Halloween Book Club with Snacks: A Catered Costume Party by Isis Crawford

Lorraine Masonheimer has been working on a delicious book club party for us with tasty treats, yummy drinks and a delightfully frightful Halloween inspired cozy mystery...

On a gorgeous fall day in the woods, a woman stands at the Hudson River’s edge taking in the autumn colors. Her killer is nearby thinking “third time’s the charm” as two previous attempts flopped big time. After bashing her with a pipe, the killer checks to see if his manicure survived the murder as his hands weren’t meant for killing.  

In honor of his wife’s disappearance and possible death, Darius Witherspoon moves forward with the annual costume Halloween party—his wife Penelope’s favorite holiday event.  In step the Simmons sisters, caterers by profession and amateur sleuths on the side. As the party approaches, Darius hands a sealed envelope to the ladies, Bernie and Libby, instructing them to open the envelope should he end up dead. Chandeliers sparkle, hardwood floors gleam and the French doors open to welcome the scents of the garden indoors. Masked and costumed guests arrive to a fog-laden ballroom floor with cocktails, appetizers and a hearty fall-themed buffet.

When Darius is found swinging from a rope outside the ballroom’s French doors, the sisters set out to expose the killer despite the Police Chief’s belief it was a suicide. When the body count increases the sisters find links between past crimes, the posh upstate New York Berkshire Arms property, hidden treasure and treachery.  

This light-hearted affable story is the 13^th book in Isis Crawford’s Catered series. No need to read the books in order as the narrative holds up on its own. The solution is revealed late in the book and will keep the pages turning.  The sister’s distinct personality differences play well off each other. Their father, a former police officer, lends plausibility.  

The Halloween setting complete with real ghosts, a murder of crows, top hat skeletons, a treasure hunt and sumptuous food and drinks makes for a festive autumn read. Given the sisters own a bakery in addition to a catering business, I could almost smell freshly baked scones, spiced nuts baking in the oven and trays of colorful fall food.

Halloween is coming. Grab a serving tray, set out your glassware and throw your own posh party. Go all out. Invite guests to don their best costumes and bring their favorite Halloween appetizer or dessert to share. Decorate as the book describes using black crows and ghosts. Dress a skeleton with a top hat and orange scarf holding the sign “Welcome to Hell” and set outside the front door. As a nod to the book, place a crow on each shoulder of the skeleton.  Readers of the book will step into the house with a chuckle.  Set the table with an orange tablecloth, dusty pink gerbera daisies with green foliage and red plates. Scatter chocolate coins between trays. Rent a dry ice fog machine placed just inside the front door. Serve up a signature cocktail, a book-themed appetizer and let the tricks-and-treats party hardy.

Blood Orange Martini

2 oz. Blood Orange Vodka (EFFEN)
1 oz. Pomegranate Liqueur (PAMA)
1 oz. Ruby Red Grapefruit Juice (TROPICANA or PURE found in liquor stores)

   Orange twist & black sanding sugar, optional

Run an orange slice around the rim of a chilled glass and dip in black sanding sugar.  Combine the vodka, pomegranate liqueur and grapefruit juice in a cocktail shaker and fill with ice.  Shake to chill.  Strain into the prepared martini glass.  Garnish with an orange twist.

For a non-alcohol drink, serve Blood Orange Italian Soda which can be found at Whole Foods or online.  The skeleton-shaped shot glass and skeleton hand champagne glass is available at Pottery Barn.

‘Welcome to Hell’ Skeleton Cheese Bites

Provolone Cheese, slice (any white cheese will work)
Colby Jack Cheese, slice
Sopressata Dry Salami, slice
Dark Pumpernickel Bread, slice

Print the template or draw a skeleton with top hat and scarf and cut out. Place the skeleton onto the dark bread and cut the shape out. Repeat using the Provolone cheese. Using the template, cut off the top hat and the scarf then cut out the skeleton’s eyes, nose and mouth. Place the skeleton template onto the Provolone cheese and carefully cut out the eyes, nose and mouth. Place the top hat template onto the salami and cut out. Place the scarf template onto the Colby Jack cheese and cut out.  

Place the bread onto the tray. Top the bread with the Provolone cheese. Place the salami on top of the Provolone slice to become the top hat. Seat the Colby Jack cheese on top of the Provolone slice to become the orange scarf and serve.

Rosemary Roasted Cashews

1 ¼ lb Cashews, salted
2T Rosemary, fresh and coarsely chopped
½ t Cayenne pepper
2 t Brown sugar
2t Salt
1T Butter, melted

Preheat oven to 375⁰. Place the cashews onto an ungreased baking sheet.  Bake for 10 minutes until the cashews are warm and fragrant. Combine the rosemary, pepper, sugar, salt and melted butter in a large bowl. Toss the warm nuts with the rosemary mixture until the nuts are completely coated. Serve warm.

Halloween Drink - The Bone Chiller Halloween with Ghost Peeps

Ghost peeps and a new book from Carol Perry. What could be a better way to prepare for Halloween today on Drinks with Reads...

For folks in Salem Massachusetts, the day after Halloween usually means empty candy wrappers, sagging pumpkins and a community-wide identity crisis. That is until Lee Barrett’s TV production class suggests extending the spooky season with the traditional Mexican celebration, Dia de Los Muertos.

A series of graveyard visits convinces the class that not all of Salem’s dead are resting in peace. Lee and her detective boyfriend, Pete Mondello connect a fresh body with an unsolved missing person case. Driven by a series of chilling visions, Lee calls on her cleverest allies including her shrewd cat, O’Ryan and her tech-savvy Aunt Ibby for help.

Together they go underground and dig up the evidence needed to put a lid on a cold case forever. . .before the latest headstone has Lee’s name on it.

BONE CHILLER

Aunt Ibby is still working on writing her recipe book and she came up with this tasty, if caloric, drink to celebrate the release of Carol’s newest Witch City Mystery—Grave Errors. It’s a candy-loving grown up Trick-or-Treaters dream come true. . . with Godiva White Chocolate Liqueur, sugar, a huge dollop of Reddi Wip, topped off with a marshmallow Peep!

1 ¼ cups whole milk

1/3 cup whipping cream

¼ cup sugar

2 tsp. vanilla

¾ cup vodka

2/3 cup Godiva White Chocolate Liqueur

Ice cubes

Reddi-Wip

Ghost Peeps

In a small pitcher or glass measuring cup, combine milk, whipping cream, sugar and vanilla. Stir until sugar dissolves. Stir in vodka and liqueur. Cover and chill for 2 to 24 hours. To serve, for each drink, put ice cubes in cocktail shaker, add 1/3 to ½ cup of milk mixture. Cover, shake and pour into glass. Top with Reddi Wip and a Ghost Peep.

(Makes six four ounce servings)

Animated Eyeball Doorknob and Other Halloween Decor that You Need

This moving eyeball doorknob rocks. 

This photo below shows the "before" shot, and the photo above, the after. When you press the button you hear a chime, door creak and a then the eyeball pops out. How terrific is that? I've never seen anything like it. 

These sinking garden heads are pretty crazy too. As you walk past them, supposedly it looks like she is sinking into the ground before your eyes. 

Next is the Dark Forrest Wreath. This will take your decorating to the next level, and possibly scare all children away from your front door.

Or perhaps you need a few of these skeleton hand hooks to hold guest's coats or grab their throats... 

Grandin Road has a lot of wild Halloween decor. What fun. 

Halloween M&Ms & Candy Corn Taste Test

Here at Mystery Playground, we take our Halloween very seriously and here in California many of the stores are already gilded with fake bats, pumpkins and masks, despite the big heat wave we're having. 

To help you get prepared for the Halloween treat buying season, we rounded up some of the craziest chameleon candy - that's what I called candy that is trying to taste like something else -- that we could find and tasted it to see if we liked it more than the original version. 

Pumpkin Pie MnMs at the top of the plate, Candy Corn MnMs at the bottom

We tried 4 flavors:

• Pumpkin Pie M&Ms
• Cookies & Screeeem M&Ms 
• Candy Corn M&Ms
• Sea Salt and Chocolate Candy Corn

It seemed only fair to try Candy Corn that tasted like Chocolate if we were going to try M&Ms that tasted like Candy Corn. We also had regular M&Ms to compare to our flavored M&Ms. 

Let's take these one at a time:

Pumpkin Pie M&Ms

These are white chocolate with pumpkin pie spices on the inside, with that same old M&M candy coating on the outside, but in festive fall colors. 

Tasting Notes: The white chocolate is creamy and the pumpkin pie spice adds a little kick. 

Did we like them better than regular M&Ms? No, we all like regular M&Ms better. 

Did we like them better than Pumpkin Pie? Absolutely not. 

Verdict: Getting real pumpkin pie and original M&Ms in any combination would be better. 

Chocolate Candy corn and Cookies and Screeem MnMs

Cookies and Screeeem M&Ms 

These have white chocolate on the inside and a special candy coating made to taste something like Oreos. They aren't branded with the Oreos name, but the photo on the bag looks like Oreos to me. The candies themselves are black on the outside with white specs. I think these may be exclusive to Target, but you might want to check.  

Tasting Notes: These are really good and the flavor reminds me of an Oreo.

Did we like them better than regular M&Ms? Maybe for a special occasion, but not all the time. 

Did we like them better than Oreos? Not really. When you want an Oreo, just eat an Oreo. But I have to say they have Oreos in a bunch of flavors too. 

Candy Corn M&Ms

These are white chocolate with traditional candy corn colors on the outside M&M coating. 

Tasting Notes: These did taste quite a bit like Candy Corn. They are very sweet. 

Did we like them better than candy corn? Almost, but I like to mix my candy corn with peanuts for the salty sweet flavor and that would be hard to do with this.

Did we like them better than original M&Ms? No. 

Sea Salt & Chocolate Candy Corn

These look like regular candy corn but smell like chocolate.

Tasting notes: These really taste similar to but not exactly like chocolate, but the texture is different. 

Do we like the chocolate corn better than regular candy corn? No. 

Do we like this candy corn better than chocolate? No. Stick with regular chocolate.

So our ultimate conclusion is stick with the tried and true originals unless you want to grab a bag of Cookies and Scream M&Ms for a little Halloween surprise. 

Barfing Squash Salsa Platter

Today we're making Halloween party food with the barfing gourd salsa platter. This is a quick and easy Halloween dish that people will talk about. 

Here's what you need:

• A squash or gourd, I used a butternut squash
• Something for the nose - I used a cherry tomato, but a pepper would also work
• Olives for the eyes. I used black olives, but green could also be used
• Tooth picks or BBQ picks like I used below
• Salsa!
• A shallow bowl
• A grapefruit spoon

Let's get started!

Step One:

Cut a round hole in the squash for the mouth. I used a knife to score it, and then hallowed it out with a grapefruit spoon.

Step Two:

Get as many of the seeds out as you can and then rinse the inside with water. The squash will now look like this:

Step Three:

Break off the pointy end of a tooth pick or BBQ stick and stick it into the squash where the nose should be. Put the tomato on the other end. Next do the same with each olive eye. 

Step Four:

Put the squash into the shallow bowl and fill the bowl with salsa around the squash. Wipe away excess. then spoon salsa into the open mouth of the squash so it looks like it's coming out of his mouth. 

And you're done! It took me all of five minutes. Here's another version with different materials for eyes and nose:

Don't forget to check out instructions on how to make our Nightmare Before Christmas Tsum Tsum wreath and our dancing skeleton necklace. 

Halloween Treats

We're getting our Halloween on in the kitchen with fun Halloween treats, like these easy-to-make Halloween chocolates (photo above) and other party perfect Halloween delicacies. 

Check out these Bloody, Bloody Marys (recipe at the link).

Or the Poison Apple Martini.

If faux blood splatter is your Halloween thing, check out these Blood Splatter Cookies, and the Blood Splatter Glass Candy below. 

We'll be back next week with more Halloween baking and crafting fun. 

Dancing Skeleton Necklace

It's the time of year when everyone's thoughts turn to dancing skeletons. Ok, maybe just mine. I love the dancing skeleton cartoon from Disney's Silly Symphonies, so I set out to make a necklace that reminiscent of it. Hobby Lobby cooperated with my aspirations by stocking the skeleton charms above. They are the perfect size and they have joints that allow them to dance when you move. 

Here are the materials you'll need to make your own Dancing Skeleton necklace.

• Three Dancing Skeleton charms from Metal Gallery. I got mine at Hobby Lobby, but other places probable have them.
• Three - five round beads - I used purple AB Swarovski crystals because I had them and they're pretty, but anything you like will do. 
• Silver chain
• Silver wire
• Necklace catch
• Jewelers pliers - roundnose and flat & wire cutters (regular sized tools used for other purposes can be overkill for this and hard to use.)

Step One:

Cut your chain to the desired length. The best way to do this is put it around your neck and gauge how long you'd like it. I made this one a little longer than usual so there would be more swing. 

Step Two:

Cut a one inch piece of wire. Then use the pliers to make a loop and slide into the exact midpoint of your chain. This is where the center skeleton will hang. Here's what the loop looks like:

Step Three:

Wrap the short piece of wire around the long piece (see photo below) and then put your bead on the long piece. 

Now make another loop on the bottom end and string you skeleton charm through the end. Now loop it around as you did before.

Step Four:

Cut another piece of wire and repeat this process with a second skeleton charm. I did mine about two inches from the first one, but you can place it anywhere that looks good to you. The photo below shows them about one inch apart, but when I wore it the skeletons ran into one another so I separated them out. 

Aren't these guys cute?

Step Five:

Repeat with the third skeleton. 

Step Six:

Open the loop on the bottom of the necklace catch (not the end that you use to close the necklace). Put it at the end of one side of the chain and close.  I used a bigger link chain, so I didn't put a ring at the other end of the necklace, but you may want to. 

Step Seven:

I added purple beads on the main chain in between the skeletons for some extra sparkle. I did this with pins and used the same loop technique. 

And your done! Just in time for Halloween.

Check out our other skeleton themed crafts.

Pottery Barn Halloween Decor

Pottery Barn has their Halloween decor in stores already, and the skeleton offerings are spine-tingling as usual. Love this drink cooler.

But my absolute favorites are the dancing skeleton party plates and platter. It reminds me of the dancing skeletons in the Disney cartoon, Silly Symphonies. 

They had a version of this serving bowl set last year, but it's so cute, I can see why they brought it back:

This copper cauldron is new and really fun:

What's your favorite?

Look Both Ways and the Poison Apple

Carol J. Perry, the author of the Witch City Series, is here today brewing up something special for Halloween Drinks with Reads...

“Looking glass upon the wall, who is fairest of them all?”

The Evil Queen in “Snow White”

Grimm’s Fairy Tales

That’s the epigraph at the beginning of Look Both Ways, latest in the Witch City Mystery series. The evil queen from the fairy tale liked looking into mirrors, but Lee Barrett doesn’t. Lee is, reluctantly, a scryer—a person who sees visions of the past, present or future in shiny, reflective surfaces. Some would welcome such a gift, but for Lee, mirrors, crystal balls, even shiny patent leather shoes can produce scenes of death and dying. Of course, things aren’t all gloomy and doomy for this Salem born, red-haired, TV star. She has a great apartment, drives a Corvette, has a handsome detective boyfriend, Pete Mondello, and a cat named O’Ryan who seems to have some mystical powers of his own. 

Everyone knows that in Salem, there are secrets everywhere. This time, Lee has reason to believe that even the furniture might be haunted---and it all begins with a mirror. It’s a tarnished, blackened old mirror on an antique bureau she bought to replace one she’d lost in a fire, a bureau with concealed compartments. One problem. It came from an estate where a famous Salem murder happened. Later, when Lee discovers the bludgeoned body of the antique shop owner, the blackened mirror begins to reveal a trail of deception and death, while the bureau itself gives up long-hidden secrets of dark misdeeds.

Lee knows there’s a killer somewhere in the city—and the killer may know that she knows.

* * * *

Want to catch up with Lee’s earlier adventures? “Caught Dead Handed” is a good place to start. Lee goes for a job interview at Salem’s waterfront cable TV station WICH-TV.  Disappointed because the position she wanted has been filled, Lee discovers the drowned body of popular TV psychic Ariel Constellation, face down in Salem Harbor. Lee winds up with Ariel’s show, “Nightshades” pretending to be psychic and introducing spooky old movies. It’s a show prop black obsidian ball that gets her into scryer trouble this time. But hey, she meets Pete and inherits Ariel’s cat, so it’s not all bad.

“Tails, You Lose” is the second Witch City book. Did you know there are old tunnels running under much of Salem? Lee didn’t know either, but there are. (For real!) Lee is teaching a TV Production class at Salem’s newest academy. It’s located in the long closed Trumbull’s department store which is rumored to be haunted. (Some folks say the whole darned city is.) Lee sees visions in giant patent leather pump, left over from Trumbull’s shoe department, revealing clues to the strange death of the school’s handyman.  Ghosts in the old store’s attic are the least of her problems with a killer on the loose.

Drink Recipe – “The Poison Apple”

In keeping with that Evil Queen’s quote, what could be more appropriate for your Halloween celebration than a poison apple?  This one is quite sweet and yummy, so don’t be tempted to drink a lot of it. You don’t want to wind up in a deep sleep like Snow White.

2 ounces Crown Royal

1 ounce Sour Apple Pucker Schnapps

3 ounces Cranberry-Apple juice

Pour whiskey, schnapps and juice into a mixing glass filled with ice. Stir with spoon until wicked cold. Strain into glass and garnish with apple slices.

Quick DIY Mystery Themed Halloween Costumes

Kerry Hammond is here today to show us a few mystery related Halloween costumes that you can throw together this year, some of them in a pinch.

Halloween is one of the only times when adults can dress up and not look foolish or feel like an out cast, since it’s frowned upon the other 364 days of the year. I thought it would be fun to celebrate our one public dress up day with a few costumes that have a mystery related theme. Some of them require a bit of preparation, but others may be thrown together from items in your closet. Of course, it does depend on what you’ve got hiding in your closet.

Miss Scarlet, in the Library, with the Candlestick

This costume only requires three things: a red dress, a book, and a candlestick. Feel free to tweak this idea for any of the clue characters, weapons, or rooms. If you’ve got five adventurous friends, you can even use them all as a group costume for a party. If you have time, you can embellish with a wig, red lipstick, and a faux fur collar or veiled hat.

Lizzy Borden

For this costume, you can really customize it to your own personal style. The one shown here uses a long sleeved dress (purchase one at a thrift shop because you don’t want to ruin a good dress), old-fashioned footwear, fake blood, red wig, and an ax. It’s helpful if you have someone else throw the blood at you. After all, you want the authentic blood spatter look of a crazed killer. Carry around your ax and look young and innocent.

Hercule Poirot

This one is pretty simple, but it helps if you’re slightly crafty. Download and print this fabulous mask from Eudeline Moutarde. You'll need a color printer. If you want to go the extra mile, wear a dark suit, add a cane and a bowler hat (Halloween costume shops have these and they’re inexpensive) and waddle around speaking in a French accent, telling everyone about your “little grey cells.”

Steampunk

This costume is more for fans of the Victorian inspired, HG Wells time travel phenomena. I am a big steampunk fan, so I wanted something that could be used for Halloween as well as other occasions. I don’t follow the rule of only one dress up day each year, so I am currently planning to use this costume for the adult Sherlock Holmes exhibit event in November. I purchased the brown felt hat and goggles at a costume shop, and the vest at a thrift shop for the male character, shown above. I added the pocket watch accessory to dress up the vest. 

Happy Halloween.