Author: keep up with k.tap

savory southwest salmon salad

now, i already told you all that i love alliteration.  try saying the title of this post three times fast.

 

i would say that i eat seafood at least four days a week.  whether i am sautéing shrimp to throw over a salad or to add to pasta, baking salmon to pair with steamed veggies and a baked potato or to (you guessed it) throw over a salad or hitting up my favor sushi or poke places, seafood is a necessary staple.

 

i make an effort to pack my lunch at least three days a week and i have found this savory southwest salmon salad is an easy way to stay full for hours between sessions with clients while feeling like my tastebuds are in for a treat.  the true test was making it for my mom for one of our tuesday night dinners (we get together weekly to watch “this is us”).  while my mom likes many other types of fish, she has never been crazy about salmon – that is, until she tried this salad.

 

before i get into the recipe, i will tell you now that you can prepare this same salmon and pair it with whatever sides you’d like.  i like to do broccoli with garlic and lemon or maple bacon wrapped asparagus.  perhaps i will do a post on that later down the line.

 

this recipe will take you 25 minutes from start to finish.

 

first, we will start with the salmon.  i am all about figuring out how to multitask in the kitchen.  so if you are going to make the full blown salad and not just the salmon by itself, follow the following steps:

 

laa5fpxgs6kcq6fxozk3fw

 

  1. set your oven to 425
  2. get a pyrex dish (my baking dish of choice because it has a lid, thus making it easier for storage) and coat it heavily with pam (or your preferred cooking spray)
  3. place the salmon in the pyrex dish – i typically cook two pieces at a time to have enough for two meals (or for a guest, like my mama bear)
  4. squeeze the juice from a quarter of a lemon over the salmon
  5. lightly coat with coarse kosher salt and black pepper
  6. sprinkle one teaspoon of my favorite ginger sriracha lemon rub over each piece of salmon (two teaspoons total)
  7. place a slice of lemon over each piece of salmon
  8. bake in oven for 12 minutes on 425

 

while it is in the oven, let’s start prepping our salad.

 

yqqrdf7pthywia17raz5+w

 

 

now, my favorite thing about salad in a bag is that you essentially have a meal prepped at your fingertips.  my least favorite thing is that it consistently seems like it is missing something (and it does not hold me over for a long enough timespan).  my favorite salad kit is the one you see above and i order them (typically three or four at a time) from amazon fresh.  you might be looking at this photo and wondering why there is an avocado and guacamole – the avocado was not ripe enough for use yet so i used three teaspoons of guacamole instead.  here is what to do while the salmon is being in the oven:

  1. pour salad onto the plate of your choice
  2. chop a tomato and a whole jalapeño to pour over the salad (i keep the seeds in the jalapeño because i like a kick)
  3. sprinkle a 1/4 cup of pepper jack cheese over the salad
  4. add 1/2 an avocado or three teaspoons of guacamole
  5. sprinkle a light layer of garlic salt and black pepper
  6. add the tortilla strips and dressing from the salad bag
    1. if you are meal prepping for the following today, keep these sealed and separate until the following day so your tortilla strips can stay crunchy and your salad can be soggy free 🙂
  7. wait for the salmon to come out of the oven

 

xwg%kodhq32fqjergwhgqw

 

we are almost finished! gently place the salmon over the salad and enjoy.

 

k35rufj3tu+xs71zmtb7ga

 

if you make it, let me know how it turns out.

 

xoxo,

k.tap

thought of the week: don’t ask women when they’re going to have kids.

let me start off by saying that being a woman (especially of woman of color) can be incredibly exhausting.  i am frequently reminded of how different it must be to walk through the world as a man.  one of the times it is most evident is when i am asked, “what’s new?” oftentimes, before i can get a full answer out about something work related, a personal project i am passionate about (like this blog), a new soul cycle instructor i like or my latest set of concert or festival tickets i purchased, the conversation is redirected to my relationship status.  sometimes, it is even directed directly at my reproductive system.  as i inch closer to 30, the questions seem to revolve more around marriage and/or children.

 

while i have some friends who are married to wonderful partners, partners who they are excited to procreate with, i also have friends who are married (or committed in some other capacity) to equally wonderful partners who have no desire to have children.  i have friends in relationships where i hope they do not have children based on the partner they selected.  then i have my single friends.  my single female friends are all over the place – some want an army of children, some want none and some are still totally unsure.

 

here’s the thing – every single one of those scenarios is okay and every single one of those scenarios is personal.  it is personal to the couple and more importantly, personal to the woman – the woman who could potentially be carrying this child people insist on asking about.

 

i have not heard a single woman describe pregnancy the same way. i actually have not heard a woman who has had multiple children describe each of her pregnancies the same way.  no two women are the same and the same woman (if nourished properly by herself and her environment) is ever evolving.  keep that in mind when addressing these goddesses.

 

now, i had seen the first part of this quote before.  “‘only women get asked that when they get married. men don’t.’ so, there you have it everyone: don’t ask women — married or not — when they’re going to have kids.”  when i googled it, i could not find the original source.  as if the first part didn’t evoke some strong thoughts and feelings on my end, a classmate of mine who i truly respect from my grad program, lisa, added the part that is highlighted in pink. “for all women who can’t have babies, who don’t want babies, who aren’t sure yet, who can’t afford to have babies, who have trauma, whose story is different than your own…please. stop. asking. even if it feels innocent.”  lisa stopped me dead in my fucking tracks.

 

fullsizeoutput_4e81

 

 

those last two lines from lisa: please. stop. asking. even if it feels innocent.  those last two lines tugged at my heartstrings.

 

i am asked far more frequently than i’d like when i am getting married and when do i plan on having kids.  i am asked by friends, family, acquaintances and plenty of other people that have no idea what my journey has been or what i might be battling personally.  i will share a bit of that momentarily.

 

in looking at my female friends, i would say about 70% are in committed relationships (everything ranging from having a monogamous partner with a clear understanding of that is expected all the way up to marriage with kids).  the remaining 30% are single single.  i had to say it twice so you could understand just how single they are.  for the bulk of them, this is by choice.

 

with more and more of my friends getting married, i have been getting more and more of these types of questions.  it is january of 2019 and i have already been invited to four weddings for this year and two for 2020.  it is not that i don’t think about marriage – it would be impossible not to.  but as a kid, i did not fantasize about what my wedding would look like.  i actually did not believe in marriage as a concept until just a few years ago.  something that i always dreamt about was the kind of mom i would be.

 

i have always wanted kids.  as i approach my 29th birthday, i know that at this moment, i could take care of a child but do not think i am quite ready.  i definitely see it in the cards for me a few years down the line. that is still my business and my choice to share.  i should not feel like i am being interrogated about this.

 

when i moved back to la in august of 2017, my body was having a visceral reaction to the way i had treated it that last year of grad school.  working four part time jobs, going to grad school full time, interviewing for jobs and moving all within the span of just a few months was too much.  when things finally slowed down a bit (me having just one job, even if it was new), i started noticing how off my menstrual cycle was every two or three months.  so before i could find a new primary doctor, i was on the hunt for a new ob.  while i have never had an online dating app, i would assume that my hunt for an ob was similar to the hunt for a perfect date/match.

 

after going through about 50 profiles, i had it narrowed down to three.  i studied all three and landed on the woman who has changed my life.  dr. feldman is a gem of a human being – she truly cares for her patients and does not sugarcoat anything.  i love that about her.

 

anyway, i go into this meeting to discuss birth control options to help regulate these cycles because i had been off the pill for a couple of years.  we talk about different iud options because she thought that would be best after our extensive conversations.  she told me she just wanted to do a full workup (including a pap) and get the results back before inserting the iud.  i was on board and loved how thorough she was being.  this was on a thursday.  i knew something wasn’t good when she was emailing me on a saturday because she does not work weekends.

 

after opening this lengthy email, i am told that my test results are not normal and there is specifically something wrong with my uterus that cannot be identified based on the pap or any of the tests that were run.  as any normal person would, i panicked.  i was just trying to figure out what it meant.  in the email, i was told i needed to have surgery to be able to rule out several things – one of them being cancer. here i was, one month after my 28th birthday, reading emails about a fucked up uterus and maybe cancer? what happened to just getting an iud?

 

i had an issue even verbalizing to those closest to me what was going on.  part of it was that saying it out loud might make it more real but part of it was because i am used to being the backbone – how would my tribe respond to me crumbling?  i honestly couldn’t say.

 

we scheduled the surgery with her for less than a month later.  i had so many questions about what it was they were looking for, how soon would i know if i was in the clear and would i need to be put under.  as a plus sized girl, i was thinking i didn’t want so much anesthesia that it was comparable to tranquilizing an elephant.  and yes, i said that exact line to my doctor.  we figured out a mid level anesthesia – one where i was under enough to not feel what they were doing but not so under that i could not be brought out of it with a loud yell or shake.

 

my weeks of panic turned out to be polyps.  not cancer. not a tumor. not a cyst. just plain, old polyps.  my doctor was able to remove them all and place me on meds to help regulate my cycle.  still no iud – the deal was she wanted to monitor me every three months before a year to be sure nothing has grown back for moving forward with that.  but let’s hop back to those weeks between the initial appointment and surgery.

 

all of the thoughts that crossed my mind were about kids.  and in those weeks, it was almost as though i relived every single time i had been asked about when i was getting married or when i was having kids.  it was a feeling that was so foul that it made me nauseous and kept me up at night. it was not just the thought about not being able to have kids that triggered this response but the audacity of people to ask those questions of me when they were in no way, shape or form prepared for a response like the one i just typed.

 

fortunately for me, it looks like being able to have kids is something that is still in the cards for me.  however, how different would those conversations go if i had to tell someone that i had to get my uterus removed or that my chances of being able to conceive were slashed in half?

 

i say all of this to say: do not ask.  if a woman wants you to know about whether or not she is interested in having children, trust me, she will bring it up to you.

 

this post was a lengthy one but i think every single syllable was necessary.

 

if you have had any experiences related to these types of questions, please feel free to comment or privately message me.

 

thank you in advance for allowing me to be vulnerable.

 

xoxo,

k.tap

bouquets to brighten up your space

today, you are going to get another peek at my apartment.  my post on gabrielle union’s book, we’re going to need more wine, showed a tiny portion of my living room with this cute little gold end table from target.  as time goes on, i will feature more and more of my apartment.

 

because the rooms i spend the most time in are my living room (to lounge and eat), dining room (to work and when i am hosting) and my kitchen (to cook daily), those are the rooms i care about the most, at least aesthetically.  i am fortunate to have a landlord that encouraged me to paint my space a color that suited my style.  while i did not paint my kitchen or the bedrooms, i did paint my living room and dining room a soft gray and it definitely makes my time spent in those spaces more enjoyable.  something that makes my time spent in my kitchen more enjoyable is a fresh bouquet of flowers.

 

fullsizeoutput_4e4f

 

these stunning cream colored roses (a dozen) costed $6.99 at trader joe’s.  it is rare for someone to enter my home and not comment on my bouquet(s).  what i have realized is that so many people associate flowers with a special occasion, in addition to thinking flowers are more expensive than they actually are.  let me tell you something – every single day is a special occasion and you are worth far more than $6.99.  look at how this bouquet totally brightens up my space:

 

fullsizeoutput_4e57.jpeg

 

by the way, the more posts i do about my home, the more elephants you will see.  this adorable wine holder (gifted to me by my amazing friend, jaclyn) can be found here.  if you are looking for something to do with all of those corks from wine nights, you can find a similar display case here.  my work wife, reens, bought me the one above.  it actually has a space for a photo and i had planned on adding one of reens and i wine tasting but i needed a place to place my corks before i could print the photo.

 

the next time you are at the market, grab a bouquet to brighten up your space. you won’t regret it.

 

xoxo,

k. tap

 

p.s. on day four or five, cut the stems about an inch at a slant and switch the water – you should get about five days out of the bouquet

weekend uniform

happy friday to all of you.  lord knows it has been one hell of a week over in these parts and i could not be more grateful for this three day weekend (and to not have to wake up to the sound of an alarm for the next few days).

anyway, i do not know if any of you can relate but in looking at pictures of myself (both on the gram and just in general), i have noticed some patterns in what i tend to have on. it is as if i have a weekend uniform.  to give you some background, i wore a uniform to school every single day from 1992 to 2007 so perhaps this is why as an adult who has actual choices, i will purchase the same article of clothing in a variety of colors and switch up an accessory, a shoe or an outer layer of clothing.

for the last year, i have been incredibly into t-shirt dresses, cardigans or denim shirts (as a first outer layer) and a faux fur vest or army cargo jacket (as a second outside layer).  weather dependent, i could be rocking a gladiator, a converse or a bootie.  i would say the two retailers that get the bulk of my coins are nordstrom and asos.  the third is forever a rotation between forever 21, target, torrid and cute little boutiques (my favorite one being ibiss in the willow glen neighborhood of san jose, ca).

 

1-2

photo cred: gracelyn bateman – check out her instagram!

 

this exact t-shirt dress from asos is sold out but here are a couple others like it:

1.

2.

my cardigan is from forever 21 – i also have it in oxblood.  here is one that is similar.

my cargo jacket is from nordstrom – i copped it during the anniversary sale for like, $80 – here is one similar (mine has coral stitching instead of red stitching but it is by the same brand).

*all three of the aforementioned retailers carry sizes 0 to 3x – i will do my best to post places that are size inclusive.

and you can find a classic pair of converse virtually anywhere – mine are pretty beat up from countless music festivals and shows, but that is why i love them.

do you have a weekend uniform? if so, what is it? let me know in the comments below.

cheers to the weekend!

 

xoxo,

k. tap

 

thought of the week: my growth owes you no apologies.

although it may not seem like it, the social media site i enjoy most is twitter.  it removes the fluff and just gets straight to the point.  there are also a ton of brilliant twitter users who share ideas on politics and social issues, beautiful poetry, causes we should be made aware of, the best place to get a f*ck donald trump shirt, and the list goes on…

 

one of the best people i discovered on twitter was billy chapata, an atlanta based  writer/poet/author who constantly makes me feel like he is preaching the most (often heartbreakingly) beautiful sermon directly at me.  recently, he posted something and it just stuck with me:

 

fullsizeoutput_4e1a

 

there were multiple parts of this that stood out to me.  the first was just looking at how many times the word “sorry” was used.  it made me ask myself how often i was apologizing for things i really had no business apologizing for.  i think this is something many of us can relate to but when i thought about the people in my inner circle, the people i hear apologizing most frequently are women.  so many of my girlfriends are constantly apologizing – to their families, their partners, their friends, their bosses – you name it, they are apologizing for it.  then, i thought to myself – “kristin, what are you typically apologizing for.”  the last line nearly jumped off the page and slapped me across the face.

 

“my growth owes you no apologies.”

 

growth.  i had been apologizing for growth.  i had been apologizing for not remaining stagnant.  i had been apologizing for challenging myself.  i had been apologizing for requiring reciprocity in all of my relationships.  i had been apologizing for needing to prioritize my own needs (and sanity, for that matter).  i had been apologizing for loving myself.

 

while i may not have been literally saying “i am sorry i need to prioritize my own needs”, when i would say “i am sorry i cannot make it to dinner on friday” and feel some type of guilt afterwards, i might as well have been apologizing for self-prioritization.  in 2015, i made a commitment to myself to say the word “no” more often.  “no” is a full sentence.  try it. no.

 

now, this was an adjustment.  not just for me but for those around me that had become ridiculously accustomed to me saying “yes” to absolutely everything, even if it meant running myself into the ground.  being that i was in grad school and working multiple jobs, something had to give.  i had an excellent boss (who is now more like an older sister), galina.  she asked us to set 10 intentions for the year and one of them had to deal with challenging yourself.  my challenge to myself was to use the word “no” more often.  by the end of 2015, i had mastered it.  i was like a two year old. it was oddly liberating but not quite freeing enough.  the true game changer was when i decided that for 2016, i would figure out how to remove the guilt associated with saying that oddly huge two letter word.  why was i feeling guilty about self-prioritization?

 

that shit had to stop.

 

ask yourself the following questions: what sense does it make to apologize for loving myself?  and furthermore, how can i properly love anyone else if i am not first doing it here, at home, with myself?  this realization, for me, was extraordinary.

 

do not apologize for growing (or outgrowing a person, place, job, situation, etc.).