La Tequila del Mayo

This year's annual Cinco de Mayo party went a little differently than the past few.  We had a few more people, a little less food, a lot more tequila, and perhaps a shorter duration.  All that doesn't lead to less fun though, but it's still interesting to see how a few small changes can effect planning in a few ways.

So there we were, Saturday morning, afternoon, and early evening (and some of Friday evening actually) throwing everything together before people got there.  With a short interlude between cooking, cleaning, and decorating (more later), Grace and attempted to make the apartment presentable before the arrival of our guests.  Luckily, I think that part was mostly successful.

Thankfully, everyone arrived promptly and hungry.  A main goal for myself this year was to cut down on a stuffed fridge of leftovers that tends to plague us for weeks.  Not that I don't enjoy Mexican food, but just that it can be a bit overwhelming.  I tried a new recipe, some different ingredients, and some different techniques, and for the most part, it seemed to work out.  What we're left with now is a healthy portion of meats left over and not too many sides, always a good thing if you ask me.

What's good about Cinco, is that it can also be educational.  Not educational in the sense of learning about what Cinco is all about (although Bill's got the straight story), but personally in learning recipes and especially about Tequila. I learned that Partida is an evil brand that everyone liked for it's extremely subtle flavor and scent, Don Julio is especially fruity and deep, Casa Noble is a rich brand with a dark strawberry flavor, and Cazadores still stands as the best emerging mainstream brand yet.

My favorite part though, has to be just sharing the fun and the food with everyone.  I love getting my family recipes out there and paying homage to my heritage in a way that I can only do so often and remembering where all of this knowledge came from in the first place.

It also helps when a few luchador masks are involved as well.

All pictures of said event can be found in my flickr photo set.  Solid times.