Treat Yourself This Halloween

There's something about holidays that brings out the cheesiness in all of us. Suddenly we find ourselves wanting to re-watch the classic movies, repeat our usual traditions, and (most importantly) snack on foods that are heavy on the nostalgia. But Halloween ha s few foods to call its own other than candy, if you even consider that a food. But luckily we here at The Guide to Everything Fabulous are on a mission to change that. We've selected two ideas that would definitely go in the treat category this Halloween.
The first one comes from Meg:

Here's a wonderful, after Halloween snack (to help with the disposal of any leftover candy) Just pop some popcorn in the microwave, open the bag, and mix in some bite sized pieces of chocolate candy! My faves are milky ways, three musketeers, and junior mints, but you can just use whatever you like/have on hand. Its really great for a scary movie party.

To see my recipe, click

The other one I'm afraid I can't take credit for, but I discovered it here

"Soft Pumpkin Pretzels
1 1/4 cup warm water plus up to 1/4 more as needed
1 teaspoon unbleached granulated sugar
1 package active dry yeast
1 cup pumpkin puree
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups unbleached white flour
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 cup atta flour (whole wheat chapati flour)
1 teaspoon olive oil
kosher salt, sesame seeds and pumpkin seeds for garnish

For Boiling:
8 cups water
2 tablespoons baking soda

1. In a big bowl dissolve the sugar in 1 1/4 cups warm-to-the-touch water.
2. Add the yeast and let sit a few minutes until the yeast "blooms."
3. Stir in the canned pumpkin.
4. Stir in the flours and salt and mix to form a dough. If the dough seems too dry, add 1 tablespoon of water at a time until it comes together--you should be OK without it.
5. Hand knead for ten minutes, or five minutes in a mixer with a dough hook.
6. Put the olive oil in a big bowl and turn the dough around in the oil until the sides of the bowl are oiled and the dough is covered in a light film.
7. Cover with a towel and let rise in a warm place until doubled about 50 minutes.
8. Preheat oven to 475F.
9. In a pot with high sides (the water will foam up once the pretzels are added), bring 8 cups of water to a boil with the baking soda.
10. Divide the dough into six even pieces. One by one, carefully roll them into a coil that is 19" long and about 3/4-1" thick. Carefully twist each rope into a pretzel shape and pinch the ends of the rope to the body of the pretzel so they stay in place.
11. Boil three pretzels at a time for one minute, flip over with tongs and boil the second side for another minute.
12. Place on a Silpat or greased cookie sheet and lightly blot off any foam with a towel.
13. Quickly sprinkle with seeds and salt so they stick to the moist dough.
14. Bake for 15-25 minutes, until deeply browned on top."

Sounds Delicious, No?
Anyway, once again, enjoy your Halloween! Read more!

Tricks to play on the treaters

Staying home on halloween waiting for trick or treaters to show up just sooo unfab... BORING! This post is for those of you, like me, who are too old to trick or treat, too young to die. (I'm not being morbid, its a That 70's Show refrence if you didnt catch that!) Why does the question, "trick or treat?" have to be one sided? I'm not telling you to scare the candy out of small children, I'm just saying mess with their heads a little.

If you're friendly with the kids in your neighborhood, and they can take a little abuse from you, you can do what i do. Buy one bag of smarties, and one bag of dum dums to hand out. When the rascals show up, make a big deal out of who deserves which candy. ("Susie gets smarties, but oh no, Billy gets a dum dum!") Feel free to substitute smarties with nerds if you're feeling extra insulting.

The next pranks are my personal favorites from this site- http://www.madnessmansion.com/tricks.htm

-Fill a briefcase with marbles and crackers. Write on it, "Top Secret" in big letters. When trick-or-treaters come, look around suspiciously, say, "It's about time you got here," give them the briefcase, and quickly shut the door.

-When you answer the door, look at the trick-or-treaters, act shocked and scared, and start screaming your head off. Slam the door and run around the house, screaming until they go away.

-Answer the door with a mouthful of M & M's and several half-eaten candy bars in your hands. Act surprised, and close the door. Open it again in a few seconds, and insist that you don't have any candy.

Now if you go to that link, you'll also notice #12 (Get a catapult. Sit on your porch and catapult pumpkins at anyone who comes within 50 yards of your house.) Im not advising you to actually fling large vegtables at pedestrians, but there is a market for pumpkin catapults if you ever feel the need to build one. A few years ago i actually was dragged to a pumpkin flinging festival in Deleware, which turned out to be somewhat fun. Who knew? http://www.punkinchunkin.com/main.htm follow that link for details. Read more!

The Guide to Dressing Fabulously For Halloween

Think you're ready? Then

Now that Halloweek is in full force, Meg has enlisted me to set the readers on the right path to total fabulosity on the big day itself. If you don't have a costume planned yet, you're going to want to read this (we can fashionably late in our planning as well, can we not?)So I've set out with our dear readers in mind to demonstrate examples of the perfect costume. You're welcome.

On The Runway

Rodarte

Betsey Johnson


Luella

D&G

Prada
pictures from nymag.com and style.com

What The Fashion People Are Wearing

Behati Prinsloo

Rachel Ballinger

Derek Blasberg, Daria Werbowy, and Yesim Ak

Cory Kennedy

Lauren Davis

Heidi Mount & Hilary Rhoda

Jay Massacret

Kate Sennert
pictures by Kathy Lo from coacd.blogspot.com

What The Designers Are Wearing

Giorgio Armani as Fred Astaire with Jessica Stam as Ginger Rogers

Donatella Versace as The Princess from The Princess and the Pea

Karl Lagerfeld as a rapper

Alessandra Facchinetti (I'm weeping) as Pierrot

Michael Kors and Vlada Roslaykova as L.B. Jefferies and Lisa Carol Fremont from Rear Window

Donna Karan as a force of nature

Alber Elbaz as James Bond

Laura and Kate Mulleavy as cats with Caroline Trentini

Roberto Cavalli and Coco Rocha as Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara from Gone With the Wind
pictures from Harper's Bazaar, scans from thefashionspot.com

Pull a Nylon With a Literary Reference






my scans from Nylon October 2008


Icons Among Us
costume choices you can believe in

Edie Sedgwick

Rachel Zoe

Grace Jones

Blair Waldorf

Grunge



Have a Great Halloween! Go out and RE-PRE-SENT!!!!




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Fabulous Halloween Programs (For Your Viewing Pleasure)

Here are my favorite movies for Halloween

Scream


For more Movies (and TV) click

Carrie


The Haunting (1963)


And for those of you who don't have such strong stomachs

The Haunted Mansion




TV

There's the classic staple of Halloweek

Charlie Brown


The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror is different every year. Always fun.


That 70's Show


Last but not least, Alvin and the Chipmunks!


Joey's Favorites

Ugly Betty-Season 1, Ep 5: The Lyin', The Watch, and The Wardrobe

Sabrina the Teenage Witch-Season 2, Ep. 7:A River of Candy Corn Runs Through It


The Office-Season 2, Ep. 5:Halloween
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You're Invited

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DIY decor day

See this? wanna make this? (yes you do)
click

For those of you asking, "what the heck is that?", it's a rock ok? ( I can't take full credit for this idea though, these books got me started- http://www.linwellford.com/ordering.html) There are some upsides to rock pumpkins, like they don't grow mold like real pumpkins (and if your basement/attic is like mine you might have experienced fake pumpkins growing mold as well... yeah, ew) They also don't cost you a dime!
So basically you just find a smooth river stone, which is as easy as taking a walk in the woods, and then just go to town. Then you'll need orange, brown, and green acrylic paint. First you paint the whole rock orange. Sketch the face out in pencil, before filing it in with brown (or black) paint. Next add the green stem, and maybe a leaf or a vine. Then I highlighted the features by outlining the with a lighter brown. Lastly, you might want to spray them with some clear polyurethane to ensure the paint doesn't peel.

Another thing you can make, if you can find some smaller, rounded stones, is this creepy eyeball. Or you could make a whole pumpkin patch! Go crazy... Its Halloweek after all!
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