I was Jane Austen for Halloween. The dress, though you cannot tell from the photograph, is floor-length, and I am wearing brown riding boots beneath it. I carried a copy of Persuasion at the beginning of the party, just for clarification, but it wasn't really necessary simply because everyone knew me and I'm just the type of girl who dresses up as Jane Austen for Halloween.

The feast was this:

First course: Mulled wine and slow-cooked bell peppers stuffed with a turkey-prosciutto-carrot-celery-onion mix
Main Course: slow-cooked lamb in a red wine tomato sauce with rosemary and thyme
Dessert: slow-cooked rice pudding and apples dipped in dulce de leche

It was a huge success, and I did have a lot of fun cooking it. However, it was incredibly time-consuming on a Sunday afternoon and I wouldn't want to repeat the feast-party concept more than seasonally.

We watched Hocus Pocus. Have you all seen this gem of a film? I hadn't seen it since my pre-teen years, most likely, but when I was growing up I was obsessed with it (for whatever reason). I had not realized then how actually creepy it is; the way that Sarah Jessica Parker's witch character breathes the word "boys!" whenever they are mentioned just made us all uncomfortable. After the film we watched a collection of Michael Jackson music videos; we meant to only watch "Thriller," but once we got started, we couldn't stop.




On the left is my friend Annmarie as Pippy Longstocking, and in the middle Lisa as a viking! She is trying to chop off poor Jane Austen's head.