Pass the Brains Please...

"Pass the brains please" has been heard
 in our dining room for 25 years now.
This year was the quarter century mark for our annual

 "SPOOOOOKY DINNNERRRRRR"!





I started this tradition when our children were very young. I myself have no problem eating "snot salad", "blood and bones" or "fingers and eyeballs". Last year we even added a "brain" to the menu...

Spooky dinner is not for wimps. It IS a ton of fun and frolic, but it is also a labor of love on my part. Some things are worth the effort!





So we usually hold the dinner on a Monday night. That way I have the day to make preparations. Most of the foods can be prepared a day in advance, but the decor...
      HAS to be a haunted happening that no one is witness to.



Through the years our children and guests have had to crawl through a spider's lair, creep under the mists of darkness and enter through unknown passages to actually arrive at the dining hall. Bwa ha ha!


YOU can haunt your hall anyway YOU choose. Mine has always included spider webs with thousands of arachnids , dark and dreary draping over windows, mirrors and openings and the fogs of fear and dread spilling over the table. I often include "floating candles" and "lab" containers with various "body parts" in colored and boiling liquids. (Dry ice is my good buddy for the dinner).
Lighting is always dim and is done mostly with the magic of the flame on a myriad of candles.


Our menu is as follows:
Entrails, with brittle bones served from a mini coffin (meal in a pumpkin with bread bones to form a
      corpse)
Snot Salad-  lime jello acne de pepe salad
Crisp fingers- baby carrots with sliced almond fingernails attached with cream cheese
Gooey Eyeballs- deviled eggs with sliced olive iris and red food coloring "bloodshot effect"
Blood and bones-Bread bones with spicy tomato dip
Brains- carved mini watermelon
Dracs Drugs- mini syringes with red jello in them
Grave diggers delight- Chocolate pudding with crushed oreos and gummy worms
Blood Punch- red Kool-aide with pineapple juice and sprite















Only three rules apply for our ghoulish guests:

1- You must arrive dressed only in black and white wearing an eye mask of your making.

2- You must refer to foods by their proper names when passing. For example; "Please pass the brains", or "entrails please". Crazy voices are encouraged (the Count is often present).

3- FUN is the ONLY ANSWER!

***Parental guidance in suggested. We have had some of the very young set (4 or 5 years of age) be a bit frightened until mommy whacked off a piece of "brain" and bit into it! Just warn your guests LOL!

The tradition has honestly been Spooctacular! We will carry on for another 25 years and perhaps even ...

.................................................Beyond the grave......................................................