Pacqui Miccailhuitl

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Trick r Treat!

The Aztec Pumpkin

I've posted this before and believe (almost 100% positive) that it comes from The Galaf Oceanside Asylum, where all kinds of talent in pumpkin carving can be be found, based on themes world wide!

Exorcist Pumpkins

The Black And White Pumpkin...

From the 1950's.

Halloween Goodies!

Halloween Pumpkin

Favorite pumpkin that I've seen so far today!  From a great Blog Home On 129 Acres.  Please check it out!

Halloween Pumpkin

Paul Leni:  The Man Who Laughed!

More Weird Native Food

This is Yucca in bloom.  The parts used for food are the rubbery white flowers.  The above is a photo taken by my mother yesterday in her yard here in Georgia.  I'm posting this, because like Huitlacoche (see below), it's a strange Native American food, consumed in a variety of ways, mostly in the southwest and rural and native villages in the northern most parts of Mexico.  It's even made it's way into "haute Native cuisine," served mainly in upscale restaurants based on native foods in Indian Casinos (again, mostly in the southwest).  But it what also makes it a fine Countdown To Halloween post, is that Yucca (not to be confused with the tuber Yuca) loves to grow in graveyards old abandoned mining towns.  Spooky, no?  So here are some mine and my mother's photos of this strange plant, both pre and post harvest from yesterday.

Pre-harvest different angle.

Post-Harvest packed and delivered to my house

Un-Packaged

Close up of fleshy flowers

There are several varieties of Yucca native to all over the Americas, including the Caribbean, this is the one of the most commonly cultivated type called Spanish Bayonet, Yucca filmentosa, also sometimes called "Bear Grass."  It is native to the Eastern United States.  The leaves, stems, and especially the roots can be used to stun fish and this is exactly what some of my ancestors primarily used the plant for centuries ago.

One very curious little kitty!!

Halloween Pumpkin

Watching The Evil Dead 2 (1987) over my live Scare Me Blog, so I was wanted to pay a pumpkin tribute to Ash the Demon slayer (Bruce Campbell).  And speaking of Bruce Campbell, here are the best of his one liners

Halloween Pumpkin

Channeling my inner love of silent film.  

Angry Pumpkins

Monsters vs. Aliens: Mutant Pumpkins From Outer Space

Over my Scare Me blog, we are having a "Peanut" day--meaning my son is running the show as far as viewing goes.  His first selection today was Monster vs. Aliens, following the film's release the made this adorable halloween special involving one our most important native foods:  pumpkins.  The film can be viewed online to cast via a Chrome Cast device to a television over at Dailymotion---just be aware these aren't your ordinary pumpkins....

One Of My All Time Favorite Pumpkin Carvings!

Carved in the style of the Maya calendar round.

Over at the Scare Me Site, we are celebrating Native Actresses In Horror Films, thought this would be appropriate.  Mind you, I did not carve this, but whoever did--wasn't able to find out--is very talented!!

Welcome To Freaky Native Stuff!

Bye the way, corn fungus tastes great.  Also Tsalagi (Cherokee) used it as medicine...but still freaky ain't it!!

Happy Countdown To The Days Of The Dead

Welcome To This Blog's Countdown To The Dead.  

About Upcoming Countdown To Halloween Particicpation

I know this is literally the first post this year since the first of the year.  I had actually intended to skip the countdown here this year, because I recently took advantage of an unexpected oppoturnity to reboot my silent movie blog Silent Wierdness, which didn't have any more activity than this blog did.  Running a food blog is harder than film blog, and I've been trying to get actual photos that I can use from my own kitchen, as so many photos and graphics out there on the web are not free-use or just don't exist in the first place --that costs money (cameras, setups, etc.) As I have stated in the past I home school my son, who is special needs child and getting older and work from home at the same time--so aside from Friday time that I set aside for as much mental space as I can carve out over on my live blog at Scare Me I haven't had much time for anything else (of course, there are always the "everdays" that we all have to deal with:  broken facet here, car trouble there....) I had actually intended to re-boot here or perhaps even move the blog entirely to a family setting at another blog site entirety at the first of the year; but then I found out that I'm not in the over-loaded blog boat alone.  One brave John Ronzum over at the Countdown To Halloween blogspot is bravely going it alone this year, with his daughter Daphne encoding the really cool badges this year--what the heck.  Let's give them a big shout out of support and enjoy the month!

Happy New Year!

Wishing everyone the happiest and healthiest new year!  I was so busy the last two months of last year to even get this blog participated in Native American Heritage Month (November) or any of the holiday stuff.  I am determinded to do more blogging in this new year both here and over at my Silent Wierdness blog (yeah it's spelled wonky on purpose).  Look forward to it and I sincerely hope everyone had a great holiday season!  Happy 2015!!