Well, we weren’t going to get through the month of October without mentioning Tim Burton. That’d just be silly.
Image from IMDB
The Nightmare Before Christmas is such a great movie y’all, but I don’t need to tell you that. I’m sure you’ve seen it dozens of times. This may very well be Tim Burton’s masterpiece. The claymation is just astonishing, the music is lovely, Danny Elfman‘s finest really, and the story so touching. I mean, it is essentially about a skeleton having an existential crisis, how crazy is that?
Who hasn’t had an existential crisis?! I have one every other day.
Halloween only comes once a year, so I try to cram as many Halloween-related activities into the weeks surrounding the holiday as possible. Luckily the weekend before Halloween (I guess, in reality, the weekend before the weekend before Halloween) was filled with spooky activities.
On Friday night the Scrap Exchange, which is still doing awesomely in its new space at Golden Belt, opened the exhibit An Offering:La Ofrenda. The exhibit is a series of Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) altars created by Durham artistic community members. The exhibit, which runs until November 12th, is meant to be collaborative, people can bring photos and mementos of loved ones to add to the altars throughout the show. Some of the altars are quite beautiful and moving.
Saturday we threw on our best stage blood and joined the undead at the Raleigh Zombie Walk. While it was not the best-organized event of all time, it was pretty fun. Approximately 200 zombies clustered around the acorn at Moore Square and at 7:00 we started lurching around downtown Raleigh. I’m not sure what route we took (I don’t know downtown Raleigh all that well) but I know we went by the Capitol Building where we saw some Occupiers (who looked a little worse than we did, eek!) and we also shambled past Beasley’s Chicken and Honey on Martin Street.
Also from Martha (duh) are these great savory pumpkin puffs. They look easy to customize, so I might make some sweet ones as well.
Jon’s planning on making little meatballs (recipe not yet determined) and if I don’t serve mini pigs in blankets my party guests will revolt.
We have black and orange tortilla chips (we found them at Target!) and will have salsa and guacamole of course. Jon makes some killer deviled eggs, I’m going to see if he can customize them Martha style.
I’m still trying to figure out my dessert. Maybe the bootiful cake? Some cupcakes? I made this graveyard pudding cake last Halloween, it is one of my mother’s standards:
So um, my mom’s version definitely looks better (I decorate cakes with all the talent of a blind five-year old), but mine tasted just fine. If anyone has any dessert ideas please let me know! We’re less than one week until the happy day!
I know, I know, this blog has become such an alliterative horror show. Mrs. Janoff would be disgusted, but it is Halloween and it is my blog and I can resort to alliterative cliches if I want to!
Also, guys, guess what? I’m starting a new job today! Hopefully it goes well and hopefully as you are reading this I am enjoying a happy and fun first day. Fingers crossed!
So I haven’t done a dessert-centric food post yet and I plan on laying out my Halloween party menu tomorrow. Therefore, today’s post is going to be all about desserts from Martha!
This is the prettiest cake, it really is. I think it’d be great as a red velvet (bloody insides!) with cream cheese icing.
This isn’t something I’d actually make–too complicated–but this Haunted House cake is also beautiful!
For something a little lighter but still just as festive, check out these little orange sorbets inside oranges carved to look like jack-o-lanterns.
If you are into candy making you should give these white chocolate ghosts a try. Martha has a lot of different candy making options on her site. I’m personally fine with my Reeses and Snickers, but if anyone tries any of Martha’s candymaking recipes you should totally let me know!
Also: Cupcakes cupcakes cupcakes. Here are some of my favorites.
Hi friends! Boy I had a lot of stage blood on last night. The Raleigh Zombie Walk was super fun and I took some pictures. I’ll post them later this week once I get them sorted and edited. I know, the anticipation is killing you!
I’ll be carving my pumpkins today, so I figured it would be appropriate to give y’all some resources on the best ways to carve your pumpkins.
Since Martha Stewart is awesome she has a guide to a whole party centered around pumpkin carving. I am already having a regular ol’ Halloween party, so I decided not to have a pumpkin carving party, but I have been to some uber-fun pumpkin carving parties in the past. Like this one:
This is what my pumpkins looks like last year. Or, rather, mine was the creepy bat and Jon’s was the cute owl:
You can see my tin can jack-o-lanterns in the foreground. I’m still trying to figure out what to carve for this year! Any ideas?
Both Martha Stewart and Serious Eats have lots of pictures if you need some inspiration.
Of course one of the best parts about carving your own pumpkin is having the leftover seeds to roast! Serious Eats has a guide to roasting pumpkin seeds as well. Delicious!
The Dilettantista 