Dia de Los Muertos/Lovely Bones

Yesterday, on kind of a whim, I bought tickets to Mexico for Day of the Dead and the two surrounding weeks. It's been a dream of mine for several years, and I finally have a chance. Also, my lovely friend Julia will be there for the first two weeks, and she seems like a really ideal person to travel with.

Coinciding with All Saints' Day, Dia de Los Muertos is like a graveside family reunion. To an outsider it seems macabre, but the richly coloured paper-mache Catrina statues exist to mock Death, personified. At midnight, the religious hold picnic-vigils with their loved ones whose souls are believed to return, guided by the sound of churchbells and the scents of their favourite foods, and rich marigolds.

My daydreams keep returning to city blocks taken over by flower and folk art markets, marigolds on the air, the crowded cemeteries full of those who go to honor their dead. Seas of flowers, people walking with brooms, buckets of water, back and forth to the communal water tap so they can clean headstones. They set up their altars, bring food, alcohol, sugar skulls, and music and sit with their departed loved ones.

Sugar Skulls
Ingredients:
granulated sugar
meringue powder
powdered sugar
dye coloring paste + water

Tools:
sugar skull mold
large mixing bowl
electric mixer
food processor
cardboard cut out to the sizes of the mold pieces
pastry bags for frosting
colored foil for decoration

Besides the mold, the key ingredient to the mix is the meringue powder. Some recipes suggest egg whites, but meringue powder is cleaner and probably smells better than raw egg. I found it at a local gourmet bakery specialty store but I know that they carry it at Michael's, in the cake decorating section. Don't ask the employees, they never know where anything is. Michael's also carries the dye paste which you use for the frosting mix later on.

Day 1 consists of making the actual skulls and letting them dry. Combining the ingredients you wonder, "How is this going to turn hard?" Trust me, it does. Press the sugar mix into the mold, pack it in tight. Take a straight surface to the back and scrape off the excess so the back is flat. Then, take a piece of cardboard, flip it over, just like you would with a cake. The sugar should fall out easily, if it sticks, that means your mix is too moist. I find that rinsing out the mold every few pieces helped out, just make sure it is very dry before you make another piece. If a piece doesn't come out right, just put it back in the bowl, mix and try again.This is the downside, you have to allow an 8-12 hour drying period.

If you have leftover sugar in the bowl, throw it out. It will harden in your cookware. Do not attempt to do this on a humid day, the sugar will not set up properly and you will be disappointed.

Day 2 is about assembly and decorating. The first step is to make royal icing, which is basically sugary cement. Do not attempt to make this unless you have an electric mixer or food processor. Once it is done you smear some on the back piece, press it against the face part. Some icing will ooze out of the seam, just run your finger over it till it is smooth. Try to do it in one go.

Set them aside to dry while you mix your frosting colors. Mix your desired frosting colors and pack them in frosting bags.Then the fun part: decorating.

Use plastic baggies or disposable cups to mix your colors, and you will save yourself the aggravation of cleaning it up later. Only use concentrated paste to dye. Liquid food coloring dilutes the frosting, rendering it useless. Keep the frosting covered as much as possible; it will begin to harden if exposed to air. Close any windows near the frosting to prevent drying. If you find that it is drying out too much add a little bit of water and remix it. If you are not skilled with a pastry bag, they sell squeeze bottles you can use that will give you awesome detail, but beware, they clog easily because of the frosting consistency. Find one that has a larger nib diameter. The foil pieces are adhered with frosting.Once your skulls are decorated, set them aside to dry. 5 lbs of sugar renders about 13 medium sized skulls. Once they're ready you set them up in your location or altar of choice.

PS: you don't eat the skulls. I'm cheating by putting them on my food blog, because while they are made of edible materials, the sugar is just used because it makes such a lovely white surface, almost like bones.

I think perhaps a Day of the Dead party is in order when I get back, with sugar skulls on cupcakes, Agua Fresca, ceviche, and little altars everywhere.

**photos courtest of google image search - I know it's cheating, this entry is full cheating - hopefully after my trip I will have many more of my own**

You are what you eat, Angry Chris.

What did you eat today?
not a whole hell of a lot. horrendous fast food. also energy drinks and fruit. as much as i love food, i am terribly bad at actually eating.

What do you never eat?
creamed corn, canned beans and molasses, canned pork and beans. basically anything that come out of a can. the worst is creamed corn though, that will actually make me ill.

In my refrigerator, you can always find
various cheeses and fruits? of ten my fridge is empty. but man i like grapes and cheese, not together mind you.......or maybe yes together, i will have to try this out.

What is your favorite kitchen item?
oh man, i love double boilers, also crock pots, OH AND SPRING FORM PANS!!! man i love me spring form pans. many fine cakes can be made with spring for pans.Where do you eat out most frequently?generally sushi places, i keep saying that i am gonna go out and eat at more varied places, but sadly i am a lazy creature of habit.

World ends tomorrow. What would you like for your last meal?
hunter s thompson once said:"Breakfast is the only meal of the day that I tend to view with the same kind of traditionalized reverence that most people associate with Lunch and Dinner. I like to eat breakfast alone, and almost never before noon; anybody with a terminally jangled lifestyle needs at least one psychic anchor every twenty-four hours, and mine is breakfast. In Hong Kong, Dallas or at home — and regardless of whether or not I have been to bed — breakfast is a personal ritual that can only be properly observed alone, and in a spirit of genuine excess. The food factor should always be massive: four Bloody Marys, two grapefruits, a pot of coffee, Rangoon crepes, a half-pound of either sausage, bacon, or corned beef hash with diced chiles, a Spanish omelette or eggs Benedict, a quart of milk, a chopped lemon for random seasoning, and something like a slice of Key lime pie, two margaritas, and six lines of the best cocaine for dessert…. Right, and there should also be two or three newspapers, all mail and messages, a telephone, a notebook for planning the next twenty-four hours and at least one source of good music…. All of which should be dealt with outside, in the warmth of a hot sun, and preferably stone naked."

now i have never really been a huge breakfast man, i have always held dinner in a higher regard. but i wholey share the mans sentiments on a meal. somethings are best served alone and to excess. so i think rather then having a very fine meal, i would like classic simple food, in large quantities, and seeing as it's a last meal i would probably not mind the booze or cocaine either.

You are what you eat, Sarah K.

What did I eat today:

A toasted tomato sandwitch, blackberries, rice crackers and Salt Spring Island feta!

What I never eat:

Pork rinds! Ewwww. I've pretty much eaten everything else, ever.

In my refrigerator:

Everything. I still live at home and my parents don't care about money when it comes to good quality food-stuffs. If you want it, I've got it.

My favorite kitchen item:

Either the expresso machine, the crepe pan or my dads overly expensive Japanese knife that makes cutting the most fun in the world.

Where I eat out most frequently:

Ebi Ten by the VPL. I pretend that I'm in Japan and tuck away with a spicy tuna roll and a cali.

Last meal:

It would in all honesty look something like that skech in that Monty Pithon movie where that huge guy eats all night, puking in buckets. I'm a pretty huge fan of food so I think myself exploding a minute before the before the universe - would be a pretty good scene - a wafar thinn biskit seems like a fitting end for me.

You are what you eat, Imogen.

What did you eat today?
Pumpkin bread, Rainier cherry tart with dried flower petals, hazelnut latte. But the day is still young. Hoping for masala dosas for dinner.

What do you never eat?
Nacho cheese, pork and beans in a can, natto, black licorice, rice with soy sauce on it, ice cream with any peanut butter component, Fruit Loops. Poorly cooked anything, or anything that I'm ambivalent about, in ideal circumstances.

Complete this sentence: In my refrigerator, you can always find...
Old fashioned mustard, milk, sambal oelek, leafy greens, egg whites, beer. Jam I made myself. I have a definite preference for pungent things, as a rule. We usually have ice cream or an ice cream derivative in the freezer, too, and a big old chunk of Callebaut chocolate for baking.

What is your favorite kitchen item?
My Global knives.

Where do you eat out most frequently?
$3 breakfast at Bon's off Broadway. Sushi at Daimasu in Metrotown. Dinners out lately seem to be mostly sushi or diner breakfast at all hours, but other favourites include Sai-Z for special occasions, Congee Noodle House when I'm sick or sad (if chicken soup is Jewish penicillin, then chicken congee must be Chinese penicillin). Vietnamese subs. Chinese egg tarts.

World ends tomorrow. What would you like for your last meal?
Really good sushi, particularly mackerel and spicy tuna. Buttered toast. Prosciutto e melone. Oysters. Raw and fried and salt-baked with aioli. Eclairs. Okanagan peaches and cherries. Dense chocolate chai cake with ganache and edible flowers. Pea shoots. Bon's coffee.

I tried to like Vitamin Water. It matches my lululemon yoga pants, and I wanted to like it.
Unfortunately, it has this weird... density to it, that puts me off in beverages.
Like those Orbitz drinks from the nineties, and red bean bubble tea (which combines some of my favourite things - red beans and tapioca - into an abysmal swampy mess).
I just don't like to drink anything that has the potential to get stuck in my teeth, you know?

I just want to eat Mickey Mouse shaped cheeseburgers with no one to judge me.

I'm annoyed by vegetarianism, and I'm annoyed by men who think not eating vegetables is somehow bound up in their masculinity, and I'm annoyed by people who don't saute things before they stick them in the oven and pour sauce over them, and I'm annoyed by people who think the breast is the only good part of the chicken when it's actually maybe the worst part, but the thing that annoys me most is this behaviour that I've seen in friends and family indulge in, whereby they will arbitrarily decide to reject an entire class of food. 'I don't like fish.' 'I don't like cheese.' 'I don't like rice.'
I take the Anthony Bourdain approach to these people: they must be terrible in bed.

The last entry, upon closer inspection, seems kind of cloyingly Martha Stewartish.

I shall attempt to give future entries more edge.

Possibly with cussing!