Saturday, October 23, 2004

First Annual Punkinpalooza


Monsieur Bonhomme presents an oversized placard to the carvers of grand prize jack-o-lantern Grampa Sweet-Ass.

The day began as it always does at Château Nîce - with a blissful aura of pure nîceness. But nîceness soon yielded to anticipation; anticipation yielded to preparation, which ended finally in cucination -- ie some hot and juicy cooking. By 11:45a.m. our kitchen was firing on all eight cylinders; in all the annals of GroveToberFest history such culinary industriousness had never been witnessed. There were mountains of bacon to fry, scads of sausage to sizzle, stacks of pancakes to produce, and bucketsful of eggs to scramble -- luckily no one suffered any hot-grease burns from all that high-octane action.
Breakfast was served; then came the carving. And man, could they carve. Dozens of jagged blades glinted in the sultry autumn air, as our Punkinpaloozers did the sweaty, gourd-throttling work for which they had been fed. By mid-afternoon our sculpteurs du squash had assembled a veritable jack-o-lantern armada.


a veritable armada!


Amid heart-pounding suspense, prizes for top jack-o-lanterns were awarded: 3rd prize went to 'The Scream', carved by Monsieur Bonhomme; 2nd prize, 'Snotty-Faced Punk-in', was carved by Angry Brown Man and friends. First prize and first ever Punkinpalooza champion, 'Grampa Sweet-Ass', was carved by brother-sister team Beau & Desiree Von Standt, along with M. Bonhomme's brother Fabrizio. The winners were to delighted to receive their oversized novelty placard (see above) as well a slick pair of light-up devil's horns.

In short, the affair was an unqualified success, a true bonanza, a veritable smorgasborg; in short, a real hootenanny. If you didn't make it to Château Nîce for the Punkinpalooza goodness, then you missed a whiz-bang superdelicious buffet as well as a sweaty-ass and intense massacre du pumpkin. But we nonetheless hope to see you next year -- onward and upward, to Punkinpalooza 2005!
'By the numbers': 2004 round-up
-Punkinpalooza guests in attendance: 17
-guests who came all the way from Italy (!): 2
-carved entries: 10
-carved entries described as 'a macabre take on the everyday': 1
-eggs consumed: 30
-eggs consumed by M. Bonhomme, Toxic Chi and Sugarpuss O'Shea (principal Punkinpalooza chefs): 0
-strips of bacon per guest: 3.6
-average weight gained per guest (lbs): 3.6

1 Comments:

Blogger Chris said...

Thanks to the Chefs of Chateau Nice for a nice afternoon, with bacon and eggs and sweet-ass grampas. Thanks to Joe and Char for their inspiration and dedication. Pumpking Carving contests are not won in a vacuum.

Happy October!

10/24/2004 2:34 PM  

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