Quick & Easy Margaritas

Lauren1 Comment

Extended Title: Quick & Easy Margaritas That Taste Like Heaven & Make You Feel Amazing… Until The Next Morning.

I’m pretty picky about margaritas.  I wanted to say that as “I have refined taste in margaritas” but something about the fact that I like the sweet and not too strong tasting stuff, makes me think “refined” isn’t the right word for it.  And is maybe the opposite word for it.  So picky seems more appropriate.

Sweet.  Strong, but doesn’t taste strong.  Salt rim.  Or even better, a salt AND sugar rim.  That’s what I’m all about.  None of those tiny-glass coin-style things for me.  And since Joey and I have been on a homemade marg roll for the past few weeks and since margaritas were our signature wedding cocktail (that seriously messed up half our guests…), I thought I’d share our fool-proof recipe.  Oh and because Cinco de Mayo is Tuesday, so this post has no business remaining in my drafts folder!

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Step 1: Mix equal parts boiling water and sugar until sugar dissolves and bam, the quickest simple syrup there ever was.  You should probably let it cool in the fridge before mixing up your marg, though.

Step 2: In a shaker, mix the following:

  • 2 oz. Tequila
  • 1 oz. Triple Sec
  • Juice of 1 lime
  • 1.5 oz. simple syrup
  • Handful of ice
  • Optional: 2 oz. blood orange juice

Step 3: Mix equal parts sugar and salt on a plate, rub lime around the rim of your glass then coat in the sugar/salt mixture.

Step 4: Pour and enjoy!

But seriously, take caution, they don’t taste strong and they go down like water, but the next thing you know, you wake up Sunday morning with a headache and wax from your new outdoor citronella candles in your hair.

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P.S. Can we take a minute to talk about Spring 2015?  Specifically, how perfect it is.  Like how the sun comes out earlier and stays out later so there’s time to take a nap after work and still fit in three episodes of The Wire before bedtime, or time to bake cookies before you go on a run and it’s still light out when you get back.  And not to mention those blossoms and dining al fresco or the fact that it feels like this spring is lasting forever and I’m not even mad about it.

It’s all such a dream, isn’t it?

A Book Review: The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

Lauren2 Comments

It’s book club day!  Which means I liked my first meeting enough to go a second time.  Would you look at me just voluntarily going to social gatherings by myself without knowing a single person.  Who am I?  And is this what they call “personal growth”?

This month’s book was The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North (<– the author’s pen name!) and though the synopsis on the back cover had me prepared to read a more serious book version of Groundhog Day, it turned out to be much more thought-provoking, substantial and complex than Bill Murray waking up on Groundhog Day over and over and over again.

IMG_7745Quick Plot Overview: Harry August is a member of the Cronus Club, a group of unique human beings that are reborn to the same place and time every time they die.  The eventual crux of the story is his mission to find the other Kalachakra (that’s the technical term for his species) that is responsible for speeding up the evolution of technology and causing the end of the world sometime in the future.

Wait, WUUUUUT?

Yeah, I know, it’s kind of confusing and kind of hard to wrap your head around at first, but that’s kind of what makes it such a cool and interesting book!  Also, I think I used up my KIND OF quota in that last sentence…  The book is on the longer side of things, but I found it surprisingly easy to whip through because it’s such an imaginative concept and North has a total handle on the boundaries of that concept.  And though the climax of the book doesn’t seem to come until later on, just hearing about Harry’s different lives is plenty attention-holding.

My one complaint is that for being a longer book and really taking its time with the set up, the ending seemed a little rushed.  Otherwise, I really really enjoyed this one!  Anything science-related is pretty over my head but I didn’t feel like that really made a difference in my overall understanding of the plot.  One last word of caution: if you actually think about the concept of re-starting life in the same place every time after you die, your brain will explode.