Halloween 2010 Recap

Halloween this year was pretty great. I didn't think I would enjoy it being on Sunday, but it was actually really awesome. Since Halloween was on the last day of the weekend, everyone basically celebrated it all weekend, having parties on Friday and Saturday. We went to a few parties, including the VRA party on Saturday, and then just had a calm Sunday. This was especially good, since I was called in to work at 8 am Sunday, and had to work at 8 am Monday, and I don't think I could have handled doing much of anything on Sunday.

I know most MoFoers did their Halloween recaps yesterday, but I couldn't wait to post my Conan's review, so I'm a day late. JD and I went as Snow White and Bigby Wolf from Bill Willingham's Fables. These costumes are, admittedly hard to identify, since both characters look human. Basically, the series is about the Fable community being real and living our mundane New York City after having to flee their homelands because of The Adversary. Snow White's origins (described in detail in 1001 Nights of Snowfall) are much darker than the original fairy tale, which is unusual and makes her a bit more interesting, and in the regular storyline, she's the deputy mayor of Fabletown, though she really runs it. Bigby Wolf is the Big Bad Wolf of all the Fables. He's now a detective and general peacekeeper in Fabletown, and looks like an average, slightly rumpled and hirsute noir detective.

While I knew it would be hard to guess what we were, I figured some of our friends were geeky enough to have at least read Fables, but I was wrong. People thought I was "a lady president", "someone from a lawyer TV show", and "Nanny 911". Total fail. We had wanted to go as Jason and Melissa from Home Movies, but thought it was a little too obscure, and were having a hard time finding all the orange pieces JD would have needed. At work, I went as Wednesday Adams, because I thought it would be less constricting and more recognizable, but somehow, everyone though I was Pocahontas, because braids always equal Pocahontas. Even when you're wearing all black, with super a high buttoned collar. Oh well.

The best costume I saw this weekend was, no doubt, Danielle from VegAustin.com as Edward Scissorhands. There were two really awesome couple costumes, Strawberry Shortcake and the Purple Pieman, and two of the characters from Kingdom Hearts (sorry, I'm not familiar with the games or characters). Some of my favorite costumes were Dr. Horrible, Codex from The Guild, Saul Tigh from BSG, one member of the Vegan Police from Scott Pilgrim and Liz Lemon and Frank from 30 Rock.

For the VRA potluck party I was planing on making something savory until I happened upon some tiny brain molds, and knew I'd have to make zombie cupcakes. I made two kinds of cake, vanilla bourbon and devil's food, and two kinds of icing, vanilla blackberry, and chocolate créme, plus raspberry syrup and cocoa raspberry custard brains. I was pretty worried about the syrup causing the brains to slide off the cakes, or everything becoming a big gloppy mess because of the syrup, so I decided to make little concave icing moats to keep the syrup all contained. Basically, instead of making a mound of icing that's taller in the middle of each cupcake, I had to make a depression by building the edges of the icing up around the edges. I also decided not to pour the syrup on until we arrived at the party. These steps seemed to work well, because the cakes arrived intact and looking nice and gruesome.

There was a tons of awesome dishes, and we couldn't even try everything because we were so full, but some of the standouts were the pizza, the chocolate chip cookies, the massive chocolate chocolate chip cookies, the gorgeous cake shaped like a vampire Barbie, and, the treat both JD and I enjoyed most, chocolate pomegranate clusters.

We weren't actually sure what they were at first, because the chocolate encapsulated everything, but we're never ones to turn down vegan chocolate. Expecting some kind of puffed grain or nut cluster, I was completely surprised by the immediate burst of tart juice that flooded my mouth! Suddenly, there was a crunch, and I realized I had just eaten some pomegranate arils, coated in a thick, hard layer of rich and perfectly sweet chocolate. This idea so simple, I don't know why it's not more popular. It's also astoundingly delicious, and, with a double whammy of antioxidants, fiber from the pomegranate seeds, and no poor quality fats from dairy, these are a perfect treat(I also found out today that Laura made them). This is definitely something I'll have to try, and soon.

As I said, I had to work at 8 on Sunday, so I was pretty tired Sunday evening and decided to watch a mini marathon of all my favorite episodes of Buffy, while giving out candy. I think I got about 20 minutes into my first episodes before I fell asleep.

All in all, we had a great weekend full of yummy food, tasty beer, good company, fantastic costumes, and adorable kids.