This weekend with our good friends Bill & Hayley from The Food Lovers’ Primal Palate was beyond fantastic. It’s late Sunday night and the only reason I am able to find the energy to blog is because we could potentially lose power for a week, due to Hurricane Sandy moving in any hour.
We threw our Healthy Halloween Costumed Candy-Free party on Saturday, which took all of Friday and Saturday to prepare for. Then Sunday we helped Bill & Hayley with their Halloween shoot for their upcoming entertaining book, Gather, the Art of Paleo Entertaining.
We LOVE to entertain, and Halloween is probably my favorite holiday – but the 3 days of cooking, cleaning and hosting has got me tired to the bones. That wonderful kind of tired that fills your heart with memories of friendship and fun.
We started out Saturday morning with Bill & Hayley at the Eastern Market, in the Capital Hill area of DC. It’s a wonderful year-round market I knew B&H would enjoy.
Cole and I shopped, finding seasonal, local produce – like pluots, apples, golden beats, celeriac root and broccolini to take home for this week’s meals (if we are able to cook!).
While Cole and I enjoyed shopping the market, Finian went off with Bill & Hayley.
Finn became adorably enamored with Bill. Perhaps it’s their rock-star-kindred-spirits, or their mutual love of prosciutto and brightly colored shoes, but whatever it was – Finn said his favorite part of Saturday (before the party started) was “holding Bill’s hand.” He asked politely for Bill to tuck him into bed at night. The two of them were a dynamic paleo duo all weekend; so cute!
After the market we went to Old Town Alexandria, where I took B&H to one of my favorite luxury stores – Olio. We tasted impeccable balsamic vinegars and olive oils, bought a few and had to hurry home to get ready for our big costume party!
We were… The Justice League!
Although I wanted to be a redheaded super hero (Black Widow) or Mary Jane to Matt’s Spiderman, Matt informed me the Justice League was a better fit for us. The boys got to be their favorite super heroes, and I enjoyed being Wonder Woman.
Costumes were mandatory for our party, but I made sure to wear leggings and a tank top with my impracticable costume so I could do the moon bounce obstacle course we had! But the real star of the party was, of course, the delicious food we could all share and eat without social stigma of weirdness!
Among all delicious food brought by our guests, everyone’s creativity and willingness to get “into” it was the best!
Our boys happily devoured the food, especially the eyeball & spider deviled eggs!
Honestly, seeing everyone dressed up, really into the spirit and enjoying themselves is the best we could have hoped for.
David & Courtney as Hawk Eye and Black Widow and Aimee & Brian as a Beatnik and Mr. Flinstone.
Bill & Bobby (if you can find him) and Fran as a Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing & her S.A.D Sad Clown (ingenious!)
Bobby & Sima as Waldo & Cat in the Hat
Bill & Hayley were stunning as Snow White and her Prince!
We had all kind of food, alcoholic beverages and snacks, including:
- Apple Cider Sangria
- Bloody Mary’s (with a local farmer’s fresh tomato juice)
- Spider Deviled Eggs
- Pumpkin Clementines
- ELaD Fool’s Gold Chicken Nuggets with Chik-Fil-A-Like Sauce
- “Mummy Fingers” homemade jerky
- Amazing crock pot pot roast
- Shredded turkey legs
- Brussel Sprout Slaw with Bacon & Pecans from Paleo Comfort Foods
- Sunbutter Buckeyes
- Pumpkin Ice Cream (also in Make It Paleo)
- Pumpkin Gingercake with Maple Cinnamon Frosting
- Boo Bites (brought by the Family Grokumentarian’s, Primal Kitchen, themselves!)
- and 4 kinds of cupcakes: Pumpkin Pucks and Harvest Cake with Cinnamon Ginger Frosting, Fallen Chocolate Souffle Cupcakes and The Reese’s Cupcake
The rented moon bounce obstacle course was such a big hit among kids & adults alike, we might have to consider buying one to have at all our parties! We also had glitter tattoos and a grain-free cakewalk too – the kids appeared to have a great time competing for their choice of cupcakes, and a few adults may have “walked” too…
Lastly, before guests left they “trick or treated” among a ton of non-edible goodies brought by each guest – a gift exchange of sorts; such a fun way to end the extravaganza!
There are things we learned and might do differently next year, but this is definitely going to be an annual event for us.
All of these wonderful photos are from Bill, who we cannot thank enough for helping us remember the weekend. I was too busy hosting to get out my own camera and missed some photos of other guests – sorry guys, please send them to me if you came and have photos!
Last but not least, we HIGHLY encourage you to follow The Food Lovers’ on Facebook to see more “teasers” of the Gather photo shoot. And, after seeing a preview of the book and tasting the food from just this one of the full spreads – I feel confident encouraging you to pre-order your copy (that’ll guarantee you the lowest price)!
Hope you had a great weekend and a wonderful upcoming holiday! If you’re in the NorthEast – keep safe!
