Witches Tea Party Under a Halloween Moon 2011

[PRELUDE: This All Hallows weekend, Miss Anna,
who hangs her

pointy hat
at Frosted Petunias, is hosting a gathering of witches for a a tea party under a Halloween moon to celebrate and to remember!

"I invite you (The Witches Tea Party Under a Halloween Moon is open to all active bloggers, because the more the merrier the make merry!) to create a tea party to express and honor the witch in all of you. Whether you are an artful witch, a whimsical witch or a magickal witch (and yes you can be all). Your tea party can be fun and playful, sacred and soulful, hauntingly spooky or simply beautiful," she joyfully offered. Without a moment's hesitation, I accepted!]

It was a dark and stormy night...

But first and nextly comes right out from me a teensy tinsy gust of outloud merriment, because a thrill that starts at my topnot travels to the toe~tippies of

Can you be anything but happy when you're wearing striped socks?
my striped sockinged feet,
then back again and twice more,
as I remember

a dear Funny Papers friend
typewriting on his rooftop

and me realizing his passion for launching yet another of many novels with this, canonical phrase "borrowed" from Victorian purple proser, Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, opening his story in such an intriguing way. Eversincely, I have entertained the thought of some day making temporary use of Snoopy's eternal opener to unfold a tale of my own. Today be that dream come true!

It was a dark and stormy night... sort of.

*nervously struggling with a Truth~Be~Told on the verge of being confessed out of avoidability (as I will not sleep ever again if I do not spill!)*

Gemmama says, "To cut bread in an uneven manner is a sign that you have have been telling a lie." At this moment I am glad my grandmother is not present to hand me the serrated knife. For it is true: a fib I cannot tell (and get away with it). White deceits do not become me, and dark BIG lies neither do I wear well. They, inparticular, are oversize garments on me, whose disacorded darts are liked to misguided "shoots" of firework.

Thus, the Truth~Be~Told: even though this story's unfurl found its beginning late, late yesterday, it happened beneath showy, twinkling stars that brightly down~watched overly and throughout. Expressly, then, it was NOWISE a dark and stormy night...

Because it being Hallowe'en, I took advantage of the situation merely to be able to finally put this opening to my special good use, is all. Having that said, I am feeling better already! On with the party? LET'S SHALL!

At the stroke of midnight, sounded by Gemmama's parlored Great Clock, a very early brewed and very black cup of party tea was poured into a middlish~size bowl, where raisins, sultanas (golden rasisins), currants, and lemon peelings~made~candied would sleep~soak until plumped. Sametimely, Sun's up would interrupt their spelt~upon slumber, and I then did collander the entire lot, because there is an All~Hallows~Even tradition, Barmbrack, an edible~y divining tool that next I would bake from a special formula, that of witch which I merrily share~ily! (Later this day, featured in the blog section tagged "Comments," below, I promise you my family's holiday receipt!)

Forever to our clan known as

Speckle Bread
(The word "brack" comes from the Irish "breac," meaning "speckled.")

because it is, quite frankly, "spotty" to the eye. Speckle Bread speaks of itself perfectly, and Celtically called Báirín Breac, this Irish fruited tea bread, that is nearly cake, is best served toasted with a smear of Witch's Frosting (softened butter) and washed with a cup of Irish Tea, typically on the day that is Halloween!

Most front forwardly, though, and of what I did make hints at priorly, Barmbrack is a delicious

fortune telling game, whose baker hidingly dough~deeps destiny trinkets and charms symbolic in their slice for those breaking this sweet treat on Samhain, and thus divines their future!

Once upon a time and waaay way back in the day, secretly planted bakery bits of silver and gold would customarily include a coin (wealth), a matchstick (to beat your spouse with --?!), a rag (poverty), a thimble (spinsterhood), a button (bachelorhood), a gold ring (marriage), and a pea or bean (once again with the poverty).

But whiles and whiles ago, Gemmama and her flock decided these antiquaited, if not downright nasty, predictors had to go. Replacing them would be a fun~wonderful slew of new charms with exceptional meanings:

[PLEASE NOTE: Pictured replicas only. Precisely posted images would adversely change the positive charge belonging to them.]

Peanut Charm
Forecast: You will join the circus!

Best be having a Litter Box Charm handy if this be your find, as this silvery morsel is really a bell: it actually tinkles!
Cat Charm
Forecast: Furry or t'otherwise, you will make a new friend.

The Coffin Charm
stands for a Wealth of Health: "If this trinket be in your slice, keep it hidden more than twice." (Meaning, if the the charm is hidden all year long, then there is no coffin. Or in other words, "No coughin'," which is to say, "Good Health!")

Fancy Spectacles Charm
Forecast: You shall find something or someone that you thought you'd lost.

The Pickle or Craving Charm
Forecast: Someone very close to you--Mayhaps even you!--will become round with child.

Satchels be packed!
Because, not unlike an Eensy Weensy up the water spout, ye, too, shall travel.

The Love Beannie Charm
Gemmama added the Nesmith cap to the mix the year then tweenager Momsie longed to be on the arm of a particular Monkee. These days, it signifies a new or a renewed romance is just around the corner.

Purse Charm
Forecast: The money tree growing in your backyard will finally sprout "leave$e$"!

Enchanted Slipper Charm
Forecast: Come Black Friday, all of your tracks will be fast, taking you to the head of the cash register line each and every time!

. . . . . . .

Now, then, care to join me in

a spot and a cut of the spotty?
Please and thank~you to tell me of the charm you made discovery of, encrusted in your slathered slice!

A Forget~Me~Not Reminder:

Mud be thy name if you do not find yourself finding

Mini Teacup Ring / LittlePinkBox
an especially special way
to keep this day's memories!

Credit where credit is do:
Snoopy / Charles M. Schulz
Charms: Amanda Jo.com
Tea set / Hannah Stockham
Forget~Me~Nots / Glitter Your World
Mini Teacup Ring / LittlePinkBox

She Can Bake a Cherry Pie, Quick's a Cat Can Wink Her Eye!

(Endora’s voice is the only one wearing

an All-Hallows-Even costume: French! Give listen:)
L'Halloween Heureuse,
mes chéris, mes chéris!

This summer’s late June, I made certain an extra two pounds~worth of Sour Cherries found themselves riding home from The Local (farmers' market) in my bicycle basket, jiggety~jig! At the kitchen table, my dearsweet friend, Soose, and I did set ourselves down and, then, making with the hasties, we stems~stones~and~all turned the fruits out onto cookie sheets headed to the deep freeze to hibernate the cherries for freshness, purposefully.

At last, their long anticipated, circled~and~starred in orangest~glitter~on~the~calendar day has finally arrived! (How lucky~stars lucky we are that someone took it upon themself to invent my close pal, the irrepressible hyphen! Thank the heavens and the planets, too, that I most times have the presence of mind to touch this punctuation mark that I call favorite, with my FullOfFancy paintbrush, causing it to ruffle-- a keyboard~artistc stroke that renders it helplessly beautiful! Wouldn’t you have to agree? Looksee! There go by a few strays as we speak: ~ ~ ~ ~ !)

This morning, I ceremoniously opened the Arctic part of Gemmama’s fridge (Yes, indeed I did not forget to suitcase the bagsful of the rock~solid~frozens, when I packed my things to come to my grandmother’s house to custodian it while she is Across the Pond.) to thaw the main integrals of a time~honored tradition: The Spirit Night Pitting!

It was Gemmama’s younger brother, Ned, who twice~bounced this about to be mentioned ball before getting it to roll for me, when I was a teen~ager learning pies: It was Halloween morning and I was in a snit. My needs and wants were all about baking a pie for the Trick or Treat Afters. But thoughts of making a pumpkin or sweet potato or apple or any other expected harvest pie, tired me. In addition to that particular sulking, I was upsetting over the fact that I did not yet have Halloween ringing in my heart, then right down to the tips of my striped~socked toes and back again. At this game’s stage, I would have been happy merely to hear it chiming in my ears!

Suddenly, my Great Uncle Ned appeared in the doorway. Wearng a crisp white laboratory jacket and an enormous “Nedward”~grin on his face (Nedward is my Fond Name for him!), he would announce: “Methinks I have the cure for your No ‘Boo!’ Boo Hoos!” As he plopped onto the kitchen table a bucketful of saved back from summertime cherries and two silver pitters not unlike Frankensteinian surgical instruments, he went on to say, “What is best needed here, is to do

a big ‘something’ mad scientisty!”

As that proclamation’s loom did take over the room’s mood and mine, I exchanged my flowered apron for the pristine lab coat that my Great Uncle merrily was teasing my undernose with.

An InDeppth Look at Mr. Todd
OR
A Beyond Dark Johnny About to Cut Loose !

Quicker than

a bat indoors
can conjure up a fiercely swinging tennis racket
aimed in the direction of itself,
the kitchen was

a red~splashed scene

straight out of the Victorian penny dreadful, The String of Pearls! Crimson cherry juice was not only here and there, but everywhere! And harmlessly macabre Neddy and I (the Sweeny Todds behind it all) were giddy for it!

Indeed and positively, on Samhain 1999, a miracle did happen: my curious Great Uncle Ned gave birth! To a new Halloween tradition, that is: The Spirit Night Pitting!

Which in turn---upon his kind and a hungry~tinged suggestion, as Nedward does wear a bottomless belly, when life is all about pies and tarts!---brought forth yet another annual practice:

She Can Bake a Cherry Pie,
Quick's a Cat
Can Wink Her Eye Tart!

It pleases me, it does,
to share with you this:
my once a yearly baked receipt!

She Can Bake a Cherry Pie,
Quick's a Cat Can Wink Her Eye Tart

Filling:
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar, but not together
2 tablespoon measures of cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon salt
5 cups whole pitted Sour Cherries (when unpitted cherries, 2 pounds it will be)
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 tablespoon of mik, aboutish

For crust and topknot: Use the Do Ahead, chilling in the refrigerator ever since two days ago.

For filling and "bakes":
Position your range shelf to set in the lower third of a preheated to 425°F oven. Move quickly together and in a bowl a bit less than large 1 cup sugar, cornstarch, and salt. Disturb the blend with the cherries, lemon juice, and vanilla; keep back.

From its fridge hold, kitchen counter the pie crust and a short while more make it wait.
On a flour~sprinkled work board, roll a Do Ahead dough puck into an 11-inch round whose thickness belongs to 1/8 measure; aside it. Spoonfeed the Sour Cherry filling to the pie~panned Do Ahead evenly. Make cut-up pieces of butter be dots on top. Blanket the patient uppercrust. With water, make damp the top and bottom crusts where they happen on, then under turn the top crust to be under the bottom crust: make edges flutey (I much raher the pinches as big as biggest.). Steam slits numbered five or six are next cut into the tightened dough lid. Like Fairy dust, sprinkle with remaining 1 tablespoon sugar.

Place pie on a dribblecatch (baking sheet) and bake 15 minutes before making lower the oven temperature to 375°F. Until the filling is bubbling and crust is golden brown, bake some more, with foil coverings edges if browning does not behave (about 1 hour longer). Rack cool completely. Wedge and serve with vanilla~laced ice cream.

Merriest Halloween!

Credits:. pitter, winker, pie,

A Blessing In Disguises

My pal of pals Josiette, who is still inclining backward on the fainting chaise in Gemmama’s Upper Pink Room, where she be wink~catching from our last night’s

Midnight Margaritas
~~Shall we call it a practice run in the direction
of La Boheme Magique and Frosted Petunias’

Practical Magic Blog Party?

Let’s shall! Tee~hee! And forgetnot to trace a star around where it’s situated on the calendar. (“Click on the up~top button for the whole of it then, because the more, the merry meet!)...

I re~gather my thoughts: My dear Josiette, who is a little peaked today, and I are trick~or~treaters in an ENORMOUS way. We were wee~witches in late October, traveling door~to~door in our mumsies’ arms, brimming our Halloween candy sacks to bounteous, when we made our pact to always honor the Trick~or~Treat, and nothing less than TOGETHER.

Yes, I spill: at first, it was all about the chocolate bars and wax lips and all things ju ju be~ish. But soon, the “all about” became the fun and frolic of the disguise! Our delight belongs to the annual dress~up (and our homemade pumpkin tart~filled hands extended to offer sweet appreciation to the kindheart answering the ring of the doorbell or the knock of the knocker, who generously treats the little ghoulies and goblins shouting out their wonderful “Tricks~or~Treats!”).

Ten plus one days ago, we panicked! It was already August 24 and our this year’s Halloween "charades" were yet to be constructed (Our unwritten deadline has perpetually been that month’s first day.), because our ideas of what they would have us be, hadn’t even been realized by us!

That night, we turned to

a wise old friend,

who just happened to be hanging over us and full, for meaningful awakening and great reception to its opportunities. We called on the Moon for abundant inspiration.

Under Lunar luminance and beneath Gemmama’s rogue grapevine, we were granted a potent enchantment: after making ourselves the middle of two mirrors placed opposite of each other so that one reflected a moonbeam back into the other, and three orange candles, Josiette and I scratched our initials into the up~top side of the warm wax of one of them. After lighting their wicks and still seeing the letters of our names, I linked to Josiette by attaching my left hand to the orange cord she held in her right. And with my other hand, I grasped the wand of

Honesty Plant

she held in her left, forming us into a circle. As we absorbed the energy of the moonlight, the candles ~~in particular, the "inscribed~by~us"~~ burned, freeing the letters of our names. Just as they were no more, Josiette and I together clockwised seven times. The trailing cord wrapping round us, gathered the moonbeams about our bodies. We felt rawly and happily opened to receive all that was to come our way!

Retiring for the night in Gemmama’s BIG bed, we slept with freshly~plucked~from~the~moon~drenched~stem honesty seeds tucked under our peather fillows. (Cuckoo birds that we be, Josiette and I often speak Oddly Reversed ~~such fun!)

At the snap of a quick dawn, we both sat bolt~up, just as quick and not unlike two reposed vampires caught in a sun chink, but without the smoke and burning. (EWE! Tee~hee!) Josiette looked my way and I, hers. Joyfully we cried out in near harmony (Actually, I think it be all Miss Josiette’s idea.):

Me: Chinese Lantern (Physalis)

Josiette: Deadly Nightshade (Atropine)
“We will show ourselves
as poison plants!”

Following the gardenyard burial of the Honesty coins, and a honey bun breakfast, Josiette and I pleasant tripped to Britex (four floors of store right off Union Station, packed to the rafters with consummate cloths, notions, etc. We would indeed again squidge our wallets, for only the finest fabrics will due for our Halloween costumes, forever treasures that they are.) A good explore later, I had bought miles-long of

bloody orange
to share!

And Josiette had climbed the library ladder
to find luscious remnants of

Yellow Like Fireflies
and Evening Purple
for her delicate accents.

Tonight, we sew!

Evening Nightshade: K.Chayka

It’s the Greatest Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

I am a mere forkful away from my morning being not unlike what Baby Bear’s bowl of porridge was to Goldilocks:

JUST RIGHT!

And yours can be, too,
because by the time this entry closes,

the pumpkin pie
I baked for breakfast

will be cooled and slice-able. Inhale deeply, my friend. Do you smell its nice and creamy, spicy aroma? I trust I can make a plate full and pass-able to you? Grand and splendid! I knew you’d see it my way! (REMINDER of the UTMOST IMPORTANCE: Don’t forget to eat the pie point first, making a wish when you do.)

After your last bite, and if indeed you grow your own pumpkins, there’s a hardy chance your day might get even better ~~Can you imagine?! When your thoughts return to your first meal of the day being your favorite orange pie, nothing could possibly beat that, could it?! Read on!

Step lively, my little crickets! Take yourself down the garden path to the pumpkin patch (I’m watchdogging Gemmama’s while she is away.) and see how big "everyone’s" gotten. If the pumpkins are

fairly partially grown,

you will blissfully call today Samhaim Signature Day! While it was only just last week on my end that it was way soon to let creative juices flow, we'll hope for the best, today. (My excitement for this yearly-dearly always seems to build much too early!) Still, if the pumpkins aren't yet ready, at least the seed will be planted, telling "calligraphers" what to do when they are. And if that is the sobeit, from here on out, a well kept vigil on the situation must be imposed, so chances aren’t missed.)

If your orange moon garden is presently all about fractionally-grown orbs, HUZZAH! You’re right on time to personalize them! Using a white-handled ice pick or other sharp instrument, scratch your name and the names of family members and friends on pumpkins. (Be certain the hand-end of your “penning” utensil is like snow. If pumpkin-writing is achieved by the use of a tool whose grasp is any thing less than Casper color, bad luck will befall the writer AND the person whose name highlights the pumpkin. Mind you, this business is of a serious nature.)

By Halloween harvest, the scratch on each pumpkin will have healed over, becoming slightly raised. The result is a very attractive “signature,” if you will, especially if you’ve chosen to inscribe using a Halloween-decorative script. And the Ooings and Aahings of the personalized-pumpkin recipients will be heard ‘round the world, I promise you!

Now how about some pie before the magickal calligraphy begins? Come on! Who is it that can say no to sustenance ala wish?!

pumpkin pie/nola.com, Hillary Barker/vine pumpkin illustrator