I hardly ever do product reviews or giveaways.
Actually, I’ve never done a product review or giveaway.
And I’ve been blogging for nearly 4 years, so that’s a lot of free shit I’ve turned down.
Nothing against bloggers who do these things on a regular basis, it’s just not my thang. For starters, I’m pretty lazy. Secondly, I’m in a life-or-death battle against clutter; the last thing I need is MORE stuff in my house to sample and review. And thirdly, I am very picky. Honestly, for my first sponsored review, I am holding out for something epic like a Showcase Showdown prize package on The Price is Right. (Wish me luck.)
Sure, I’ve named a few products out of the goodness of my heart over the past few years that I love, like this, this, and this. And there was that one time I accidentally offered free sex in exchange for some unbroken taco shells. Actually, I got some coupons out of that hot mess, so that was cool. (Hi Jeff. Call me.)
Also, one time? (At Band Camp?) Because I was naive? And didn’t realize it was a slimy thing to do? I let some guy slip his link into one of my old posts for 50 bucks. It felt as dirty as it sounds. Oh well, live and learn.
But I’m getting to the point in my blogging career where I’d like to try different kinds of writing and maybe even eventually earn some fun money to support my addiction-du-jour.
So today, I’m going to attempt my first ever product review and giveaway! I’m doing it for a friend, fo’ free, because I need the practice, I love her, and she’s willing to be my guinea pig.
Meet Emily.
Isn’t she lovely?
She’s really funny too. If you follow her on Twitter, you already know this.
Emily makes jam.
But this is not your grandma’s jam. Oh no no no.
Emily has her own company called Emily G’s Jam of Love. She makes badass jams, sauces, and seasonings.
Jalapeño Raspberry and Strawberry Chipotle are my two favorites so far.
I like to serve the Strawberry Chipotle over a brick of softened cream cheese with crackers for an easy appetizer that is slap-yo-baby-good.
And you haven’t really lived until you’ve tried a Brie Quesadilla with Jalapeño Raspberry jam.
Emily sells her unique jams at retail locations all over the USA. She also partners with chefs and restaurants who want to use Jam of Love in their menus. Because FYI, jam isn’t just for PB&J sandwiches anymore! (*eye roll and tch-sound*)
With just a few basic ingredients, you can turn one of Emily’s jams into a sophisticated sauce that will liven up any dish. And she’s got a whole page of recipes and cheese pairings to make it easy for you.
Twice now, I’ve made Emily’s Salmon with Wine and Mustard recipe. As if a jam made with Cabernet Sauvignon could be anything BUT lick-the-plate worthy. This is my new go-to salmon dish…so easy, but so gooooooood. Even Bucket Head gobbled it up, and he tends to only eat paste-colored foods as a general rule.
Emily G's Salmon with Wine and Mustard, served with roasted broccoli and rice.
Check out the professional grill marks. My husband rocks.
So get this. Emily has offered to send one of my readers a custom gift box of three full-sized jams! Look how pretty:
This lovely gift box is valued at $29.99 and would make a fabulous Mother’s Day gift! Emily will even ship it directly to whomever you’d like, including a card if it’s a gift.
To enter the giveaway, just leave me a comment below (one comment per person, please). If it were any easier, you’d need a washcloth and a cigarette afterward.
And let’s make it interesting, m’kay? I want your comment to include a line about a time that your mom helped you out of a jam. (See what I did there?) If you can’t think of anything (for whatever reason)…
…you can tell us of a way that someone else helped you out of a jam.
Okay fine, just tell us about a jam, any jam. Keep it clean. Kidding. Go for it. Whatever.
I’ll start.
My mom sent her boyfriend to get my car out of an icy ditch before the cops could arrive and discover I was an underage driver.
That’s a true story, by the way. My mom’s boyfriend eventually became my step father, and the two of them have been regularly helping me out of jams for the past 27 years.
Okay, your turn!
I will randomly draw a winner on Friday 5/4/12 at 12:00 EDT. I will then notify the winner via email. If said winner doesn’t respond within 72 hours to said email, I will randomly pick another winner, rinse, and repeat. Don’t make me work too hard. Emily and I have things to do, people.
Garsh, did I mention this is my first giveaway. I hope I don’t muck it up too much. Please be gentle with me.
Oh yeah, there are rules:
- No duplicate comments.
- No purchase necessary.
- Void where prohibited.
- Always wipe from front to back.
- This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older. Do you know how hard it is to ship food out of the country? It’s hard. Sorry. Get over it.
Please note, I have NOT asked you to “like” The Bearded Iris on Facebook as part of this giveaway. It is my understanding that the FTC frowns on such behavior. But it wouldn’t kill you to show people how you feel. Be a mensch. It’s two clicks. And take a sweater; you never know.
with unconditional motherly love,
-Leslie (aka Iris)
This is not a sponsored post. I have received no compensation or goods in exchange for this review. All opinions are my own. Yes, they are real, and they are spectacular. COMMENTS ARE NOW CLOSED.
My jam requires much explanation. You see, I live and work at a storage facility. (We’re on site managers—don’t get too excited, it’s a really boring existence.) Anyhoo, one day, about 10 minutes after my husband left for work, I managed to lock myself out. Every door was locked tighter than Fort Knox, and my cell phone was on the OTHER side of those doors. No way to call the hubby so he could turn around and let me in. So, I did what I thought was necessary—started trying to break in through a window. Only problem—they’re really high. And I’m really short. So I pulled my golfcart (yes, I have a golfcart. Again, not as glamorous as it all sounds.) around to the only window with direct access to my living room. I managed to pop the screen out with minimal damage, and then began the wriggle of shame through the window frame. Fortunately, about the time I realized that I was going to break my neck while falling through the window onto my floor, my Daddy arrived for a surprise visit. With his set of extra keys.
He still tells the story of “Abby’s ass hanging out of the window” at all major holiday meals.
PS: I like jam better than Joey Tribianni. Just sayin’.
My mama helps me out of jams weekly. Like when I want to stay a happy hour a little later so she picks up my kids from daycare, or when I’m at home cooking dinner and REALLY need a bottle of wine (for the recipe of course!) so she’ll drop one by on her way home from work. It’s why you keep your family close! I wouldn’t have it any other way
My mom stood by patiently for a few years while I was with a bad boyfriend. Finally she had a long conversation with me about him and made me see how evil he was. Thanks goodness!!
And yeah for the give-away
I forgot about an assignment for a class in graduate school, until I got an incomplete on my grades over Christmas break. My mom drove me 5 hours back to school to get the assignment and make the simple phone call required to complet the assignment. We spent the night at my apartment, then drove right back. By the time I got back from break, my incomplete had changed to an A-.
My mama’s the best! I can always count on her, in any jam, but most recently it’s babysitting jams. If I flake and forget to find a sitter for a night when hubby and I both have to work and even if it’s the eleventh hour, she will hop in the car and drive 45 minutes to save my YKW. Love my mama!
MY momma just helped save me on this past Sunday. You see my oldest son was being confirmed and of course there was chaos to get myself and two younger children and ALL my siblings and their children out of the house and to church for a good seat. Being that my husband and I are struggling to fix up our house, aka WHITE TRASH FROM SOUTH DAKOTA…we have duct tape in the door jam for when that bathroom door occassionaly locks. Here’s where it gets good. Of ALL days, 2 minutes from leave time and actually 15 minutes past when I wanted to be in church…I am combing the youngest’s blond locks and the 2 of us get locked in the bathroom. There’s that little tell tale sign of rolled duct tape on the floor. I am screaming the F bomb over and over while the 5 year old is holding his hands over his ears, near tears and saying I dont want to be stuck in here! Finally I call to the MOMMA to save the day, she brings the ladder round to the window and saves the squirt and me and we make it to church AND get a front row seat! Thanks MOMMA JOY for saving my arse constantly!
It’s difficult to think of a time in my life when Mom wasn’t getting me out of jams. I owe that woman big time! Back in the ol’ days, she was the queen of last-minute homework help (coloring pictures, going to Pamida to get poster supplies, suggesting “sources” for research papers…). A few years ago, when I was single gal on a particularly horrible weekend trip with my feuding married friends, she called ahead to the hotel & reserved (and paid for!) a separate room for me so I could escape the incessant nastiness. And just last month, she and my sister came to the rescue the night before my daughter’s birthday party, cleaning, decorating, and arranging my home into a presentable party venue. Mom is my hero, no doubt about it.
During the last month of my pregnancy with my now six-year-old twins, I went to the doctor twice a week to have the babies heart rates monitored. The problem was, I couldn’t see my feet anymore, which made driving an issue. Since my husband was at work, my Mom would drive across town every Tuesday and Thursday, pick me up, and take me to the doctor. Now she drives across town just to give hugs and kisses to those grown-up babies. What a Mom/Grandma!
I called my mom one night while I was in college at one o’clock in the morning because I was crying and stressed and just missed my mom. After she made sure I was ok, she talked to me and even though, it was in her voice a little bit, at no point did she say, “um, you do know what time it is, right?”.
When I was in college, I commuted 45 minutes (one-way) and somehow forgot a paper at home (pretty important since it was the ONLY paper due in the class for the entire year) and my mom took off work at 10:00 a.m. on a Tuesday morning to use her “lunch break” to get my paper and drive it to me and then head home.
She’s pretty awesome and done way more than that, but I figured that one’s at least decent to post
Thanks!
My mom was always great at telling me I could blame her if I didn’t want to do something when I was in high school. I’d always say “I have to ask my mom first” and if I didn’t want to go here or go there with who ever, mom just told me to say “tell them you mom said you can’t go.” That got me out of numerous jams.
My momma let me continue to live with her when I came home knocked up at 19, so she’s super awesome! (As that whole “what-goes-around-comes-around” business would have it – my daughter is my mini clone in every way! So help me, Batman!)
I have a autistic son. He’s 6. Without my mom, well … my whole life would be one, long, jam encrusted hot mess.
My mom helps me out of jam’s constantly! Braces payments when we can’t make it happen, math tutoring for the kids, babysitting–you name it she does it. It is the little things that add up to a lot. So fortunate to have a mom that is such an important part of my life.
I not longer have my Mom to turn to in a jam , but she was forever sliding me a few dollars to buy the stuff that we did not ” need ” ( per say ) and she even bought me a car , when mine died – yes , she bought me a car . She really was the best Momma – and she also taught me to eat Jam on pancakes and crumpets …..
My Mama caught my barf…in her hands. God save the rattan rug my snooty Granny had just purchased. It stinks ’cause she’s the $#*t!
Well, shit. Even I would eat salmon (wretch!) if it looked like that! Where was this rocking jam when we needed it to douse questionable protein at EBWW????
Anyway. Jam. Jamming with mi madre. Ok, got one. When I was in HS and every bit the pasty Irish sexpot I am now (but think medium muffintop instead of extra grande), I wanted to fake and bake before the prom. I knew my dad would not approve (since he wasn’t a giant fan of cancer) but I persuaded my mama, and in the spirit of girlsjustwannahavefunandnotlooklikeCasparontheirfrackingpromnight, she let me take my fleeting chance with melanoma and didn’t tell my dad. Funny thing is, he even never noticed me going from the color of Domino Sugar to the color of an English muffin. And neither did my prom date, most likely.
But still.
IN Jam we trust,
Muffintopmommy
Well, if it’s that bad-ass, I’m in! (in between chemistry assignments!) And believe me, I won’t make you work hard at all!!!
-Robin
So, my mom has helped me out of so many JAMS over the years…..I guess the best story is where she was proactive in preventing me from getting JAMMED up to begin with. And by “jammed up”, i mean “knocked up”. You see, I was a naive teenager who had never held hands with, let alone dated a boy. When I was 18 years old I met my first boyfriend at my senior prom. No I didn’t steal him away from anyone, the girl he went with was just his friend, I swear! Anyhow, I guess that by the time I was 18 and a few months away from college I felt it was time to make up for lost time……and my mom saw the writing on the wall (or should I say the make-out sessions in the car). Since she didn’t want to be a Grandma in her 40′s, she did what any “Labor and Delivery Nurse/Mother of a Teenage Hornball Daughter” would do (at least a “Labor and Delivery Nurse/Mother of a Teenage Hornball Daughter” who worked before the days of HIPPA). She waited for “take your daughter to work day” and brought me to work one night (yes, night….didn’t I mention that she works the midnight shift?). She stuck me in a delivery room where a lovely (by lovely I mean sweaty and moaning) woman was laboring. I stood in the corner and saw it all! I heard every moan, cry and scream. I saw the crowning, the pushing out, and the cutting of the cord. It was messy, scary, and quite possibly the best birth control method in the world!! Let’s just say that not only did that boy have to wait for well over a year and a half to get a little something, but my mom was successful in her mission! No teenage mom here!!
My mom came to my house every day for three months after I had a very complicated spine surgery. It made up for every annoying thing she ever said or did as I was growing up:) In fact, during this time I said to her, “You are so much less annoying then you used to be” and she said, “I was just thinking the same thing about YOU!” Happy Mother’s Day to all!
I had a long, hard day…well, more long than hard. Anyway, I treated myself to a visit to your blog and I feel better already.
We were expecting our first child and living in a 1 bedroom apartment. She lent me the money for a down payment on our house. The mortgage payment was less than rent and we were able to provide our child with a safe place to live. I love my mom so much. She is everything that is good and happy in the world.
Good gravy there are a lot of comments around here these days. Damn famous blogger.
Anyway, it was actually my grandmother who helped me out of a jam…she and my grandfather offered to pay for my 5th semester of college as a loan. If I made a 4.0 they said they’d forgive the debt and pay for the next one. So, after nearly screwing up my collegiate future, I ended up with 4.0s for the last four semesters of college. And an editor of the school paper. Not that you could tell with my lovely sentence structure in this comment.
Muah. Love you Leslie.
That salmon looks uh-mazing. When I serve salmon, I’m always afraid someone is going to get a fork in the eyeball fighting over the last piece.
My mom’s pretty much awesome, but she’s a bit of a procrastinator. From her, I learned that adrenaline can fuel any last-second heroic effort, and that sliding under the wire with a pounding heart and sweaty palms is way more exciting than discipline and planning. Anyway, I wound up in a bit of a snafu when I was in 6th grade. We were assigned a paper to write – at least 10 pages long – about a civilization we had studied in history. I think we were given a month to finish it. Sadly, the day before it was due, I hadn’t even started. My mom stayed up with me ALL. NIGHT. LONG. I dictated my paper while she typed. She took me to the all-night copy place to make copies of pictures of cool civilization-y stuff. She helped me punch and bind that sucker and she recommended that I add a clear plastic cover. (Did I mention that my mom also taught me to be a perfectionist, even at 3am?) My report wound up being over 20 pages long, and I got the highest score of any student that year. Plus a massive adrenaline rush, and a really happy memory. Awww, thanks mom!
Cheers,
Sarah
My mom helped me learn how to insert a tampon. No, not literally – because that would be really gross and disturbing, and yet you would not believe how many Google searches for that very thing bring people to my blog since I actually wrote about it last Mother’s Day, to the complete horror of my father: http://www.saidkristin.com/2011/05/mothersday/
But figuratively-speaking, she did indeed help me learn how to insert a tampon (via a little tough love). And considering I was 14 years old at the time and scared of shoving a little cotton stick up my hoo-ha with absolutely no inkling for what a PENIS would feel like, I’d say she certainly helped me out of a jam.
My jam(s) always relate back to my mom. She is the best person I know and is always willing to help me out. She knew my husband and I wanted to send our son to private school but knew we couldn’t addord it. So her being the most generous person I know, offered to pay for his tutition in full for as long as he goes there, 1 year or 8, it didn’t matter. And to top it off, her and my stepdad gave my son the best 1st birthday gift ever, his college education paid in full. My son is only 3!!! What better parents/gradnparents could I ask for??
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