When it comes to The Neil‘s fantastic book, The Graveyard Book, there are many running themes. There’s growing up. There’s going out into the world. There’s family. And…there’s dessert.
No, seriously. It started with The Neil promising cupcakes to everybody at HarperChildren’s if the book stayed on the New York Times children’s bestseller list and now it’s apparently snagged him a pie since it’s been on the list for more than a year.
And that got me thinking that this is a special occasion and very, very cool for Mr. G. Not just because of the pie–although I’m sure it shall be a damn fine pie indeed. And we should do something to celebrate.
So here’s the shot: it’s The Graveyard Dessert Challenge. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to create–yes, actually create, not just sketch up or write up a recipe–a Graveyard Book-inspired piece of dessert. Could be cupcakes. Could be pie. Could be piecakes. We care not. Just must be dessert. Let your brain go nuts. You make the dessert, you take pictures of the dessert and you can explain what it is and how it relates to Graveyard Book.
What do you get out of the deal? (Besides dessert, of course.)
[ad#longpost]Well, your friends and ours at Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab, the people who want you to smell like the inside of Neil’s mind, have put out nine scents based on Graveyard Book. (I don’t know if I should be frightened or not, but Eau de Ghoul is actually quite pleasant.)
If you make what we deem to be the best Graveyard Book-inspired dessert, then you win the lot. That’s right, the complete set of nine from BPAL.
But wait–! That’s not all–! We’ll also put in a donation in your name to one of The Neil’s favorite crusades, the ever-vigilant, ever-awesome Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. Enough to get you a year’s membership, in fact.
So that’s it. A casket-load of limited edition Neil-inspired scents plus membership in the CBLDF. All for making something tasty inspired by the Graveyard Book which you then get to turn around and eat. What a deal.
Send your entries–be they links to Flickr, a blog post, or whatever–to me via e-mail at widgett at need coffee dot com.
Other things: these must be new. You can’t send us a picture you uploaded from March of a bunch of cupcakes. So pre-existing documentation of goodies don’t count. If you want to bake another batch of whatever it was, then that’s fine. And it gives you an excuse to do so. But only new desserts, got it? Good.
Also, you have until midnight Eastern Time on November 1st. We give you Halloween + one day so if you’re making them for the day, that still gives you twenty-four hours to upload the pics. We think that’s fair.
Okay…got it? Get on it! The clock is ticking! And just by typing this post I’ve made myself hungry! Dammit! And while you’re looking for inspiration, make sure you browse around BPAL’s website. Because there’s plenty of cool stuff to see. And, you know, Xmas is coming. So when it comes time to buy gifts for your favorite people-who-need-to-smell-like-ghouls, give BPAL some love.
Update: A couple of quick things–first, this is indeed open to worldwide entries. And second, this stunt is completely unaffiliated with either Harper Collins or The Neil, so please, if you have questions, ask us via the comments or via e-mail. We promise we won’t bite.
looks very interesting
When and where will the winners be announced?
NH: Winners should be up by Friday. Watch the front page of this very site!