Dearest Reader, did you know that I spent the first six years of my life upside down?

Every day when my father would come home from work he would find me, upside down, my head buried in the soft cushion of the couch. Every night, when we would gather in the lounge room to watch television while my father popped sunflower seeds in his mouth from a large jar and my mother knitted rhythmically *click clack, click clack* and my sister sat quietly, there I would be, upside down.

“Her brain will dislodge” my parents said to each other.

“Just make sure her school marks don’t go down” they said eyeing me.

Then, after six years, a girl at school told me that I would break my neck if I spent so much time upside down. It seemed logical enough-a spindly neck surely couldn’t hold up a body and frightened, I decided that being right side up was probably the sensible thing to do.

What’s my point? Well six years is a long time to do anything. And six years is the amount of time it took me to perfect this tuna dip recipe. Why six years on a tuna dip? I should explain that it wasn’t six consistent years trying to make this dip. A friend of mine Teena used to bring a tuna dip to our place for dinner parties. I loved it so much and assumed that she made it so every time when she’d ask what she could bring I’d mention the tuna dip. Then one day she brought it in the container that it came in and I realised that a) she didn’t make it and b) that it was really expensive because she bought it at a Woollahra deli. So feeling guilty about having asked for it I didn’t ask her to bring it again and sought to make my own.

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So there I was, waiting for a batch of blood for my annual Halloween party. Not the human kind mind you, but nevertheless a batch of blood. The only problem? It was about to arrive when I was going to have a meeting with my book publishers at Penguin to discuss publicity for my upcoming book.

“What am I going to do?” I asked Mr NQN. “It needs to be fresh, and I can’t pick it up any other time”

“Bring it with you to the meeting?” he suggested.

“I suppose, I can’t be the only author that has brought a bag of blood to a meeting, can I?” I reasoned.

Well as it turns out, blood isn’t the easiest thing to get and it ended up being late which saved me from a fate of explaining why I was carry half a litre of cryovaced pigs’s blood (well at least it wasn’t in a bucket and I wasn’t in a 70′s style prom dress I didn’t have said bucket tipped over me a la Carrie…).

Every year I look forward to my favourite time of the year, Halloween where I get to say goodbye to the pretty and embrace the ghoulishly morbid. This year for Halloween I ended up making 14 items – I know 13 is a lucky or unlucky number depending on who you talk to but an additional thing just slipped in in my excitement. I prepped the party for the week prior to it-I was holding it early as I wasn’t able to hold it on the last weekend of October and I also figured if anyone wanted to cook the recipes they would have time in order to make them. As I have for the past few years, I went to my favourite party supply store The Party People for items including a backdrop that would transform our neutral toned apartment into a dungeon and for good measure I hired a fog machine so that guests could be treated to the sight of a foggy, misty Halloween evening! I do love the delightfully creepy!

A few days before the party I sent around a little reminder to my guests:

“My dearest, darling ghoul
I’ve been busy mixing up spiders and gruel
For a Halloween night
That will give you a fright
See you on Saturday at 7pm, don’t forget there’s only one rule…

Please wear a costume! ”

Well I never laid claim to any poetic talents. So without any further dithering allow me, dressed as your Disneyland Haunted Mansion Maid wearing a costume made by my mother, to present you with my hellishly horrible Halloween party of 2011!

Press the doorbell to enter…

Blood punch

My esteemed guests, let us start with something to drink. Some blood punch Madam or Sir? Presented most delightfully in a clear blood fountain, the mistress of the manor likes to drink blood so she thought you might like to try some. Perhaps you’ll get a taste for it like she has…

Please help yourself to anything on the dining table…it’s all gruesomely edible…

Have you ever visited  a pet cemetery? Here is a haunted one made of an avocado, spinach and chickpea hummus dip where ghosts abound visiting tombstone crackers and pretzel fences keep them in.

If you haven’t visited a dentist lately I wouldn’t recommend these apple rotting teeth with caramel peanuts…

Watermelon brain

This was the brain of someone that displeased the mansion’s mistress. She’s a little despotic so she decided off with his head and that she would share it with all of you…

Oh dear, and here is the rest of the man that displeased the mansion mistress. Apart from being a despot she also has a nicer side and believes in nose to tail eating…So she thought that we should eat all of him from his bbq pork ribs to his spicy sausage intestines! With a bloody tomato sauce of course

Smokey pumpkin cheese ball

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“I’m right!”  Mr NQN said.

“No, I’m right!” I answered.

“No. I’m the boss of you because I’m taller and bigger than you!” he reasoned.

“So what, everyone’s taller and bigger than me!” I countered.

Don’t tell him Dear Reader, but sometimes Mr NQN is right (I hope he doesn’t read this story teehee ). But it isn’t because he is taller than bigger than me. He was after all the person that suggested putting up the really  super easy recipes that I frequently make for the two of us onto the blog. I always considered them not really blog worthy but your enthusiasm and kind response to them has convinced me that he was right.

This is one of the most delicious and easiest dips you can make. It is also low in fat and you don’t even need a food processor to make it. You can mash it with mortar and pestle of a potato masher, add the other ingredients and voila, you have a dip that is somewhere in between hummus and baba gannoush. Unlike a chickpea hummus you use a single tin of four bean mix to do this which also has the added benefit of being softer and easier to crush if you don’t have a food processor or when you can’t be bothered washing one up. This time I did it in the small bowl of a food processor and it was done within minutes-call this a dip at the ready in case friends drop by or you get peckish and want to eat something healthy but tasty. Perfect for the weekend and done in about five minutes!

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