Door 1:  Dia de Los Muertos

Task 1: Compose a limerick or short poem in honor of a favorite book character.

Mr. Darcy initially feels appalled

When he meets the Bennet’s while at a ball

He kept being thrown together with them by chance

And even had to suffer a dance

With Lizzie and her unwavering wit

Which had him feeling quite like a twit

Still he held onto his pride

While asking her to become his bride

She said no and refused his hand

Which caused him to leave for his land

But caused the truth to eventually be known

And Mr. Wickham’s true character shown

Lizzie and Mr. Darcy eventually reconcile

And agree to marry in a short while

Which led this dear reader to believe

That true love can eventually be achieved

Task 2:  If you like Mexican food, treat yourself to a favorite dish – and / or make yourself a margarita – and share a photo.

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Task 3: Write an epitaph for the book you most disliked this year.

Task 4: Do you have any traditions or mementos of happy memories of a loved one that you feel like sharing?

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Book: Reread a favorite book by a deceased author or from a finished series, or read a book set in Mexico or a book that either has a primarily black and white cover or all the colors (ROYGBIV) on the cover, or a book featuring zombies. Read Vox by Christina Dalcher on 11-06-19.

Tasks Completed: 3 

Book: Reread a favorite book by a deceased author or from a finished series, or read a book set in Mexico or a book that either has a primarily black and white cover or all the colors (ROYGBIV) on the cover, or a book featuring zombies.

I've got so many possibles for this one, since I've definitely been in a "rereading" frame of mind. But, I think I will kick off the season with one that I read every single Christmas: Hercule Poirot's Christmas. I also love to watch the adaptation, although I generally wait until closer to Christmas to do it. 

I will be rereading my vintage Bantam paperback copy, which bears the title A Holiday for Murder,  and originally sold for a whopping .75 back in 1973, when it was printed. 

Task 3: Create an altar (either digital or physical) for your favorite book, series, or book character, and post a picture of it. Inclusion of book cover encouraged.

I really wanted to do this one since I'm a fan of the Amelia Peabody series and have always loved Egyptology. Barbara Mertz/Elizabeth Peters passed away in 2013, so this is my little tribute to her, as well. Thanks MPM for creating such fun characters and giving me so many hours of reading pleasure. :D

Books on the left that are partially hidden:

Belzoni's Travels by Giovanni Belzoni - British Museum Press

Ancient Egypt: The Great Discoveries - A Year by Year Chronicle by Nicholas Reeves

Ancient Egyptian Jewelry by Carol Andrews

The CD is the sound track for the IMAX movie,The Mystery of the Nile (Spanish)

Elizabeth Peters signed bookplate: Ms. Mertz drew this design herself with Isis holding a Hershey bar and martini. :)

Many moons ago I created my own take on the same theme for this letterhead. Here the God Thoth and the Goddess Maat are offering a Hershey bar and martini to the Aten. :P

I also designed the card on the right using Phillip Singer's fabulous cover art from "The Mummy Case" and "The Snake, The Crocodile and The Dog".

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Task 4: If you like Mexican food, treat yourself to your favorite dish and share a photo of it.

So here's my quick and easy version of nachos; we prefer our chips on the side.

For this batch we tried a light garnish of the dried chiltepin chiles our niece and

her BF gifted us when they visited from Tucson this past September. We felt the burn! :) The Saguaro chili grinder is made of ironwood.

Chiltepin chiles and info:  

As the only wild native chili to the US, the Chiltepin is sometimes called the "mother of all peppers.” Common names include Indian pepper, chiltepe, and chile tepin, as well as turkey, bird’s eye, or simply bird peppers, due to their consumption and spread by wild birds. This chili grows naturally in canyons from West Texas through southern Arizona. The perennial bush can reach up to four feet tall and grows under vegetation such as mesquite, ironwood and hackberry which proves shade, moisture and nutrients for the germinating seeds and mature plant.

The Chiltepin has a long history in the US/Mexico borderlands, and has been traditionally used as a food, medicine, and vermifuge and mythic icon. There is considerable folklore associated with these plants. Historically, no kitchen table of Sonorans, Opatas, O'odham or Yaqui rural homes would be without a bottle of dried chiltepines. The wild harvest is a seasonal ritual in many rural communities to this day, where families make chili-harvesting camps in the mountains during the heat of September and early October in order to harvest the wild chiles.

The Chiltepin is a very small chili in size with an extremely pungent flavor. It is rated very hot—8-9 on pungency scales—and has a quite distinctive smoky bite. The Chiltepin is eaten sun-dried, added to cheese and ice creams, fermented into sauces, and pickled with wild oregano, garlic, and salt as a tabletop condiment. The green or dried red fruit are often mixed with range fed carne machaca from cattle or deer to preserve the meat, or wild greens and onions as a typical Sonoran dish.

Thanks to the efforts of agricultural ecologist and ethnobotanist Gary Paul Nabhan and botanist Jack Kaiser, the U. S. Forest Service has designated a 2,500-acre stretch of rugged Tumacacori Highlands in the Sonoran Desert where Chiltepin is found as the Wild Chile Botanical Area. According to Nabhan, it was the first botanical reserve for a wild ancestor of a cultivated crop.

Sources:

https://www.slowfoodusa.org/ark-item/chiltepin-pepper

https://www.outsideonline.com/2168411/chile-chaser

Mini beef tortillas with potato wedges, sourcream, and a dip that's half salsa and half guacamole.

Ordered in, not my own creation ... I couldn't be bothered to cook, having had to go into Cologne because my iphone was on strike and Apple STILL doesn't have location in Bonn where there are actually technicians as well, which pretty much killed my entire afternoon.  (Stopping by IKEA on the way home for another bookshelf, for the "leftovers" I hadn't been able to give a home in the big shelf makeover the other week, was child's play in comparison.)

I hadn't been planning on any dessert, but after Wanda's mouthwatering "Orange Gingerbread" post decided to treat myself to some of these, in the spirit of the Mexican theme: