ve got to do something!

But I think we can all agree that at this age, there should be no more sticking the f word between words.

I mean, unless it’s the perfect moment…then, ter-f*ckin-riffic. Go for it.

 

 

Today was going to be the day I got my shit together.  The day I dove headfirst into adulthood. But, I’ve never been good at diving. I’m more of a waddle in waist deep, head back to shore, cry a little and then eventually wade back out, plug my nose and dunk my head kind of gal.

So instead:

Today was the day I didn’t read the user instructions to my new Clarisonic face brush and spent the better half of an hour planning out how life as a blind woman would be after I shot facial cleanser into my retina at G-force speed. Thank God the issue resolved itself, because I don’t think Bash would be okay with me getting a service dog.

Today was the day I was going to make my boss proud by how much I accomplished during my “at home work day”. Instead, I got distracted by a Game of Thrones marathon and answered every email with a dramatic, British accent in my head. (How dare you be so bold to request so much of the mother of dragons?!)

Today was the day I cut myself on the blade of my new food processor approximately 14 seconds after it had been out the box, bled all over my table and cursed myself for asking for such an ambitious gift. I mean, who am I, Emeril f*cking Lagasse? No.

Today was the day I said, “Awwww!!!” when the Walgreens clerked as me for my ID as I bought Sudafed. I’m also having some serious skin issues, so I’m not taking it personally as I reflect on the fact that I’m pretty  sure they thought I was high.

Today was the day I used Walter White logic, and dumped last month’s French onion soup down the toilet when I needed to use my Dutch oven for tonight’s white chili. I mean, if the pipes of an old, New Mexico home can sustain the remains of an acid eaten body, I think my newish home can handle a little bit of soup that I left in the fridge for a little too long?

And finally, today was the day I said “fuck it, lets try again tomorrow”.

Adulthood will find me someday, but it definitely was not today.

Cheers!

M

 

 

In between. It’s a funny stage of life.

Confusing might be a better word for it, actually. Just to give you an idea, in my closet I currently have the same number of sexy, lacy undergarments as I do pairs of Spanx. On the drive to work, I alternate between listening to Celine Dion and Drake. When I’m home visiting my parents, my darling mother will ask me “are you hungover?” one minute and “Well, do you need to take a pregnancy test?!” the next. It’s a really good time.

I feel like every article that is shared on my social media timeline is irrelevant to me. Whether it’s “13 reasons Why Midterms are the Absolute Worst” or “24 reasons why Breastfeeding in Public is your GOD DAMN RIGHT AS A HUMAN BEING” (okay, so maybe that’s not the exact title, but you know what I mean).These days, I just don’t see much that I can really relate to, and I don’t want to sound dramatic, but at times, it can feel a little depressing. Where is the article titled “Married with a Dog, a Couple White Hairs & a Decent Job”?

In this in between stage, it’s easy to feel that “quarter-life crisis” feeling creep up. Asking yourself questions like “why in the fuck didn’t I study abroad to Europe with Bethany sophomore year?”, or “Should I have at least 7 children and published a cook book by now?!”.  If you’re me (you’re not, you’re you, and you’re fabulous) you might be yearning to re-do the years you’ve already checked off the list (I hope you had fun in Italy, BETHANY) and are feeling pushed toward a life that you might not be ready for yet (marriage, babies, breast pumps, flat shoes). And that’s okay. As a psychiatrist from a shitty afternoon soap opera, or a mother of an adolescent son would say, “those feelings are natural”. And they are. I’m not here to bullshit you. I love my life, but it doesn’t mean I don’t feel a little lost sometimes. I adore my husband. He is tall and funny and the sweetest human ever. I’m obsessed with my dog. I dig my crib. Vacuuming can be a real bitch, but I’m thankful I have a floor to vacuum. However, all of those things don’t dull out that “tick-tock” I hear every time I’m the only one at a family Christmas without a baby in my arms.

That’s why I’ve decided to take this In Between stage and have some fun with it. This is MY time, Damnit, and no stupid article or passive aggressive question is going to change that. That tick-tock is just the sound of my brand new stilettos marching my sassy ass out the door to happy hour, and that little white hair I found this morning will now be referred to as an Albino (rare, beautiful and sought after by many). This is the time of my life. Literally. College is over, and I need to accept that. My Timehop app reminds me of the countless bad decisions I made every day, whether that be in men (Affliction t-shirts for days), fashion (the long sleeve under the tank top was NEVER going to work) or food (bags of Gardettos as a healthy snack?! No. Stop). The future is out there waiting for you. You want to have a baby? DO IT. You don’t quite feel ready? Don’t. It’s your decision and it’s your life, and it’s an incredible life at that. There is so much that can happen – some of that is in your control, and some not. Just enjoy this in between time that you have. Vacuum that floor and buy those shoes. The next time someone asks if you’re pregnant, just wink and ask if they’d like to get up in there and check. Ooooh, actually, nope. Don’t do that last part. Don’t let those articles on social media depress you. Read them! You’ll be the smartest person at the next party when you announce that, “Oh actually, honey contain the spores of the bacteria Clostridium botulinum, which in babies under 1 year of age can cause botulism…so..” Oh, and you’ll have the best shoes.