in the clear?

Just when Ian and I were getting accustomed to having heat (yes, our furnace was repaired), and coping with residual oily/gasoline/chemical smelliness that had been left after the repairs, our refrigerator broke.

Apparently, the compressor decided that it'd had enough, and ended its brief life (actually, I think that this fridge has been running since the mid 70's, honestly). On Tuesday morning, we awoke to a sizable puddle in the kitchen, and thawed frozen goods. We rushed these thawed goods downstairs to our neighbors' freezer (we had just stocked up on frozen meats/seafood/ vegetables), and gave the landlady a call. It took 2 days to get the fridge repaired.. meaning we lost many valiant, delicious soldiers in the battle. Not everything was a loss, but unfortunately, a prime candidate was the large amount of tasty chicken korma leftovers that Ian had stocked us with for the week. He'll be testing one of these today for spoilage (my thoughts are with him)...

In other food news.. some delicious pictures from the Halloween party! Everyone seemed to be absolutely thrilled with contributions from the Baking Queen of Queens, who delivered a scrumptious torso-shaped cake (including all anatomically correct organs). These butter cream frosting-covered treats were sealed with something dubbed as 'mutant alien baby goo' buy the baker.. apparently fondant is similar in molecular structure to the Blob. Though an experimental recipe, this medical miracle was a dizzyingly delicious treat. Another huge hit was a homemade concoction cobbled together by Ian and myself - the meat head!

Taking an interesting suggestion from Make Magazine's Halloween issue, we started with a clean human skull resin replica and coated it with a purple sticky substance; the author of the article suggested a gelatin-based mix, but we decided to go with a few servings of a failed grape jelly recipe from my mom. When jelly is cooked just a little too long, it starts taking on the properties of leather.

Warmed, it makes a fine goo.

Once the base is applied, deli meats (we chose salami and pastrami - the more 'muscley' looking meats) are then added in layers to resemble raw muscle covering the head. The finishing touches are of course the eye balls, which are suggesting to be made out of cocktail onions. For a more realistic look, we decided to go with hard-boiled eggs for the base, and green olives for the iris/pupils. Everybody at the party was really grossed out at first, but every(omnivorous)body just had to have a taste of the meat head. I highly recommended this delightful snacking item for any party, especially one around Halloween.

A fairly delicious holiday is rapidly approaching, and I have the pleasure of having my moms come to our place in CT for a Thanksgiving feast. My first turkey ever, I will be sure to post a play-by-play.