Serious Entertaining: How To Throw A Zombie Dinner Party

[Illustrations: Helen Jane Hearn]

Throwing a dinner party to celebrate Halloween doesn't have to be candy-laden and filled with gummy spiders. This meal imagines our shambling, shuffling guests as perfectly able to enjoy an elegant meal together, great for grownups around Halloween.

Serve complex falling off the bone ribs with natural accompaniments like a roasted cauliflower salad (it looks like brains), Spoon Bread of Bernie Lomax, and a Zombie cocktail.

Tips

• For added fun, keep your undead guests in line by cutting the ribs loudly and unexpectedly with a clean ax.
• Give guests cleaned sports coats from thrift store as zombie bibs and let them dine with their hands and wipe their hands on their lapels.
• Serve the Zombie shooters in syringes as an antidote at the end of the evening.