Fright Night.

What a night! We invited friends over for a halloween party that included several photo shoots reminiscent of America's Next Top Model, so the photos were pretty good, right? Along with the help of Madison Friends (Liz, Catherine, Katie, James, and Conley), the house was decked out in paper streamers and jack-o-lanterns, and Dana and I managed to make pumpkin seeds, vegan chocolate/coffee/coconut cupcakes, 500 popcorn balls (DON'T try to double the syrup. It messes up some sort of sugar PH and we ended up with very sticky kettle korn), and a giant patch of Witches Brew.



If you can't tell, I'm a fish. It was supposed to be a cute couples costumer, with Tim being a bear and all. But Tim's bear costume ended up consisting of a brown bag on his head and a brown corderoy suit jacket (thanks, John). So yes, don't judge me, I sidled up to my friend Megan, also conveniently dressed as a bear.

We ended the night by watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, starring Kristy Swanson, Donald Sutherland, Luke Perry and Paul Reubens. It was 84 minutes of pure delight.



Here is the popcorn ball recipe we used. It is my Grandma Mische's recipe, and when I called my mom to get it yesterday, she said "I'm just about to make some, too!" Ma had much more impressive ingredients for hers though---black popcorn, M&Ms, and soy nuts. Stupid neighbor kids getting my mother's delicious treats while I being a grown up far away, unable to trick or treat like I really, really want to. Stupid neighbor kids.

We used yellow dye in stead of red, so they looked like glowing buttery balls of goodness. The next time I do this I'd make maybe 1 1/2 cups of popcorn, salt it, and then pop more if I needed more for the syrup. We had a little bit too mcuh popcorn and we thought we could just make another quick batch of syrup. Then Dana added twice the water, and THIS IS WHERE I SHOULD HAVE SAID "WAIT. Let's just start over again." But the ingredients weren't expensive so we went in, popcorn balls to the wall, and made twice as much popcorn. We ended up with two giant towers of popcorn smushed together. I don't know what we were thinking making five times the amounts of stuff, but I'm not complaining, either. In the end, we have sugary delicious popcorn galore. It's more of a glass half full type of situation.

Grandma Mische's Pink Popcorn Balls

2 cups unpopped corn
2 cups sugar
2/3 cup water
2/3 cup light syrup
¼ cup butter
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 Tbsp vinegar

Cook to 245 on thermometer. Remove from heat and add tsp of vanilla and ½ tsp almond flavoring and any food coloring. Pour over the popcorn and form into balls.


Thanks for the recipe, Ma!