Dancers' Dinner at Halloween

The mood was set for a Halloween themed dinner with some couples we've known from dancing. I'd dug an old canvas print I knew I had out of the attic and set it up next to a plaid pumpkin. Just that morning at a HomeGoods nearby store, I'd bought some appetizer plates because they'd reminded me of that canvas. I could not believe how well they went together. I'd purchased that owl and big orange moon image many, many years ago at a T. J. Maxx.

For each table place setting decoration I'd drilled two holes in a mini-pumpkin using a wine corkscrew. I was surprised to find out that even at this small size, pumpkins are hollow in the center.  I could dribble water in one hole, while air exiting the second hole and then insert two yellow roses. I added a bright green bow and a cardboard BOO sign and voila, instant atmosphere and cuteness.



Here is the place setting complete with napkin and gold ring. I talked about my planning for this table arrangement in my DianeLoves2Quilt blog post for 10/28/15.

 I liked the simplicity of the table layout but enjoyed the lushness of its colors.

In the nook area off the kitchen I had set up snacks for if we had the energy to play some games after dinner . The witch hats in the background are made from cookies and Hershey kisses and the owls in the foreground are from Oreo cookies and Reese's pieces eyes and beaks on top of chocolate mini-muffins.



Here are those owls closeup. How does it feel to have all those eyes peering directly at you?



The first to arrive were our friends Carl and Sachi, dressed as Hans Solo and Princess Leia. It was not intended to be a costume party but what fun it was to get in the spirit.

Our friends John and Marita called on their way saying they were delayed. That night was to be the Zombie Pub Crawl in downtown Livermore. Traffic was backed up from the throngs driving to attend. Folks dressed as Zombies gather as a flash dance mob in front of the Bankhead Theater and then pub hop all dressed in zombie clothes and makeup. This is a photo from 2014 but the event grows every year, much like the zombie nation population. Livermore is a happening place! Just think of all those scientists' brains that are available to feed on.



John and Marita's delayed arrival did not upset my precisely planned menu timetable. That got thrown to the four winds when I discovered that the large burner on my stove that I was using to heat water up to boiling to steam the vegetables, had stopped working. A watched pot may never boil but an unwatched, flaky burner, that only functions intermittently, has the same issue. At one point I turned on all the burners on the stove to high and when I learned which one was working I used that one. Not a very efficient method, I know. That was OK, though. The pork loin roasting in the oven had reached an internal temperature of 145°F, as was the goal, but the meat still looked too pink to be appetizing. After slicing, back in it went. Oh well. As they say... the best laid plans...

The salad was color coded to the theme and in a crescent moon shaped dish. I'd prepared it before the timetable had run amuck. From top to bottom the ingredients on a bed of romaine lettuce were yellow corn and yellow bell peppers, orange mandarin segments, green Granny smith apples, and blackberries at the base. A centrally placed hard boiled egg section added a stark white and bright yellow accent. The egg reminded me of Mike Wazowski, the one eyed monster from the Pixar movie Monsters, Inc.

My favorite part of a dinner party is the decorating and socializing so we just rolled with the punches on the food portion of it. The cooking may not have been executed elegantly, but everything on the menu was edible. The ginger sesame marinade on the pork loin was tasty and folks like the dried fruit I'd mixed in to jazz up the rice.

Everybody loved the dessert. It was Crème Brûlée per a recipe by Betty Crocker. I'd made a trial run of the recipe a couple days before. Frank and I had learned the longest part of the operation was caramelizing the sugar on top just before serving. We decided that this would be a group activity instead me having them all ready to serve. It would be like the showmanship of the waiter who flambés the rum when preparing the cherries jubilee at the table but in this case, everyone could do his own.

Well, a waiter typically has a flame to work with, not a flickering, sputtering, irregular, smattering of sparks. Caramelizing that layer of sugar provided quite a bit of entertainment when we gathered to create that characteristic hard, crunchy top. I had a tiny "gourmet chef culinary torch" from Bed Bath & Beyond. Very small ceramic ramekins come with the torch and they are a joke. They hold two, maybe three, mouthfuls of the custard. I used bigger dishes and made a double batch. The torch was kind of a joke, too. It kept going out. We were probably at it a good twenty, maybe even close to thirty, minutes repeatedly refilling that bitty torch with butane. Fortunately I had thought ahead and bought refills. The guys were really hankering to use a large propane torch like you would for soldering pipes. We muddled through with the tiny butane torch because I was unwilling to "flavor" the crème brûlée with the smell of propane.

Afterwards, when there were just a few bites left, John tried an experiment with the propane. I could almost hear caveman grunts like those of Tim Allen as Tim "the Tool man" Taylor from the classic TV show Home Improvement, as he relished the use of power to get a task done. I did not smell any propane as I had feared, but the room positively stunk from the sulphur of the wood matches John had used to light the torch! We had to throw open the windows and air it out.

For the information of the uninitiated, the television series Home Improvement, with its own comedy of handyman errors, was one of my favorites. It aired from September 17, 1991 to May 25, 1999. Per the Wikipedia article, "In the 1990s, it was one of the most watched sitcoms in the American market, winning many awards. The series launched Tim Allen's acting career."

After dessert the genders separated, spontaneously and naturally, not really planned. I have no idea what the men discussed but we women just talked about family and then Marita and Sachi requested I conduct an unprepared and unscheduled tour of my dishes. I have a lot. I admit it. They said I must because, when they have dinner here, I use a different set almost each time. Looking in the far reaches of high-up cabinets, in the bases and upper portions of hutches, and even in the depth of some drawers was fun as well as a reminder to me of stuff I should use or "lose" to goodwill. Except that I like it all! We played a couple rounds of the card game Swish and then called it a night. It had been a fun evening. I enjoy planning and setting a formal table but that is certainly where the formality ends with friends.