Sunday, October 31, 2010

Boooooonana Bread

Normally, in preparation for Halloween, my Sunday Dinner friends and I carve pumpkins and then have a very informal contest to choose our favorite.

The most memorable one from the past (maybe the first year that I was involved) was a pumpkin carved by our friend "Jim S.". "Jim" is a big fan of 'Mystery Science Theatre 3000' (well, was anyway, as I'm pretty sure it's no longer on the air). The premise of the show is that one astronaut of the team is banished because of his annoying personality. He must spend his banishment watching old films with his homemade robot friends. So most of the show is actually viewing the old films, just like you might do on TCM, but in the foreground is the silhouette of the some theater seat backs and the heads of the astronaut and his robots. Throughout the movie they make comments and jokes about what is going on on the screen, similar to the rude person you might find at a movie theatre.

So, "Jim" carved the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 silhouette, with the screen area cut out entirely. He then inserted a sheet of translucent plastic into the pumpkin to cover the screen area. On the back of the pumpkin he cut a round hole large enough to fit the lens of a movie projector. When he turned the projector ON we were able to watch the movie "Frankenstein" on the 'screen' of the jack o'lantern! It was incredible!

Well, I have no pumpkin carving stories to share from this year. Because Halloween was on a Sunday, the previous Sunday was too far away from Halloween to do the carving at Sunday Dinner. And also, since Halloween was on Sunday, we actually didn't have Sunday Dinner so that any children could 'trick or treat' and the rest of us would be free to man our bowls of candy at the door. So instead of baking for Sunday Dinner, I just baked for us. A couple of bananas needed a job, so on Halloween I baked some Boooooonana Bread (insert groan here).

I couldn't even hand out banana bread to Trick-or-Treaters since we have the perfect Halloween driveway. Dark and down a steep hill where no small child, and no sane parent, is willing to walk just for a small piece of candy and the knowledge that the steep hill must be climbed UP afterward.