He’s a food photographer who is completely obsessed with anything food and drink related and anything in between. What’s not to love!

I found his blog whilst looking for great Halloween recipes.

These Candied Apples are so striking have such a depth of colour you would think you’d served up the dark heart of Medusa and the blood of a thousand virgins.

Matt has graciously allowed me to use his gorgeous photography and recipe below. Enjoy!!

Red & Black Candy Apples

8-10 medium sized apples
8-10 wooden twigs, twimmed
3 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1 cup of water
several drops of cinnamon flavored oil
1/4 teaspoon of red food coloring
1/4 teaspoon of black food coloring

Clean and dry the apples. Try to remove as much of the wax as possible. If you purchase them from your local farmer’s market then chances are they have not been treated with the food grade wax that makes then shine. Remove any stems or leaves and insert a twig into the end of each apple. To facilitate easier twig entry you can carefully sharpen the end of the twig or use a candy stick to create a guide hole. Set apples aside.

Heat and stir sugar, corn syrup and water in a saucepan until sugar has dissolved. Boil until the syrup reaches 300 degrees on a candy thermometer. Don’t go over 310 degrees or your candy burns and then you’ll be sad.

Remove from heat and stir in flavored oil and food coloring.

Dip one apple completely in the syrup and swirl it so that it becomes coated with the melted sugar candy. Hold the apple above the saucepan to drain off excess. Place apple, with the stick facing up, onto a baking sheet that’s greased or lined with a silpat. Repeat the process with the remaining apples. If your syrup thickens or cools too much, simply reheat briefly before proceeding. Let the apples cool completely before serving.

A note about the black apples: Lighter colored apples (Granny Smith, Golden Delicious) work well in making the red appear bright and glassy; darker apples like red delicious help the black candy appear as dark as possible. Muy spooky!

Also, Adam made one batch with red food coloring and after he had a few red apples he reheated the candy mixture and added black food coloring. Adding black to red will make it darker. He repeated the dipping process. Black food coloring can be found online or at specialty baking stores.

So, as promised, I had a go at carving another pumpkin tonight – using one of the designs from the Pumpkin Lady herself.

I’m pretty delighted with the results – but see for yourself and you decide!

This year, I thought I’d attempt my first pumpkin carving ever. I always imagined it would be quite difficult, as pumpkins are quite heavy and thick- skinned. So I downloaded a template which looked easy and not to much detail. I thought the skin would be really difficult to carve through and was so surprised at how easy it was!

I thought it would be fun to share my first attempt with everyone so you could either try this yourself or at least laugh at my efforts.

Step 1:

Choose a smooth, umblemished pumpkin.

Attach a pumpkin carving pattern, using cellotape. Here I have chosen a Halloween-themed pattern (obviously!) with two vampire bats.. Bwah hah hah!

Step 2:

Poke tiny holes through the pattern, using a skewer. I used a cork screw because it was there.

Don’t make large holes, you only need the holes as a guidline for when you start to cut into the pumpkin.

Step 3:

Remove the pattern from the pumpkin. Here you can see my pattern. If you have trouble seeing the pattern, you can rub some talcum powder into the holes and this will show up the pattern better.

Step 4:

Draw a shape for the removable top of the pumpkin. Cut out the shape but make sure you cut at an angle, so the pumpkin top won’t fall into the pumpkin once you’ve cut it.

Step 5:

Time to get squelchy! Get your hands in there and start pulling out all that pumpkin goop!

Scrape out the rest with a short-handled spoon. Better yet, get a pumpkin carving kit – the tools in these make the job a lot easier and safer.

Once that is done, you can start the really fun part, carving!

Step 6:

For my carving, I used a child’s kitchen knife. My nephews and nieces use these knives when we cook together. It’s safer because you can run the knife along your hand without cutting, yet still seems to cut things really well. I’m not really sure how that works but it’s really a great tool.

For larger shapes, cut out in smaller pieces.

Step 7: Whoops! Back to Step 5 for me!:

Ooops! Make sure you have de-gooped properly! I didn’t get out all those stringy bits and when I cut out my pattern, you could see lots of stringy pumpkin bits hanging out.

Step 7 (essential):

Pat the dog. Archie has grown tired of waiting for cuddles and has fallen asleep on the kitchen floor.

Step 8:

Wash out the pumpkin and dry with a paper towel.

Step 9:

Make your room smell great by sticking some cloves in the pumpkin-top and sprinkling some cinnamon onto it.

Step 10:

Add a candle and light! It looks amazing and smells so good!

If you would like to learn a lot more about the art of pumpkin carving, you can visit The Pumpkin Lady, who has lots of really helpful videos to get you started. She also sells creative patterns from really easy to advanced. I am going to try one of her patterns and will post it soon.

The bat-shaped pattern I used here was from e-How.

I hope you found this fun and helpful. If you were inspired to carve a pumpkin, I would love you to send me your photos, so I can post them on my blog.

Happy carving!

I own aprons, I sell aprons and now equipped with my new sewing machine, I am going to make aprons!

This is inspired by a blog I have recently discovered (actually my lovely husband found this for me, as he knows I’m just a little bit obsessed…) Tie One On is a blog dedicated to aprons, in particular hand-crafted ones with a retro feel.

Every month or so on Tie One On, there is an apron theme, where you make an apron yourself and then post the results.

So I am going to attempt this month’s apron, which is to make an apron without spending any money. You can make your apron from fabric that you have stashed away or old clothes or anything!

I have picked up some amazing cloth and ribbon on my travels, so I guess I will use some of that. There are some fantastic photos showing some really creative interpretations on a theme.

This ’summer gingham’ photo is just so cute! I love her ‘accessory’!

If you feel inspired, I encourage you to have a go at making this month’s apron. I will post up any photos you send me, and if you send your photos to Tie One On, she will show the world your creations, as well!

Happy sewing!

Looking out the window this morning, to find out that someone has stolen all the snow overnight, makes me think at first that maybe Caroline turned up the heat a little too far. :-)

We have this regular see-saw situation at Fabiola & Sing Sing where we disagree about how hot the heating should be. I guess I’ve become acclimatised to cooler conditions through decades of working around air-conditioned computers and years of having most of the duvet pulled off my sleeping body (Hey! Watch it! – Ed)

So I’ll turn the temperature down a little and – when I’m not looking (or rather more accurately, she doesn’t care if I’m looking or not) – Caroline will turn it back up a degree or two.

We don’t go crazy in either direction – after all, it would be daft to be shivering in the house under three puffa jackets, and similarly Caroline is the more environmentally-friendly one of the two of us, always reminding me to recycle tin cans, cardboard and glass bottles.

And maybe she’s onto something. Maybe there’s something especially magical about snow and the winter, specifically because we’re indoors in the warm looking out to the cold vista. The snow seems to fall so much less than it used to these days (according to the media, Britain was hit by its biggest snowfall since 1991), making it more unusual, making it more of an event. And it reignites the child inside all of us to go and have fun.

Fun isn’t about being cold or wet or miserable, but about adventure and doing something different, with the comfort of knowing a warm duvet and a hot cup of chocolate isn’t too far away.

So there were reports of policemen throwing snowballs at each other, and scores of adults pulling kids on makeshift sledges (I heard of one man using an old suitcase!) up wintry slopes, and even skiing on Parliament Hill.

Life is short, and we should all do everything we can to make it fantastic. A flurry of snow should remind all of us that it’s not about the 9-5 grind and keeping up with mortgage payments, but about enjoying life to the full.

Lets hope those feelings remain long after the snow has disappeared from everyone’s front garden…

1. About 3% of pet owners are likely to buy Valentine’s gifts for their pets. I haven’t found out what you’re supposed to give your pet goldfish as a Valentine’s Day present – but if you have any ideas, please let me know.

2. 15% of American women will send themselves flowers on Valentine’s Day. Do they do this in an attempt to make their lazy-good-for-nothing husbands and boyfriends jealous, or to show off to their friends and work colleagues how popular they are?

3. Torvill & Dean won their famous figure-skating gold medal at the Sarajevo Winter Olympics on Valentine’s Day, 1984. Yes, it was 25 years ago since they skated their perfect 6.0 scores to Ravel’s Bolero. Bet you’re feeling old now. Personally, it’s one of my greatest regrets that I’ve never learnt how to ice-skate. I’m just too terrified of falling over, I freeze like a wombat when I take to the ice.

4. During Victorian times, it was considered bad luck to sign and send a Valentine’s Day card. I love that it says “and send” in my fascinating Valentine’s Day fact book. It’s as though it’s perfectly okay to sign a Valentine’s Day card, just so long as you don’t then actually give it to anybody.

5. Every year, the city of Verona in Italy, setting of William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet, receives over 1000 Valentine’s Day cards addressed to “Juliet”. The mind boggles. Who is sending these cards? Is it the Verona tourist office? I wouldn’t put it past those crafty Italians to do this as an annual publicity stunt.

6. Chicago’s post office rejected more than 25,000 cards in the late 1800s on the grounds of indecency. And you thought those near-the-knuckle cards in the corner of the shop were a sign of declining standards in modern society..

7. 64% of American men do not make plans in advance for a romantic day with their partners. Boo.. shame on them. And there I was believing that men would be more romantic than women on Valentine’s Day.

8. In the Middle Ages, young men and women would draw names out of a bowl to see who their Valentines would be. The names would then be worn on their sleeves for a week, giving us the phrase “to wear your heart on your sleeve”.

9. Over one billion Valentine’s Day cards are sent each year. This makes it the second biggest card-sending holiday of the year, after Christmas.

10. Teachers receive the most Valentine’s Day cards. Next in the list come children, mothers, wives, and then, sweethearts. Apparently children between the age of 6-10 exchange more than 650 million Valentine’s Day cards with their teachers, classmates and family members.

Do you know any Valentine’s Day facts? Why not let us know..

Here are my top tips on unusual things you can do or buy to keep yourself warm this chilly Winter.

1. Wear USB-powered heated mittens

No-one likes cold fingers as they read their email or do their online shopping, so why not keep your hands warm with a pair of warming gloves, powered straight from your computer?

Well, I’ll tell you why not. Because people might look at you like you’re a crazed loon. But if you’re prepared to ignore that then they are one way to keep yourself a little warmer if your boiler has packed in, or if your mean boss is refusing to turn the heating on in the office.

Not only are they making a fashion statement (I’m not sure what kind of statement… “I’m a freak, stay away from me” perhaps?) by coming in different grey, blue and purple versions to match the rest of your winter wardrobe, but they also have the advantage of using up two of your USB ports at once.

That’s right! They recommend you plug each hand’s warming glove into a different USB port for the maximum warming tingle effect.

Which makes me think what happens when you want to stretch for your early morning yawn or leap up to get to the telephone? Do these two USB cables attached to your ever-so-toasty hands garotte you?

Here’s another product with a similar idea – but this time they have the benefit of disguising your hands as small smiling monkeys.

Oh, and by the way, if she’s so cold, how come she’s not got any sleeves?

Source: USBfever and Gadget4All

2. Wear a USB-powered eye warmer.

Do you ever sit there at work and think, “Golly. My eyes are really feeling chilly”?

No, neither do I.

But clearly some people do, and thus was born the USB-powered eye warmer.

I’m not quite sure how you’re supposed to convince the boss that you’re not having 40 winks if you wear these though.

Of course, this device isn’t just for cold weather – it can be used when your eyes are tired too.

(Note: not recommended for use when you’re driving)

Source: RareMonoShop

3. Wear USB-powered heated slippers.

Or, in this case, slipper.

Because it appears that not content with tethering both of your hands to your USB port, they not want you to hop around the office as you put both of your feet into a warmed-up monkey.

Not convenient enough for you? Then check out this girl who has realised that warmed-up slippers can be separate, and using a laptop can mean you can make it over to the fax machine (or in her case, have a lie down on the sofa in reception) without having to unplug yourself.

Source: Gadget4All and RareMonoShop

Would I wear or buy any of these things?

Hmm.. well, although I love staying warm and hate feeling too chilly, I think I wouldn’t be able to bring myself to go quite so far as wearing these products in the office. Maybe for me I’ll stick with pinching my wife’s beautiful scottish-knitted cashmere wrap and a hot cocoa!

But hey, being cold is miserable. So if you want to stay warm in an unusual way then don’t let anyone stop you or criticise you for looking crazy while you’re doing it!

Wordle is a fun little web app that will take a selection of words or a blog’s RSS feed and convert it into an (often beautiful) word cloud. It can be quite mesmerising to play with it.

Naturally, I couldn’t resist plugging Fabiola & Sing Sing into Wordle, and lo-and-behold it came up with a seasonal Christmas stocking of a word cloud. As you can see, words appear larger the more often they appear in our blog.

Anyway, this got me thinking. If you can create a Wordle word cloud with the contents of a blog, or just with a paragraph or two of text, you could just as easily create a homemade personal Christmas card with it.

All you would need to do is enter some of the keywords that you want to share with family and friends (maybe the names of your family members, your pet cat, and Christmas-y words like holly, mistletoe, Santa Claus, stockings, and stuffed turkey) and Bob’s your uncle.

So, go on, get creative with Wordle.

Okay, so we all want to do the right thing for the environment, and some people aren’t so keen on sending Christmas cards anymore – so have you thought of getting out the old video camera and lip-synching a seasonal festive song to send to your friends and family?

No? Well, you should!

Because that’s what Jared Foster and his family did – and it looks like they had a whale of a time making their vintage Christmas movie:

I love the vintage retro style of their Christmas video – it really brings back the spirit of Bing Crosby and old black-and-white movies… just like a true Christmas in fact!

And after all the relatives have stuffed themselves silly with turkey and Christmas pudding on the big day, a video like this might be just the thing to put on the TV. Hey, it would make a change from “The Sound of Music”…

Happy Thanksgiving to all of our American readers!

Yes, even though this blog is relatively new, and Fabiola & Sing Sing is mostly selling to customers based in the UK, we do have some readers from the other side of the pond.

So, if you’re visiting us from New Orleans or New York, Oklahoma or Oregon, California or Connecticut, howdy – and I hope you’re having a great Thanksgiving with your friends and family.

I spent part of my childhood in Long Island, New York, and fondly remember the fun our family had at this time of year, and that feeling of excitement at the preparation of the feast and the games that would follow.

So, if you’re reading this and at a loose end as to what to do with your kids this weekend, especially if the weather outside is cold and miserable, here’s an idea that was inspired by the graphic I’ve used to illustrate this blog post.

Make a Lego turkey!

Yes, get your children’s imaginations bubbling by giving them the challenge of creating animals or dinosaurs or even monsters out of Lego. It will make a change from the cars, buildings and space rockets they normally make out of the toy bricks.

And don’t worry if you don’t have Lego. You could get the little rascals to make their animals or space aliens out of cardboard, cutting them carefully out of an old cereal packet and colouring them in with felt tip pens.

I’ve often wished that Thanksgiving was also celebrated here in the UK. Maybe we should petition Gordon Brown to give us a Thanksgiving holiday in that long dark stretch between Bonfire night and Christmas Day? It would certainly make November a lot more fun.

PS. If you weren’t impressed with your Thanksgiving table centerpiece this year, how about doing something like this:

Kicking yourself for not doing it now, aren’t you? Well, don’t worry – there are still a few weeks until Christmas day, so get your lego out and start building for the big day.

Have you got your own ideas on something for the kids to do at Thanksgiving or during other holidays over the course of the year? Leave us a comment and tell us about it! And in the meantime, happy entertaining!