Mean Girls

Mean Girls

Halloween is upon us in just a few days, and in the spirit of all things scary I’ve chosen to feature a movie that depicts the scariest thing of all- high school. Forget serial killers, zombies, and ghosts; the real terror of my life has been choosing the right cafeteria table. Additionally, this film’s commentary on women’s Halloween costumes is just priceless- “In the regular world, Halloween is when children dress up in costumes and beg for candy. In Girl World, Halloween is the one night a year when a girl can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it.” Yep, sounds about right.

Mean Girls is based on the non-fiction book “Queen Bees and Wannabes” by Rosalind Wiseman. The movie tells the story of Cady Heron (played by an unusually fresh-faced Lindsay Lohan), who grew up in Africa with her globetrotting parents, but is now plunked down in an American high school. She makes friends first with the artsy kids (my personal clique-of-choice in high school) but then gets slowly sucked into the world of popular girls (aka The Plastics). This movie is hilarious in its depiction of the social strata, but also chillingly real too. Girls can be VERY mean, and not just the popular ones. In the end the film gets tied up in a nice harmonious little bow, which is a shame because that so very rarely happens in real life. If this were real life, I predict that over summer vacation everyone conveniently forgets to be nice to each other, and the whole system of queen bees and wannabes resets itself.

Because The Plastics make a big deal out of wearing pink (only on Wednesdays!), I think this drink is a perfect fit. It may not be spooky or scary, but it’s DELICIOUS and it totally makes me wish Amy Poehler (aka “the cool mom”) would have mixed me up a batch of these back in the day for an underage cocktail hour. For Mean Girls, I’m serving up the Pink Lady Problem:

1 ¼ oz gin

½ oz lemon juice

½ oz grenadine

1 egg white

Pour the ingredients into a cocktail shaker with ice cubes. Shake vigorously. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

You may say, isn’t the consumption of raw egg whites in a cocktail dangerous? Perhaps, but in general the alcohol will kill most germs that are in there. I love egg white cocktails, and I’m excited to feature one here. The egg whites add a creaminess that is so different from most drinks, plus it’s a fun excuse to work out your upper arms while you shake it up. So pop in a Toaster Strudel, perhaps slip into your Halloween costume that’s really just “lingerie and some form of animal ears”, mix up some drinks, grab your 3 closest frenemies, and say a prayer of thanks that you only have to experience high school once in your life. Cheers!