Spring Appreciation Party

My bf Zack's older sister Kari had a party on Chicago's south side in Hyde Park last night. Before leaving for Hyde Park, we had a quick dinner of freshly cut apple slices (the very one that you see as my background for this blog), macaroni and cheese out of a box (Zack's idea of a good meal) and some oven-toasted herb and cheese french bread. I used dried herbs and some grated pecorino romano cheese with some olive oil. I've used dried and fresh herbs before, but I don't find that one is particularly better than the other when toasted in the oven with butter and/or olive oil. I love making variations of herbs, cheese and/or garlic bread for a very quick and simple snack or meal.

While Zack wanted to bring a bottle of Jagermeister to the party, I immediately said no to that and decided to get some rum, limes and mint leaves to make Mojito drinks. Once we got to the party, the first thing I did was make Kari, Zack and myself some Mojitos. While I've enjoyed my share of Mojitos before, I've never actually made one before. I followed the directions off of some random site for how to make Mojitos, but somehow I couldn't prevent pieces of leaves from floating to the top of the drink. It was pretty annoying to get pieces of mint leaves stuck in your mouth or stuck to the rim of the glass every time you took a sip. I thought the problem was because I only used the leaves (instead of a "sprig" which I'm assuming includes the stems) and ripped them into little shreds before putting it in the glass. For the next attempt, I took the blunt end of a spoon and lightly crushed the leaves with some sugar. That didn't seem to keep the mint from floating up either but, wtf, it tasted good. Sometimes, they make Mojitos with too much sugar so it ends up tasting really sweet and you lose the refreshing lime and mint flavor combination. I used the sugar sparingly so I think the drinks turned out great. I will have to figure out what to do with the mint leaves floating up for next time.

The party was great because 1) I got to meet Kari's new Italian boyfriend and 2) I got to practically harass all the guests who were leaving by making each person tell a joke before he or she left. We started this tradition at Kari's last party in December. Some people who bad sports about it and left without telling a joke, but most people played along. Among the jokes told, here are some of the funnier ones (the last joke is the one I told and I heard this one from a Canadian guy I work with):

What do you get when you cross a penis and a potato? A dick-tator.
What do you call a blonde with pigtails? A blow-job with handlebars.
Why is sex on the beach like American beer? 'Cuz it's fucking close to water.