Detours off Britta Blvd

I do really like having Halloween week to enjoy after my party is over, especially when I did NOT get sick this year! Unfortunately I still got too busy with other fun social events, including Margarita Friday in costume, and the Gourmet Chocolate Walk in San Francisco as "grownup trick or treating" on Saturday afternoon, so I still didn't get the chance to carve a pumpkin after all...darn! Maybe next year...except that since Halloween will be on a Sunday, I'll probably barely have party stuff cleaned up enough for the photo shoot while I get trick or treaters at my door... :)

So, on with the Halloween 2009 Party Post-Mortem! Another fantastic big bash for Halloween at Castle Brittahytta! Numbers were back up this year to 54 including 6 kids ranging from newborns to teens, and I still absolutely LOVE the enthusiasm of my guests! That makes all the lack of sleep and hard work & pitfalls in party prep totally worth it! :)

( The Final Push of Party Prep )

( The Party )

Here are the contest results! *drum roll please...*

Scariest Costume: Sean the Executioner
Most Original Costume: Ruth & Gail the Groovy Girl Britta Dolls (really there is a Britta doll!)
Ultimate Costume: The Barbieri Pirates

Creepy Cuisine:
Skones with Blood Raspberry Jam by Tracia
"Dead" Cow Teriyaki Flank Steak by Kevin C
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bundt Cake & Candy Corn Cookies by Maureen & Robert
Decapitare Pumpkinus Experimenti Exhibits A-J by Lyle & Galt (pumpkin yogurt with fruit & nuts in real hollowed-out mini-pumpkins)
Jack O Lantern Cheese Ball by Glen
Chocolate Chai Coffin Cake by Cyndee
"Demented Owls" Chocolate Covered Bacon by Ruth (sorry no photo but it was tasty!)

Since I had so much surprise house-elf help this year, I decide to publicly give House-Elf Honors too! Thanks SO much for all the help! :)

House-Elf Honors: Kael, Melanie, Rubby (Ruth), Glenny, Hoppy (Gail), Lori, Ashlyn, Tracia


As is always the case, I kept focusing on how much of my crazy, overachieving list did NOT get done, but I did have a lot of new stuff this year! :)

( New Projects )


Halloween 2009 - Miss Hermione G. Wells in her laboratory at Castle Brittahytta


This year was interesting since there were so many different groups of people who all had fun together! My elementary school friend Debi drove over from Sacramento with her husband for a full Bay Area weekend away from their kids, more Margarita Friday people came, others brought friends I'd never met, and even a couple co-workers stopped by! There were way too many all at once for me to make introductions, so I'm glad everyone was comfortable enough to introduce themselves. I've seen a lot of new friending happening on Facebook this past week or so, with my party as the epicenter...haha!

Full photos are in Gallery as always...HUUUUGE thanks to Tracia & Kevin C. for getting great photos during the party! I am in the market for a new "prosumer" camera, since my current camera was frustrating me SO much, I actually charged up my ancient Nikon Coolpix 995 from 2001 to take better low-light photos of my decor, especially outside. Suggestions & recommendations are welcome, and a couple front-runners are the Canon G11 and the Canon S90...G11 might win since even though it's larger to carry around, I can get an attachment to add filters...a polarizing filter for my next international trip would be VERY nice!

Now to clean up, put Halloween away properly, and get out Christmas decorations! I already have chosen the date for my holiday party in December... :)

I'm still working on the party post-mortem, which will now be combined with Halloween day plans, but before I might forget, here is the press coverage I know about this season:

In the About.com Pool & Patio section:
Eerie Elegance Author Shares Secrets for Outdoor Halloween Decorations & Parties:
An Interview with Britta Peterson, Webmistress of the Dark
(keep reading past the ads in the middle)

Eerie Elegance radio interview with Shannon Medaglia on Edmonton, Alberta, Canada's 104.9 Easy Rock - October 31st, 2009

Thanks to Lisa & Shannon for such nice interviews!


From googling, I found myself and/or book mentioned on a few other blogs & such...

Host a wicked Halloween party
Sunday, April 26th, 2009

All Hallows Eve Menu & Digital Freebie
Sunday, September 27, 2009

Foodie Halloween
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009

Halloween Party Ideas
Friday, October 30th, 2009


I hope everyone had a horribly haunted Happy Halloween! :)

For the last episode for the 2009 Halloween season, learn how to make one of the very first spooky recipes in the Eerie Elegance repertoire - the Haunted Human Heart that bleeds tasty raspberry syrup! That's it for 2009, and I only realized while editing that brings me up to lucky spooky number THIRTEEN podcasts total since I started! How perfect is that? ;)

You can watch the entire episode from EerieElegance.com, it's split into part 1 & part 2 on YouTube, and on iTunes by searching for "Eerie Elegance" or by subscribing to the series. You can join my over 220 Eerie Elegance Facebook fans if you like, and the Eerie Elegance Agonizing Accessories store on Zazzle.com is open for business. Book sales are still going strong...still no day since August with zero sales!

Eerie Elegance - Haunted Human Heart


My party this past weekend was a grand success with over 50 guests who had a blast, and I'm still writing up my party post-mortem & organizing photos, so that will come later this week...but tonight is my first chance at a relaxing evening, so I'm going to take advantage to rest in my eerily elegant decor & maybe convince a kitty or two to cuddle, since I haven't really sat down much all weekend!

I hope everyone has a fabulous Halloween!

Current Location: Castle Brittahytta

Eerie Elegance 2009 Episode 8 is out today, showing how to mix your own experimental Spontaneous Sentience as one of the many possible Laboratory Libations! You even get a sneak peek of my new Steampunk Study in process. Only one more episode on the schedule for 2009!

You can watch the entire episode from EerieElegance.com, YouTube and iTunes by searching for "Eerie Elegance" or by subscribing to the series. You can join my almost 200 Eerie Elegance Facebook fans if you like, and the Eerie Elegance Agonizing Accessories store on Zazzle.com is open for business. Book sales are still going strong...no day since August with zero sales!

Eerie Elegance - Spontaneous Sentience


This weekend was a frantic push to make up for lost time from Star Wars in Concert, but thankfully I got a lot done! It was several weeks behind my intended schedule, but at least I got the cardboard mockup made for the gingerbread haunted mansion yesterday! The back is all open like a dollhouse except for the top tower, so you'll be able to see through the windows from the front, but I can turn on lights & set up figures inside from the back, plus people can see even more details by turning it. It's on a leftover chunk of EcoTop counter from the kitchen remodel sitting on my large wooden lazy susan like the Hogwarts castle was. Since there's no way it'll move from the table without a lot of help, so it's on the skull lace tablecloth with plastic protection over it for now...glad I thought of that before I started actually building anything! I like the design, loosely inspired by Addams family & a couple other mansard roof Edwardian/Victorian houses. It should be relatively easy to bake & assemble, less pieces in number but larger pieces than the Hogwarts castle, and then the decoration is what will make it cool. I have to make all the quiz characters & accessories the next couple evenings, then bake the gingerbread Wednesday night or Thursday day. Since it rained again on Monday, I'm not putting any gravestones out or paper decor on the patio until the day before the party so they won't get ruined.

I steampunked a LOT of random lab stuff on Saturday...even my straw dispenser since it was lime green plastic I didn't like anyway! LOL! I wasn't going to use the oscilloscope since it was too modern but then I thought it would look great with woodgrain contact paper & some "brass" accents...I really like it this way! I assembled the spare water heater parts with my chunk of ductwork leftover from cutting my kitchen vent hood into a contraption I really like. My costume is in great shape & is presentable even if I run out of time for any more. I would like to add the jewelry I planned & a holster or two for my ray guns, but we'll see how much time I have. Thank goodness I'm done with the sewing machine this early!

Aside from cleaning up the project mess that can be stashed last minute on the garage floor with Miata parked in the driveway, most of the house & patio is decorated at least so that feels much better than how I started the weekend. I'm still still choosing the last tracks for the music quiz, which I'm listening to on my iPhone on my long commute to & from work, and no food is made yet except the bone cookies, but food is better made closer to the party anyway, and I'm not doing as many cookies this year since I'm doing the gingerbread mansion. Thank goodness I'm taking both Thursday and Friday as vacation days from work this year, since I'm gonna need the extra day!

Now back to party prep, since way too much still to do! :)

Less than two weeks until my party and only two episodes left before Halloween Day! Eerie Elegance 2009 Episode 7 is out today, showing how easy & effective it is to make the Simple Spooky Spectres I first made back in the last millenium! You can watch the entire episode from EerieElegance.com, YouTube and iTunes by searching for "Eerie Elegance" or by subscribing to the series. You can join my 183 Eerie Elegance Facebook fans if you like, and the Eerie Elegance Agonizing Accessories store on Zazzle.com is open for business. Book sales are still going strong...no day since August with zero sales!

Eerie Elegance - Simple Spooky Spectres


Only a little Halloween party progress since last week because of the Star Wars in Concert chaos from Friday through Sunday. Singing for 30,000 screaming fans total in 4 stadium gigs with fabulous orchestra, giant LED screen of film footage, smoke & flame effects, & even lasers, with singer friends from across the past 20 years of my life...now that was an experience of a lifetime! Definitely worth sacrificing some Halloween prep time for that! :)

I was barely able to film & edit my podcast for this week between Star Wars gigs, and last Wednesday was singing rehearsal, but Thursday & Monday I did get quite a lot done really. My ruffly costume blouse is all sewn except for bottom hem & buttons (I HATE sewing buttonholes!) and it looks great! The portrait gallery is now inside in the hallway in place of my normal travel artwork, all the spiderweb lace & tapestry curtains are up in the living room with just enough matching purple spiderweb lace for a piano scarf, the pillow covers are changed & silly seasonal pillows are out, the bathroom towels & rug are set up, the skull door knocker wreath & spiderweb doormat at the front door, the fringe is pinned on the new spiderweb lampshade, and my brown velvet spats are underway.

I am extremely thankful I hadn't set out gravestones or hung the bookcase paper yet since there is a HUGE storm today, windy & pouring rain, so that would have ruined the paper through the screened patio! Whew! But that must go up this weekend, since it's the last weekend I have before my party...ack! The to-do list for this weekend is truly scary, with not only food to make, but lots of major projects including the gingerbread haunted mansion & my leather costume bodice, plus I want the Steampunk Study set up as much as possible, especially the lab equipment, so I can film the next podcast with that backdrop...wish me luck!

It's already October, which means Halloween is even closer now! Eerie Elegance 2009 Episode 6 is out today, the Britta Blvd Halloween classic Brittle Bones! Extra bonus for me is that my first party food is all set to go plenty ahead of time. :) You can watch the entire episode from EerieElegance.com, YouTube and iTunes by searching for "Eerie Elegance" or by subscribing to the series. You can join my 169 Eerie Elegance Facebook fans if you like, and the Eerie Elegance Agonizing Accessories store on Zazzle.com is open for business. Sometime last week I passed the 500 books sold mark & more are selling every day...woohoo! :)

Eerie Elegance - Brittle Bones


The fireplace mantel is finally ready to test hanging on the brick fireplace, then staining can begin. All the foam stone walls & gargoyle entrance columns are cleaned up & set up, but there are bits of touchup & repair to do. Storing painted foam outside doesn't last very long, these are on their 4th year now, so I think new foam structures are in my future next season. Time for something new by then anyway! I have the flagstone gossamer & the lab chalkboard hanging in the Steampunk Study, so next will be the library bookcases on the walls over the flagstone. I painted the pipe organ with a black wash to give it spookier atmosphere, and I've tested my iPod & battery speaker with my pipe organ playlist - two items on my list last year that escaped me from lack of time. I ran new extension cords around to the back & to the windowbox since my new brick pathway foiled my previous setup. The skirt is sewn, my costume blouse is cut & pinned hopefully to sew tonight, and a purple spiderweb lampshade matching the curtains is underway for the living room, plus another curtain panel for the piano window...which means the giant cat eyes will move to staring out the office window to the backyard instead of the front...heehee! Way too much still to do as always, plus I don't have much time this weekend since instead of staying at home doing Halloween projects, I will be PAID to sing Star Wars in Concert at Arco Arena in Sacramento & HP Pavilion in San Jose...does that mean I should have watched the prequels by now? oops! ;)

Episode 5 is out today, completing the Tombstone Trilogy! Hope you enjoy them, since the entire 3-part series is about 30 minutes & chock full of tips I've learned while making 23 gravestones by now. Bonus points if you can read the epitaphs on the example gravestones & name the characters & what they're from. :)

You can watch the entire episode from EerieElegance.com, YouTube and iTunes by searching for "Eerie Elegance" or by subscribing to the series. I've got 152 Eerie Elegance Facebook fans now, and I've set up the Eerie Elegance Agonizing Accessories store on Zazzle.com and already earned $7 royalties there!

Eerie Elegance - Haunted Headstones - Part 3: Painting & Aging


The official party invitation has been sent, one month to party day, and I'm still testing Mojitoe moldmaking techniques down to the wire since that's on the schedule to film this week! My fireplace mantel is under construction probably halfway done, but I keep running down both batteries from so much drilling & screws, so that will be continued next weekend. My local thriftstore seems to have caught on since I've last needed costume leather, since all their leather jackets are now $30 or more, so I found a pair of leather pants (!) for $10 that aren't the perfect color, but I think I can make it work for my bodice. I did find a pair of shoes for $5 to scavenge for 8 matching small buckles, plus a few other steampunk props. Speaking of steampunk, the serendipitous result of my 29-year-old water heater dying last Thursday night is that I scored on leftover copper pipe & mechanical bits for my lab display! After hearing & seeing how much I did myself on the kitchen remodel, the repair tech even showed me how & actually let me solder the copper overflow pipe myself with his blowtorch...cool! That might have to be my next tool for my growing collection! ;)

Do you like the Beware the Brocade design? You can now buy all sorts of silly things like shirts, bags & more at the Eerie Elegance Store on Zazzle.com! You can scroll through this nifty display below, or you can always find it on the Eerie Elegance website.


create & buy custom products at Zazzle

Note that if you select a shirt with the design you like, you can change the shirt style to whatever you like, long sleeves, ladies vs. mens or kids, whatever. Hope you like them! I'm going to get my dad a silly tie for Christmas...haha!

Episode 4 is out today! Little did I know how much I had to say about gravestone carving & layout...I had 30 minutes of good content my first editing pass, then it took 4 more hours to chip more & more content away down to under 10 minutes! Guess I should have made Carving its own full segment, but I did get it down to the essentials, and the 'director's cut' is probably too long anyway. Pardon the plane overhead...I didn't hear that one while filming or I would have done another take. The wind was the precursor to the freak thunderstorm we had that night, so I'm glad I got the filming done in the nick of time!

You can watch the entire episode from EerieElegance.com, YouTube and iTunes by searching for "Eerie Elegance" or by subscribing to the series. You can also become a fan of Eerie Elegance on Facebook. I've got 131 Facebook fans in just one week, the majority of them people I've never met...wow!

Eerie Elegance - Haunted Headstones - Part 2: Decorating & Carving


I am testing various Mojitoe moldmaking techniques in hopes I can come up with one I can reproduce for a decent cost so I can sell the mold along with my recipe. So far I have a gorgeous 6-toe free-standing food-grade silicone mold with spectacular detail, but it used $25 of liquid silicone supplies! The cornstarch press mold technique didn't work, so next is trying to make a closer-fitting mold form for the silicone, since that might bring the cost down enough.

Halloween shopping weekend was as fun as ever, and I still came back with a fairly full trunk, but we were a bit disappointed in the selection, especially at the cheaper stores who usually have good Halloween basics we can make into other things. It looks like they're stocking less inventory overall due to the economy. Honestly, the past 5 years or so I had been disappointed in how MUCH Halloween stuff was available, removing the fun challenge of making your own, so I don't mind. I totally scored at the Goodwill store for lots of steampunky goodness for the study! No leather jackets there like I need though, so I still need to scavenge locally for those so I can make my costume bodice. Now that I'm back in town, it's full "steam" ahead for the study and my costume! :)

Episode 3 is out today! There is an entire Haunted Headstones chapter in Eerie Elegance for making my realistic carved foam gravestones, so I decided to split up the episodes as a trilogy to get everything in. Part 1 is Designing & Cutting which is just under 10 minutes, so it'll be a good half hour total watching the entire set when it's finished! The gravestones are messy enough they are best done outside, and I have new neighbors with active little kids and a dog, so pardon some of the background noise. A lot is filmed in the dark since that was after the noise finally went to bed! ;) You can watch the entire episode from EerieElegance.com, YouTube and iTunes by searching for "Eerie Elegance" or by subscribing to the series. You can also become a fan of Eerie Elegance on Facebook!

By having filmed these, that means I have 4 new gravestones already well underway for my own decor! The most intricate two are completely carved ready for a base coat of paint (which also means the filming is already DONE for part 2 - hooray!), but I have to finish carving the other two before I'm ready to paint. My biggest splurge for this year's decorating arrived from New Jersey last week = 2 wallpaper murals of a fancy library so I can make my patio bar into "walls" of bookcases as I've wanted to do since 2006. My own costume I've only spent $20 so far (well those are shoes & tights I will wear normally, so maybe those count as normal wardrobe, not costume expense?) since I'm using closet finds & fabric I've had in my stash, but I still need to find old leather jackets to sew my buckley bodice. This weekend is our annual Halloween shopping trip with my friend Tash, so I'll be on the lookout for fun accessories!

Eerie Elegance - Haunted Headstones - Part 1: Designing & Cutting



After the Cinema Brittahytta Season Finale tonight (last movie night of the summer), the patio will start transforming into the Steampunk Study!

Whew! Technical difficulties almost prevented it, but here is this week's Eerie Elegance episode...everything you ever wanted to know about the infamous Eerie Eyeballs! Seriously, it's about 18 minutes long, and I think I answered every single question I've ever gotten in email about making my eyeballs, so it's chock full of good info & especially closeups of the painting technique. Again it's split for YouTube into part 1 & part 2. You can watch the entire episode from EerieElegance.com and iTunes by searching for "Eerie Elegance" or by subscribing to the series.

For my own Halloween planning, I have completed the herculean task of clearing the way in my garage chaos to get at the Halloween boxes & shelves, and in the process finding other good supplies for the Steampunk Study and/or my costume that goes with it. Always nice to finally find a reason for something I saved from long ago! I have decided on the 13 favorite spooky characters for the gingerbread haunted mansion quiz (I'm not telling or the party guests reading will be spoiled for the quiz!), and I've decided on epitaphs for 4 new gravestones to make...which is good since I plan to film the making of my new gravestones for the next 3 podcasts!

Eerie Elegance - The Infamous Eerie Eyeballs


However the next couple days will be Halloween hiatus since I get to be hostess for my grandmother, cooking for her in my new kitchen & driving her around California in my convertible! :)

Current Location: Brittahytta

Here we go! Halloween season has officially begun! Not only am I already deep in my own party planning, but Eerie Elegance book sales have gone from selling less than 10 books each month through June, to about 40 sold in July, and 85 in August...definitely ramping up!

I did not allow myself any concrete Halloween planning until my kitchen remodel was absolutely finished, otherwise I was afraid I might get distracted & never finish the kitchen! Wheels are always turning in my head, however, and in the past couple weeks I've written up my Halloween party prep wishlist for this year, including the 2009 series of Eerie Elegance podcasts...with the first episode released on schedule TODAY! :)

I didn't expect to have so much information about royal icing & the spiders I make with it, but it ended up 15 minutes, so had to be split for YouTube into part 1 & part 2. You can watch the entire episode from EerieElegance.com and iTunes by searching for "Eerie Elegance" or by subscribing to the series. Scroll down to see my glowing iTunes review! Thanks amberdawn91! :)


Halloween, here we come! :D


Eerie Elegance - Awful Arachnids - Royal Icing Spiders

Current Mood: excited

I made it on the Sunday Sweets edition of the CakeWrecks blog! The blog started with horribly hilarious professional cakes gone wrong, but then she decided to take a break each Sunday with a different theme of really nice cakes. Last week's theme was Harry Potter, and they mentioned they'd do a second round this week, so I humbly submitted my gingerbread Hogwarts for consideration, wondering if there was too much gingbread vs. cake that it wouldn't qualify...but I made it on today!



Not much is said about mine in the post, nor much description explaining gingerbread+cake, but in the comments among many oohs & ahhs, I got one of the best compliments ever!

"Ms Avery said...Wow, a Hogwarts cake even better than last week's -- didn't think it was possible!"

You see, the Hogwarts cake featured last week was none other than the one made for the LA movie premiere of HP5, made by Charm City Cakes and featured on the Food Network show Ace of Cakes! ...and she liked mine BETTER! :D

Admittedly the reason I submitted myself was because I think mine is at least as well done as that fondant-covered styrofoam Hogwarts (that didn't even light up!)...but confirmation from a complete stranger is very nice to hear!

We started our 2009 mini-Pottermania on July 6th with a Cinema Brittahytta showing of HP5 in BluRay glory on the 8ft screen & nice speakers, 20 of us enjoying leftover party food from the 4th, and Butterbeer Floats with leftover homemade custard vanilla ice cream...YUM! :-9 Then the majority vote was to see HP6 at a sane hour instead of the midnight opening, so 18 people accompanied me to the 8:15pm showing opening day. Only Kevin C & I were Gryffindor students in costume, unfortunately no Slytherin representation after all, but I brought 4 liters each of chilled Butterbeer & Butterbeer Light (very refreshing on a day so hot it gave me Snape hair! :P)..and even my Chocolate Frog design was resurrected by my freed but always loyal house-elf Rubby (Ruth)...she even designed Famous Witch cards for Juanita & me with hilarious glowing descriptions on the back!

( Chocolate Frog Card - Famous Witch Juanita Harris )

( Chocolate Frog Card - Famous Witch Britta Peterson )


Thanks to Rubby the House-Elf, Britta has her very own Famous Witch card!


It looks like the majority voting will be for the Wednesday July 29th IMAX 3D opening up at the Metreon, then that's probably it for mini-Pottermania for this year... :)

Current Location: Brittahytta
Current Music: Harry and the Potters - OMG U Look Like a Frog!

louienet's son Benjamin turned 2, so he had an Elmo birthday party this past weekend. I was commissioned to make the birthday cake, so we decided on Elmo cupcakes, limiting food coloring use by using red sugar over white frosting & making separate features that could be scraped off if necessary.

I haven't prepped 6 dozen cupcakes for any event before...it took a lot longer than I expected! Frosting even a big cake never takes me 2 hours, let alone making so many individual features for the faces took 4 hours! I used my new drop-leaf counter, plus my oven for the 2nd time! :)

( How to Make Elmo Cupcakes )



Voila! Lots of Elmos say Happy Birthday!


I was also "hired" to do face painting for the party, so I have photos of each of my "customers" in the same gallery, including the birthday boy here, getting Elmo painted on his hand! :)




In other news, the last 20"x20" section of the grouting for the kitchen backsplash will happen tonight...AFTER 19 of us see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, complete with Wizard Rock, costumes, Butterbeer & Butterbeer Light! :)

The 4th annual Fireworks & Fun was a full week ago on the 4th of July of course...my first party in my new kitchen! We had 26 adults, 2 toddlers & 2 dogs, so a good-sized crowd with plenty of room for everyone to have a great view from the lawn. The traffic & parking were worse because so many other local cities had canceled their festivities this year, and the fireworks might have been a slightly shorter show, but more than made up for it with the amazing finale...wow! The weather was perfect again this year, with a nice breeze making all my flags fly nicely, but due to my kitchen chaos barely being settled enough less than 24 hours to party start time, it was all-hands on deck getting the food ready!

( Fireworks & Fun 2009! )



Ready for fireworks!


When the last guests had left around 2am, I didn't even soak any party dishes, since I used Sunday as the true test of my new dishwasher...even the baked brie platter and an unrinsed gooey jam jar got sparkling clean, so it really is as good as they told me! I also enjoyed my new giant copper sink, since I was able to wash my big punch bowl and my tall lemonade jar without splashing! :D

I see now that I was bad at taking photos of people this year, and there are no photos of me at all, but that was because I was actually sitting down enjoying myself instead of roaming! The full photo album is here if you'd like to see. I hope everyone had a fabulous Fourth!

Sorry for the delay in the party recap, but I've had 6 houseguests in 7 days, so I've been a bit busy since the party!

Even though from RSVPs I had been wondering if this year might beat out 2005 for the smallest Mardi Gras, there were 24 of us letting the good times roll, including two of those under 2 years old, so a good turnout, especially considering the weather turned a bit nasty with wind & rain right at 7pm. There were very few costumes this year, only Cyd the Bar Wench, Kaye in her corset, the Barbieri family, Robin & Charles, and myself, but a few others came with some purchased masks. Everybody who came said they had a great time, so that's what counts! :)

I hadn't made the Tricolor Scrolls in many years, so I decided to try again with different purple, green & gold contents, which were a big hit! My secret new cookie idea was lifesize edible stick masks, including some iced plain white for guests to decorate for us all to vote for a prize for Best Edible Mask. I knew this would be a great kid party idea, but you never know depending on the mix of adults who might come who might be enthused or not. Well, I had more people wanting to decorate than I had space for them to work, so I think I will work the kinks out of the concept & try again next year! I did get my prize medals finished, from supplies I had bought 2 years ago or earlier, so I was glad for that!

And the winners are...

Who Got Da Baby? Ashlyn did!
Best Mask/Most Creative Mask = Robin's gorgeous beaded wire mask
Best Costume = The Bollywood Barbieris
Most Creative Costume = Charles the Frat Boy with Beads
Best Edible Mask = Cyd (perhaps sympathy votes?)


Mardi Gras Fairy Princess Britta displaying the new lifesize mask cookies


( More details if you're curious...  )


I had to get everything cleaned up from the party & back to normal before Thursday when my parents were arriving with an extra person for Stitches West & project weekend...whew! But that's another story...Until then, you can see all the Mardi Gras 2009 photos in this album...

Thank goodness for the long weekend! I still have a long ways to go, but I have made great progress in getting the Mardi Gras Masquerade ready for this coming Saturday! My fairy costume is very nearly done, some tedious handstitching left on the top of the bodice, and details like adding ribbon to the mask & things, but at least wearable already! I could have been further along, but I really wanted to do the wings a certain way, which took something like 12-16 hours of handstitching I swear! :P A lot of the food is ready to go, but since I'm making new cookies which are a surprise, they are taking longer & more ingredients since they are oversized. All those need to be decorated tonight after work but at least I have 50 baked that haven't broken. There were more that were either attacked by stealthy kitties (tag-teaming ganging up on me isn't fair!) or just broke from being too thin in places.

( party prep so far, starting 2 weeks before party day: )

...still LOTS to do, and I haven't even set up the webcam yet since the weather has been so bad I'm not sure it should go on the screened patio this time, even though that was an excellent spot at Halloween. Wish me luck getting everything done! :)

P.S. I have used my new "kitchen computer" for two recipes already and I love it! :D

Current Location: Brittahytta

Last year I saw this fancy new "kitchen center" Pandigital PANTV1512 15.6-Inch Kitchen Technology Center Digital Picture Frame on Popdgadget & thought it would be a nice space-saving idea to replace my bubble-style iMac kitchen computer for recipe use...however it seemed a bit expensive & overkill since I don't think I'll need an HDTV in my kitchen! The cabling for HDTV service would be annoying so not worth it. Wifi would be nice though...so since I've built up some free Amazon money from my Visa, I thought I'd look for it in case it came down in price yet. Nope, still $400. However the "you might like" Amazon suggestions showed the lesser expensive Pantouch digital photo frames with preloaded recipes from Bon Appetit, one drastically on sale for only $130 ...aha! Completely within the free money I have right now! I couldn't find the wifi USB dongle on Amazon, but I did find it on Bed Bath & Beyond online for $30, so I figured to order the frame, see if I could put my own recipes on it easily enough, then I could always add on the wifi later if I wanted it.

So for a third of the cost (free for me!), this can be a photo frame to put elsewhere if I'm not cooking (in addition to the internal memory it has slots for several types of media cards, plus for a USB thumb drive), plus I can move this around the kitchen wherever is most logical for that recipe. It does have to plug in for power though so can't go absolutely anywhere. This model only comes with the black frame, but it is removable, so I can always make my own prettier frame surround for it if I want to. For the extra cost for the "kitchen center" it would have been built-in wifi, HDTV-ready with a larger screen size, and more preloaded recipes, but I don't think I need all that. I added a couple books & a DVD I've been saving on my list to combine for free shipping, and I still have some free money left. The books showed up earlier last week, so I've already finished reading one of them. :)

I got the digital photo frame yesterday, so I connected it to my computer to see how the recipe files worked. It's not the most elegant navigation system, and I might end up using the remote more than the touch feature since it's only around the border, but we'll see. It will not display text files or PDF, even TIFF, only JPEG, so I will have to convert my text recipes to images to view them, but that's a big plus for scanning from cookbooks or magazines since no conversion to text necessary! To see if it was worth the effort, I took quick & dirty screencaps of most of my online Mardi Gras recipes to see if I could read them. The included USB cable worked fine, mounting as "Pandigital" on my Mac desktop, so I could just drag & drop files to copy them over to the 512MB internal memory, eject the USB drive, then it would reboot automatically after it disconnected. Hooray it worked! The image isn't huge, but still larger than recipe index cards. ;) I definitely would not go any smaller than the 10.4" diagonal image size though if you're going to use one for your own recipes. Unfortunately my nice sale price has gone up $100, but you can still get the frame without the Bon Appetit preloaded recipe collection for $200. The king cake recipe was too long for a screencap, so I cobbled that together in Photoshop (InDesign would have been better but I didn't want to deal with it with my headache last night), and now all my Mardi Gras recipes are on my new "kitchen computer" in time to use for the party in 2 weeks!

In other Mardi Gras news, my fairy wings are complete enough to wear but I would like to embellish them more...but since the dress & bodice are barely begun, those will come first. The Creole Chicken Skewers are prebaked & in the freezer, and the spinach ball goop is in my fridge ready to be rolled into balls & frozen. Glad I have a 3-day weekend inbetween to decorate & make party food! :)

I forgot to google myself for the Canadian Press stuff until after the other article came out today...here we go! Looks like these came out on the 20th/21st so I'm late to the party! No wonder I've been getting autographed book orders from Canada the past week! ;)

Ghoulish or gross? Finding the right balance for Halloween entertaining
(This seems to be the longest version)

Halloween party food that takes guts to eat

Halloween entertaining: drawing the line between ghoulish and gross

'Eyeballs' are a versatile ingredient on Halloween menus

'Eyeballs' are a versatile ingredient on Halloween menus

Eerie eyeballs to eat
(too bad they didn't use my actual eyeball photo provided with the CP article! :P)

Current Location: Brittahytta
Current Mood: pleased

The Contra Costa Times & Oakland Tribune ran a Halloween food story in today's paper that includes my book and quotes from me. If anyone knows anyone who gets those papers, I would really appreciate any copies you can collect! Here is the online version of the article which doesn't usually include the same photos as the print version.

A Halloween feast for guests and ghouls

Current Location: Brittahytta