Halloween – a day we honour monsters

I carved my first pumpkin this afternoon.

I used a stencil and an awesome little carving…. stick-knife thing.

I’m very proud of my effort.

Jake also carved a cool pumpkin.

Jake told me a couple day ago that there was to be a ‘pumpkin carving party’ this afternoon. I really appreciated knowing ahead of time, because pretty much every time there is a party at the restaurant downstairs – usually for a birthday – it is timed well with my day of solidly cleaning the house, so I am always stinky and grimy and so I don’t go.

We headed downstairs at 4, giving Jake enough time to get changed and relax a little bit. No one was there, other than the 3 waitresses cleaning up from the day. We sat around for quite a while, just… not really doing anything. But then all of a sudden Russ arrived with his truck full of pumpkins! Headed outside, picked a good pumpkin (I think they were fresh from his pumpkin patch but I could be wrong) and we got to work. Jake was lovely and took the top off my pumpkin and cleaned it out for me. He’s sweet like that. I was going to prep the stencils but they didn’t need to have anything done to them because there was a cool little pokey tool for marking the stencil on the pumpkin.

I was very focused on my work. I could hear talking, and power tools, but I only really heard one thing while I was ‘working’ that wasn’t from Jake. Someone at the other table (there were only 10 people there … and yet there was another Sarah) claimed Halloween is also known as "All Saints Day", which I only know is not true because the day after, my birthday, is All Saints Day.

After everyone was done, pictures were taken, then the pumpkins were all carried outside and we had pizza for dinner. Frozen pizza though. Bleh. It’s sad because it is a lovely thick crust, but the sauce tastes disgusting. And yet… the dough with cheese on it and no sauce? Actually tastes even worse! Still, it was nice to sit in a circle with Jake’s coworker-friends and eat pizza. Especially nice because I didn’t have to dread the long trek home. Walk outside, open a door, walk up some stairs, HOME!

Since we’ve been home, we have watched tv. I learnt that candy corn are not hard (I’ve never eaten one, only seen them on tv and in packages… they look like hard candy!) and now I want to make funky coloured candy corn. Alton Brown always makes me want to make tasty things, especially when I already have all the ingredients thanks to my awesomely well-stocked baking cupboard. I also got an awesome title thanks to The Office.