11.01.09
Posted in Look at 10:44 pm by Erin
Truth be told, I was not as excited about Halloween this year as I have been in past years. I missed my friends, and thought about how much fun they were probably having in their far-flung locales. Me? I dressed up as a Persian cat: I wore a gold brocade dress, and cat ears that I made out of silk shantung. Black eyeliner worked well to create whiskers and a black nose. Mars was kinda freaked out when I put on the ears–suddenly, he didn’t know what to make of me.
During the morning, I passed out bookmarks and stickers to the parade of little dinosaurs and monkeys that were trick-or-treating downtown. My favorite costume was the baby dressed like a lobster, sitting in a stock pot and pushed along in a stroller by his/her parents, who were dressed like chefs. In the evening, we went out to eat–in costume–and then heard a few bands at a bar. It was alright. Nothing too amazing. Lots of Maxes from Where the Wild Things Are, so I’m glad I nixed that idea. There was an awesome bridezilla: a bride/Godzilla hybrid.
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11.02.08
Posted in Make at 12:53 pm by Erin
Halloween is my favorite day of the year. For one thing, it encourages creativity in its participants. For another, it’s interesting to see how masks and makeup encourage a kind of disassociation, wherein people take on different personas. I’ve read theories on the carnivale tradition, stating that this opportunity to act as rulers keeps people relatively pacified for the remainder of the year. Halloween night seems similarly ripe for people to vent the confines that they may feel in their day-to-day life. Also, there’s candy.
This year, I made a vampire pinata, pumpkin chocolate chip cupcakes, and delicious spiced cider. I whittled down my list of 30+ costume ideas and settled on a living Sylvia Ji painting. Here are the results:
The makeup took a couple of hours, with the bulk of that spent trying to perfect the white base. I used metallic eyeshadow powders, mixed with a fixing agent for the colors. Scared the crap out of a few people on the bus…
The cupcakes were a hit, too. Here’s the recipe:
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cupcakes, with Cinnamon Icing from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero.
Makes 12 cupcakes.
Ingredients:
1 cup canned pumpkin
1/3 cup oil
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup soy milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1. Preheat oven to 350° F. Line cupcake pan with cupcake liners [or just grease with a tiny bit of oil].
2. In a medium bowl, stir together pumpkin, oil, sugar, soy milk, and vanilla. Sift in the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Stir together with a fork–don’t use a handheld mixer, as it will make the batter gummy. Once well-combined, fold in the chocolate chips.
3. Fill liners two-thirds full. Bake for 22 to 24 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool fully before icing.
Cinnamon Icing
Ingredients:
1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons margarine, melted
1 tablespoon soy milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1. Place sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. Add the margarine, soy milk, and vanilla and stir with a fork until smooth. Keep at room temperature until ready to use. The mixture should look opaque and homey brown. If it’s glistening a lot or looks too liquid, add a little extra confectioners’ sugar.
Once cupcakes are cooled completely, pipe icing on.
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