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After a gorgeous walk through the park, I spent the early part of Halloween handing out candy to little ones. Then it was off for some sushi, and a meander down Mass Street where I met the legendary John Brown, alive and well. I also hung out with a manly (but hilarious) Sarah Palin, a lovely pirate wench, and a suitably dressed Scot.
More pictures here.
Hold on to your hearts bitches, it's Moe, the beach-dude-dog, here to wish you a very Happy Halloween!
This months Daring Bakers challenge--from Rosa of Rosa's Yummy Yums--was to make pizza. And not just to make it, but to toss it as well!
I made the dough according to the recipe (which was just slightly different from the one we usually use) and tossed it as required. (The dogs were very, very interested in the tossing process.) However--as this was another one made on vacation--I cooked the pizza over the campfire. It ended up a little "blackened" in a few places, but (topped with mushrooms, onions, and creamy cheese sauce) it was still very good.
For the recipe, read on.
And now for the most important statistics of the year!
Our first fire was attempted on Wednesday, October 22, and successfully completed on Friday, October 24. (Not the greatest wood for the first try!)
Our first frost was this morning. Although it's not quite as exciting as waking up to the first snowflakes, it's certainly a start!
For my girlies for Halloween, I decided to make a batch of sugar skulls as an extra treat to be tucked into a bag o' candy and decorated for fun. Of course, I had to decorate one for myself too.
I decided to experiment with using paint instead of icing this year. I chose t-shirt pain for ease of application. It bled into the sugar just a little--especially where I got it on too thick--but not bad on the whole, and much easier than mixing a bunch of different colors of icing!
(For more info about making sugar skulls, see here.)
Created this weekend with the eager help of Sweet Sister. (I'm glad she likes the gooey parts....) I was thinking of doing a Barack o' Lantern and entering Yes We Carve, but in the end decided electioneering and pumpkineering do not necessarily need to mix. (There are some really fun ideas there though, so definitely check it out!)
Nice Mom and Sister came up this weekend to hang out and tailgate at the KU Homecoming with us. The game itself was....awful painful unfortunate, but other than that, a good time was had. It was a beautiful day, so we walked downtown for some post-game shopping and dinner. Then Sweet Husband bankrupted us all in Monopoly. More pictures are here.
I'm feeling all Halloween-y lately--thinking of all my favorite spooky stories and movies.
Like the ghost story that used to scare the bejesus out of me as a child. It was about a china doll that was actually a vampire and sucked her young owner's blood one night. The end was truly horrific--the girl's parents never figured out exactly how the girl died, but only found the china doll with a smear of blood across its face.
Or the Poltergeist movies. Wow. One night when I was much-too-young, a babysitter let me watch one (I still don't know which--the one with the man that looks like the Quaker Oats box?). I couldn't sleep in a room with a mirror in it for...well, come to think of it, it still gives me the heebs.
For this week's poll:
What are some of your favorite scary stories and movies? Why do you think it is that they give you the creeps?
Comment and discuss.
(Photo c/o.)
Sweet Husband likes his chicken noodles over mashed-potatoes. (I think--although it's tasty--that's a lot of starch.) I like mine, just like Mom used to make, with a drop or two of yellow food coloring to make it look all golden and tasty. (He says that's adding "artificial colors".)
Last weekend, a compromise!
Yummy, yellow chicken and real-live-homemade noodles, over a gooey mashed-potato filled bowl.
For the recipe, read on.
1. Take a walk with the plesant company of your choice. Collect pretty-pretty leaves.
2. Gather the leaves up in groups of 5 or 6 and twist floral wire around the stems to secure.
3. Tuck the leaf bunches into the crevices of a grapevine wreath. Hang on door. Enjoy!
(And if you have lots of leaves, be like Martha and go wild with an entire leaf garland.)
UPDATE: Some great pictures from a guy that was standing next to me are here. (I have total lens-envy!)
As mentioned yesterday, Sweet Husband and I drove over to KC last night to hear Barack Obama speak at the Liberty Memorial. We got there at 3 p.m. and the line was already at least a few miles long--my calves are still a little sore from trekking all the way to the back of the line and then to the front again, all up and down hills! 
But standing in line was far from boring--the people watching was fantastic! There were old people, young people, all different races, all different kinds. There were cutie-pie "Babies for Barack", and rebellious-looking pre-teens wearing t-shirts for "Change". There were yuppies in track suits and hippies in dreadlocks, all wearing "Obama" buttons. There were serious looking college students ("Rock Chalk Barack") and hundreds of teachers ("NEA for Obama"). There were a few solitary, elderly gentlemen obviously sporting their Sunday best, and bunches of little old ladies standing in groups, furiously chatting. My favorites? Two homemade t-shirts, "Knitters for Obama" and "Elitists for Obama"--seriously, how much fun!
At about five we finally got up to the area where the speech was to take place, and, lo and behold, ran into a friend from high school who had also come over for the day. (Hi Melissa!) We passed the time catching up, and before we knew it the introductory speakers were starting.
Obama's speech was pretty much what you've heard if you've been paying attention. He told the pie story, and talked about the economy, taxes, and Iraq. Sweet Husband--the taller of the two of us--tried to take some pictures, but we were so far away that he was basically just a speck. There are better shots here.
I did get a decent video of the last few minutes of the speech though.
A few more to cross-off on the Omnivore's Hundred....
...Wasabi Peas. The Asian equivalent of spicy peanuts, I'm not even sure that I really like these but somehow they're addictive nonetheless!
...Raw scotch bonnet pepper. I forgot that I'd planted scotch bonnets until I found some in my garden a few weeks ago. I was nervous for this one, so I had a glass of milk at the ready. While the peppers were certainly warm, once the hot subsided the aftertaste was very nice. I think one in a pot of chili could do great things.
...a Big Mac Meal. We rarely eat fast food except when we're on the road, when we often grab a cheeseburger and eat it in the car. For the Big Mac though, we actually went in and sat down because they're kind of messy. How does the song go? Two all-beef patties, special sauce....??? Anyway, although it was enough calories for two meals, it was some yummy, yummy junk food!
...a S'more. Two of the three nights we were at Rock Eddy, we had a fire and S'mores. I like my marshmallows a little burnt, Sweet Husbands likes them perfectly browned--either way, there's nothing bad about chocolate, graham crackers, and gooey marshmallow happiness!
To see how I'm progressing on the Omnivore's Hundred, click here.
A mini-challenge for my fellow read-a-thon'ers....
Ever since I was a little girl I've collected quotes--from books, from people, from road signs--but some of my favorites are from J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books. From Dumbledore's advice to Harry in the first book ("It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live," a good thing to remember for all avid readers) to Ron's funny jabs at Hermione ("You should write a book--translating mad things girls do so boys can understand them!") there are just some great bits!
So for the mini-challenge, give me a great quote from the book you're reading right now. Be sure to say what book it's from, and also leave me some way to contact you. My completely arbitrarily picked favorite will win my spare "Muggles for Harry Potter" pin and a lovely bookmark generously donated by Heather at Errant Dreams (see her pretty etsy store here). I'm headed off to an Obama rally this afternoon, so I won't choose a winner until I get back--we'll say 8 or 9 tonight--but the challenge officially closes at 3 p.m. central time so I won't consider any quotes left after that.
Find something good and have fun reading!
Today is The Hidden Side of a Leaf's 24 hour Read-a-Thon. Although I intended to read for the better part of the afternoon, life has intervened, and I'm only going to be able to read for a few hours this morning.
In my stack? The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million by Daniel Mendelsohn (I made the mistake of stopping just as the second of the author's family members was about to be killed, and haven't been able to talk myself into picking this back up all week), and The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge (highly recommended by one of my favorite authors and hopefully a little lighter).
I will be updating via twitter (see feed at right) as I go. You can check out the list of others who are read-a-thon'ing today here, and the way-fun prizes that will be up for grabs here. In addition, if you're participating in the read-a-thon, please come back around noon when I'm hosting my own mini-challenge.
For my fourth book/movie for the Lit Flicks Challenge (see my post here) I read What Dreams May Come by Richard Matheson and watched the movie What Dreams May Come.
I realize I'm starting to lose my credibility when I say I never say this, but, again, I really liked the movie better.
I first saw the movie when I was a senior in high school, and it instantly became one of my favorites. It just made so much sense to me--the idea that heaven and hell are not ruled by a human-like god, but rather are what we make them in living our lives. It was broad-brush about the details, to be sure, but on the other hand, it really didn't need to fill them in.
The book tries to explain too much. It gets into the mechanics of reincarnation, spiritual doctors and gurus, psychics, and the "science" of it all--it ends up just being hokey.
It feels heretical to say it, but watch the movie, skip the book.
Just in time for the last of the really good green beans, this wonderful beef carpaccio recipe from that lovable Brit Jamie Oliver. The step about smashing the beef as you slice it makes the dish--it's like sushi with steak!
For the recipe, read on.
Continue reading "Beef Carpaccio with Marinated Bean Salad" »
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