I love Halloween. I always have. As a child, I loved the way that my mother would read us Poe (remind me to tell all of you one day about the time I heard the neighbors repairing their roof a couple hours after a dramatic reading of The Tell Tale Heart…but I’m sure you can guess the effect on a highly suggestible seven-year-old with a flair for the dramatic) and spend weeks planning our costumes with us. I recall her sewing like a fiend with great accuracy and even greater glee to produce costumes that nobody else could match.

From lions and lynxes to Little Red Riding Hood to Ozma of Oz to an elaborate kachina for the medieval historian, Mom could do it all, and she did. She also delighted in the costume the alpaca rancher made for himself one year. He created a robot costume out of Baskin and Robbin ice cream tubs, cardboard boxes, toilet paper tubes, and a truly amazing amount of tin foil.

Then on The Great Night, my father would take me and my brothers out around the neighborhood, and then up to another neighborhood where some family friends lived. They didn’t have children of their own, so they sort of adopted us as a part of their family. They oohed and ahhed over our costumes, gave us more candy than could possibly be good for us, and let us play with their corgi half the night.

Then it was home again for the Great Candy Swap. The hardest part about that was the fact that we all hated most of the same candies. None of us liked marshmallows, or candy corn, or jujubes. All of us preferred dark chocolate over milk, even as small children. The medieval historian couldn’t stand licorice, but the alpaca rancher and I would fight to the death to get the black stuff, and neither of us cared for the red. I was the biggest fan of Pixie Stix, so I usually managed to get them from the other two…but nobody wanted the marshmallows and candy corn. We usually tried to palm it off on Mom, but she wasn’t a fan, either.

These days I don’t dress up for Halloween the way I used to. I sometimes come up with a costume on the fly. Mostly, though, I pass out candy to the kids who come to our door. I marvel over the costumes – especially the home made ones – and draw back in mock terror from the tiniest vampires and alien overlords. Our neighborhood is one of a dwindling number that still does get a lot of traffic from the trick or treaters, even though the local shopping center and the business district to store-to-store trick or treating as an alternative for panicked parents. I love to see kids in their finery. I love to see their faces as I drop tiny chocolate bars into their bags and pumpkin baskets.

And I never, ever pass out candy corn or marshmallow anything.

Hello lovers! Do you know where I am? That’s right, STILL in Nashville. Big love to superfantastic Brittany for giving me the hook-up for restaurants and I have been eating like a queen ever since.

I’ll be back to work on Monday, so I thought I’d post a couple of fabulous work-appropriate kicks that all ring in under the $100 mark. Plus everything is an additional10% off through the weekend at YOOX.

Love these sweet Poetic License mary janes. They also come in black and a fantastic purple. I mean seriously, deep purple patent leather mary janes with snake print trim and a diamond cut out detail at the throat? That’s just good clean fun.

Is this a wearable heel or what? I’ll be honest, I don’t like maroon clothing, it’s a dead color on me but the right maroon heel is a great investment, especially for those who are looking for a non-metallic neutral you can wear with black, brown and navy. A word to the wise, YOOX color representation is a little off, so this shoe will probably be a little redder than it is on the screen.

Have a happy weekend everybody, and the next time you hear from me, I’ll be back in Austin. Viva!

That’s right. I went there, and if there is any justice in the world all of you will have a righteous Taylor Dane earworm for the rest of the day.

As you might have ascertained, things have not been peachy in the land of Plum, and it’s made me do some Serious Personal Introspection (should I have had those pink d’orsays made in elaphe instead of watersnake? Should I tell my grandma that the rubber thing her dog plays with is NOT the sort of toy available at PetSmart?) so I’m sharing the wealth with you.

We all hold onto things that ought to be said and say things that perhaps upon further reflection –by which I mean several cups of coffee, a cold shower and perhaps a quick prayer to the porcelain god– might have been better left unsaid.

For today’s Big Question, Plumcake wants to know:

If the person you love most in the world died today, what would you regret not telling them?

Okay it’s fall and we need to talk about velvet. Velvet is a tricky fabric for big girls because we must constantly fight the battle against appearing over-ripe. Those lovely fleshy curves can go from softly romantic to chubbiest girl at the Tombstone Bordello.

Case in point:

This here is what we call A Festival of No.

If you’re going to do velvet, and by all means velvet it up, you would do well to avoid the flowy dresses and the *shudder* broomstick skirts in favor of something more tailored. A velvet blazer is a staple that adds a bit of romance without putting you on the Stevie Nicks Express nonstop to Tragic Junction.

You can go traditional with a low-nap casual blazer for day, I like this either worn traditional WASP style with a tissue-weight cashmere sweater and a pair of trousers or a little more interestingly with a rock t-shirt and a pair of dark rinse (no rhinestones, please) jeans and boots.

For our not-especially-racky pear pals, this prosh shrunken jacket nips you in just exactly where you want to be nipped. And who doesn’t love a little peplum action?

and lest we forget our applesque friends, I am completely digging this A.B.S. Allen Schwartz velvet shrug. I love the length, I love the front detailing. I love the slighty-stand-up-but-not-Evil-Queen (although I’m all for Evil Queen every once in a while) collar. This is a great solution to sleeveless dresses if you feel baring arms isn’t right.

This is also available in burgundy.

All items, even the horrible whorehouse one, are available for well under $100!

Oh y’all. You don’t even KNOW. I’ve been living out of one (ONE) suitcase in a hotel in Nashville for the past…year? Decade? OK, technically only a week and a half but giminy crickets, I am fixin’ to go insane. And not cute, directional insane like Viktor and Rolf but actually purse-full-of-soup* insane, like Gareth Pugh.

If it weren’t bad enough living in a land where my food choices seem to be evenly split between piggly and wiggly I just discovered –the delicate of constitution might want to avert their eyes– there is NO NEIMAN MARCUS IN TENNESSEE. None, not even one.  Not only that, but there’s no Saks either. Sure there’s an Off 5th, but I have more shoes than they do. And I don’t just mean in my entire collection, I mean in my suitcase right now and none of this Bev Feldman nonsense either. I want some Loubies and I want them now.

SPEAKING of Loubies, want to hear something tragic? Okay. I’ve rented this hateful little PT Cruiser and it is, hands down, the most bizarre contraption I’ve ever had the misfortune of skippering. So I’m coming home from the hospice at 8:00 in the morning, I’m severely dehydrated, stupid from sleep dep and not at my sparkling best. All I wanted in the whole world was a Sonic Route 44 Diet Cherry Limeade with pineapple, easy ice.

I put the giant bucket o’ soda on the roof of the hateful cruiser so I could get out of the car …yeah, I think you see where this is going. I remove my person from the car and SPLOOSH down comes the entire 44 ounces of bright pink soft drink, WITH chunks of pineapple and lime wedges, all over my head, down my dress and into my pale straw-colored Louboutin flats!

In conclusion: I spent an hour trying to get pineapple out of my hair, I’m STILL thirsty and have possibly ruined a pair of $700 flats by dying them diluted maraschino pink, and frankly if I wanted pink Loubies, I would have bought these:

*I stole that purse of soup line from someone, so uh, thanks to whoever I’m plagiarizing!

When most of us think of what to make out of a pumpkin, we think pie or possibly a sweet bread. Goodness knows I dearly love both of these uses, but I think it’s sad that people forget how good pumpkin can be in savory dishes, too. In particular, it makes a fabulous soup.

Here’s a recipe I found in a cookbook I found recently on a sale table at Borders: Modern Moroccan.

Velvety Pumpkin Soup with Rice and Cinnamon:

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It’s fall, and we all know what that means: the return of hearty cold weather treats. One of my personal favorites is pumpkin bread. I found this great recipe in the Food and Wine annual for 1999, and thought I’d share it with all of you out there who love to bake as much as I do.

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