Halloween isn’t always easy when you’re an adult who longs to go trick-or-treating, especially if you don’t have a child who you can live vicariously through or enough chutzpah to don your best little piggie costume and knock on doors yourself.
I left the costume in the car as I scoured the city of San Francisco for clever Halloween treats that adults can claim as their own. After wading through what seemed like dozens of boring pumpkin cookies and ratcheting my blood sugar up several notches, I came away with three stops serving grown-ups the kind of treats that keep us feeling like big kids. They’re all much better than snarfling some stale Dots from a kid.
DeLise Dessert Café’s pumpkin cupcake and bloody berry bar. Photo courtesy of DeLise Dessert Café)
DeLise Dessert Café falls below the radar of many San Franciscans due to its proximity to Fisherman’s Wharf, but is well worth a stop at any time of year for homemade ice cream, cookies, cakes, and other sweets, all presented in small portions so as not to induce guilt. Proprietors Dennis and Eloise Leung are having fun this season with three items inspired by All Hallows’ Eve. Their triple pumpkin ice cream is made with Dogfish Head Pumpkin Ale, candied pumpkin seed, and pumpkin puree. A “bloody berry bar” has a chocolate pine nut crust and a raspberry lemon custard on top. And there’s also a pumpkin cupcake for the 21 and over set, garnished with a maple bourbon frosting and candied bacon bits.
When we stopped by Fillmore Bakeshop, Elena Basagio-Carpenter (who runs the place with her father Doug Basagio) was still figuring out a number of Halloween-themed items, her experiments in chocolate slowed due to our stretch of Indian Summer. Offerings include a pumpkin macaron, a crisped rice pumpkin with a caramel stem, dried fruit bark, and some incredibly psychedelic hollow chocolate pumpkins filled with fresh chocolate truffles.
Humphry Slocombe’s Bad-Ass Pumpkin Pie Sundae. Photo courtesy of Humphry Slocombe
Fans of Humphry Slocombe would probably not be surprised to learn that Jake Godby’s ice cream shop takes Halloween very seriously, with flavors firmly geared to adults both in their ingredient combinations and the pop culture references that some of them make. Spiders from Mars, for example, has a milk chocolate ice cream base that’s sprinkled with “spider webs” made from meringue. Rosemary’s Baby gets a boost from fresh rosemary and a pine nut swirl. The bloody red Hibiscus sorbet is known for the moment as O-Negative. Meanwhile, there’s a Candy Apple flavor (apple ice cream with caramel swirl), the Devil’s Deal (house made red velvet cake in a cream cheese ice cream base), and pumpkin ice cream, which gets a sophisticated twist with the inclusions of Chinese five spice: Star anise, fennel seed, Szechuan peppercorn, cinnamon, and clove. The latter also goes into their Bad-Ass Pumpkin Pie Sundae, crowned with hot butterscotch sauce, cinnamon whipped cream, and house made pie crumble.
The best part of all? You don’t need to wait until Halloween to get your fill of the holiday.
You could set your watch by it, my mad love affair every autumn with all things squash-y and pumpkin-ish. A few weeks ago, I was kneading up pumpkin bread; this morning, mixing up a batch of rice-flour pumpkin muffins for a grateful wheat-free friend. The kids are carving their pumpkins out on the porch, and I'm planning for tomorrow's dinner, a grand stew served out of a stunning Rouge Vif d'Etampes pumpkin, the flattish, deeply indented beauty, as flaming red-gold as Joan's burnished tresses on Mad Men. It's also known as the Cinderella pumpkin, with good reason, since it seems to lack only six white mice to pull it straight into fairy godmother-land.
It's a little more dainty, if not quite so dramatic, to serve your pumpkin stew or soup in individual, bowl-sized pumpkins rather than one huge one, I'll admit. Whichever you use, prep them like you're getting ready to entertain the trick-or-treaters: saw out a generous circle around the top, reach in and scoop out what you can of the stringy, seedy stuff, and set it aside. Then, get a big metal soup spoon, and scrape out all the remaining stringy bits.
Separate the seeds from the pumpkin innards, and rinse the seeds well. Pat dry, then spread out on a baking sheet. Toss with enough olive or vegetable oil to coat lightly, then sprinkle with salt and paprika, smoked paprika, or chili powder, adding in a little cayenne if you like. Bake at 325 F until crisp and toasty, about 15 to 20 minutes. These are great for snacking, naturally, and also make a nice garnish.
(If you have backyard chickens, toss them the pumpkin guts and any stray raw seeds that escaped the pick-through. They'll snaffle them up like candy corn.)
But we're getting distracted here from the main event. To prep your pumpkins, put your big (or your little pumpkins) and their tops on a baking sheet covered with parchment or foil. Rub a little vegetable oil over the flesh. Bake for 25 minutes. Remove top(s), turn pumpkins bottom side up, and continue baking for another 25-35 minutes, depending on size, until flesh is tender but firm and pumpkin still holds its shape. It's important not to wander off during this time, as the pumpkin shells will collapse if they're overbaked.
Now, what do you want to put in your pumpkins? If you're going to all the trouble of scooping and baking these babies, what's in them should be the main course, I believe. Which means something rich and stew-like, not the usual pashmina-smooth, curried or apple-y bisques. In the Bay Area, the skeletons and jack o' lanterns of Halloween are always interwoven with the sugar skulls and marigold-strewn altars of the Mexican Day of the Dead.
So why not use goat as a base for this stew, a traditional meat for the latter--and, with their spooky eyes and devilish implications, a perfectly haunting choice for Halloween, too. Halal meat counters and Latino markets are good places to find goat; you can also find it at Marin Sun Farms' butcher shop in Rockridge Market Hall. You could also substitute lamb.
Happy Halloween!
Halloween Pumpkin Stew
If you're going to serve this in one large pumpkin or squash, make sure you pick out a good eating one, such as a rouge vif d'etamps or a musquee de provence. Both are wider than they are tall, an important consideration. Make sure the one you pick will fit in your oven before you start.
Serves: 6
Ingredients:
1 large, shallow pumpkin or squash, or 6 small bowl-sized pumpkins, prepared and baked as above
2 1/2 lbs goat or lamb, cubed
2 tbsp flour
1 tsp chipotle powder or smoked paprika
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, peeled and diced
3 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
2 carrots, peeled and diced
2 celery stalks, diced
1 tsp thyme or oregano
1 bay leaf
1 cup red wine
2 dried ancho chilies, soaked in hot water until soft, seeds and stems removed, pureed in a little hot water until smooth, or 2-3 canned chiles in adobo, finely chopped
1 28-ounce can diced tomatoes (I use Muir Glen's fire-roasted organic tomatoes)
Roasted pumpkin seeds, for garnish
Preparation:
1. Toss flour, paprika, and salt together, and spread out on a wide, shallow plate. Roll goat or lamb cubes through flour mixture to coat.
2. In a heavy Dutch oven or wide, heavy saucepan, heat olive oil. Add meat in batches, browning on all sides over medium-high heat. Remove and set aside.
3. When meat has been cooked, add onions, garlic, celery, and carrot. Reduce heat to medium and cook, stirring frequently, until softened but not browned. Return meat to pot.
4. Pour red wine over meat and vegetables. Add chiles, diced tomatoes, and thyme or oregano. Add water if necessary so that liquid comes half-way meat and vegetable mixture.
5. Bring mixture to a simmer, reduce heat, and cover. Cook slowly, stirring occasionally, until meat is tender and liquid is reduced, about 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Taste for seasoning, and add salt and pepper as needed.
6. Preheat oven to 350 F. Pour stew into prepared pumpkin(s). Bake for 30-40 minutes, until pumpkin flesh is tender and stew has thickened a bit. Taste for seasoning. Remove from oven carefully, since it will be hot and heavy. Replace lid and bring to the table.
7. Pass pumpkin seeds at the table for garnish. Scoop out a portion of cooked pumpkin with each serving, being careful not to pierce the skin.
Twilight, True Blood, and Vampire Diaries are just three of the newest examples of how vampires refuse to go dustily into that good night. And they're also why I found myself researching and writing VampireSmarts ("The Question & Answer Game that makes learning about Vampires before dating them easy & fun!") and digging up some of the wildest information about vampires a few years ago.
While sticking to an all black wardrobe might be the easiest way to hide unsightly red stains, vampires cannot live in black alone. If you do happen to spill any of your liquid refreshment on your clothes, here are some handy tips on how to deal with the blotches.
Pomegranate or Cranberry Juice
First, saturate the stain with cool water. Next, combine 1 quart cool water, 1 tablespoon of white vinegar, and 1/2 teaspoon liquid detergent.
Let the garment (cape, velvet doublet, silk ascot, etc.) soak in the solution for 15 minutes before sluicing out with water. If the stain isn't exorcised, dab at it with rubbing alcohol and rinse again. Finally, put the garment through the laundry using cold water only.
Red Wine
Hands down, the best way to deal with any wine stain is by spraying it with Wine Away, a miracle product.
Tomato Juice
Immediately attack the stain with cold water and a sponge and then rub it with a wedge of lemon. Finally, douse the area with water, squeeze out as much liquid as possible, and spread the garment out to dry.
Blood
Okay, if you must have blood or just happened to slice open your finger while cutting open a fresh pomegranate, here's a particularly savory way to deal with any resulting stain.
Rub the affected area with a paste made out of powdered meat tenderizer and water. Let the paste interact with the stain for about 30 minutes. Rinse out the garment in a solution of 2 quarts cold water and 1 teaspoon ammonia. Rinse again with just cold water and lay the garment out in the sun to dry. (To avoid any ashes-to-ashes action, ask a friend or family member to tag in for this last step.)
Vampire Fruit
Did you know your fruit carried vampiric properties? According to Romany folklore watermelons and pumpkins that weren't consumed after ten days would develop streaks of blood on their surface. If that's not bizarre enough, these same fruits would also become "noisy" and "annoying" around the house.
Tip: eat your fruits before they go bad. (Har, har, har.)
Admittedly, the following facts have nothing to do with food, but I just had to share them. You'll thank me later.
Crazy Ass Twins
If you can find a set of brother and sister twins who were born on a Saturday, you might have a chance at using them to fight off a vampire. Wait -- don't get too excited yet. What cinches the deal is if said twins happen to make a habit of wearing their unmentionables inside out. Exactly.
Apparently, Romany folklore -- gotta love folklore when doing vampire research -- recounts that the mere glimpse of such a duo would send a vampire screaming for cover. Well, wouldn't you do the same?
Sockholm Syndrome
Reputedly, vampires are curiously attached to their socks, which probably explains why they prefer not to use a dryer. Since they are also afraid of water, one way of ridding yourself of a troublesome bloodsucker is to take his left sock (no idea why it must be the left one), fill it with rocks taken from the vamp's grave, and toss it in running water. The hapless vampire will wander around, desperately searching for his sock, fall into the water, and accidentally drown himself.
Growing up in the Northeast, October always brought a little something special in the air. A tinge of excitement, anticipation, promises of tricks and treats to come. The leaves are a shock of color. A big glass of fresh apple cider, or maybe even a piping hot apple donut, could be right around the corner. For sure, a night of revelry could be counted on. Halloween, a night where anything goes, where imagination is king and candy corn is queen.
You could be an Angry Ninja if you so pleased.
The wrath of an angry ninja.
Or a Lovely Lady in mom's high heels.
Just lov-e-ly dahling.
When the witching hour arrives, and your little fingers and toes are frozen through, the best part of the evening is here. It's time to go home and sort through your loot.
Let the opening bell sound, it's trading time.
Good 'N Plenty's were the worst and went straight to Dad. Blech. Skittles and Starburst held decent clout. The big guns, the Apple stock of our world, were Twix, Snickers, and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Which is why I was so excited when I saw Chow'sGuide to Making Your Own Candy Bars. Homemade versions of my childhood favorites made even better with the use of premium chocolate and the guarantee of zero preservatives added. Sign me up.
I decided to tackle the DIY version of One of Life's Great Kicks. Twix.
Shortbread cookie base
First, we start with getting that cookie crunch. A shortbread base is made and cut to the appropriate candy bar size. Before baking, small indentations are poked into the dough (not sure exactly why…could be to prevent the cookie from rising?).
Chewy caramel
Now on to the chewy caramel layer.
Tempered chocolate coating
And then, the coating of milk chocolate.
To be sure, making your own Halloween candy is pretty time and labor intensive. But, the results will bring you right back to the sugar-high times of yesteryear.
Twixt Recipe by Aida Mollenkamp, courtesy of Chow.
Time: 4 hrs 50 mins (total); 1 hr 50 mins (active)
Makes: 24 pieces
Ingredients:
For the cookie base:
1 large egg, at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
10 tablespoons unsalted butter 1 1/4 sticks, at room temperature and cut into small pieces
For the caramel:
Cooking spray, such as Pam
1 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup light corn syrup
4 tablespoons unsalted butter 1/2 stick
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
For the chocolate coating:
1 1/2 pounds milk chocolate couverture, such as El Rey 41 percent milk chocolate Discos
Preparation:
For the cookie base:
1. In a small bowl beat together egg and vanilla extract until yolk is broken up and evenly combined; set aside.
2. Combine flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder in the bowl of a food processor and pulse a few times to aerate and break up any lumps. Add butter and pulse until mixture looks like sand, about 25 (1-second) pulses. Add egg mixture and pulse just until dough comes together, about 10 (1-second) pulses. Form into a flat, rectangular disk, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate at least 1 hour.
3. Heat oven to 375°F. Place dough on a 14-inch piece of parchment paper, lightly flour, and roll into a 13-by-8-inch oval, about 1/8 inch thick. (Work quickly, because the dough will become difficult to roll as it warms up.) Transfer parchment paper with dough to a baking sheet, cover in plastic wrap, and refrigerate at least 15 minutes.
4. Trim dough to a 12-by-7-inch square and cut into 3-1/2-by-3/4-inch cookies (you need at least 24). Pierce each cookie four or five times with a chopstick or the base of a thermometer.
5. Place on a baking sheet and cook until golden brown, about 15 minutes. Remove to a wire rack and let cool. Meanwhile, make the caramel.
For the caramel:
1. Spray a 13-by-9-inch baking pan with cooking spray, then line the pan with a 16-by-13-inch piece of parchment paper, leaving a few inches of overhang on each side. Set aside.
2. Combine all ingredients except vanilla extract in a heavy-bottomed 4-quart saucepan fitted with a candy thermometer and place over medium-high heat. Stir mixture until sugar completely dissolves, about 2 minutes. Wash down the inside of the pan with a wet pastry brush to prevent crystallization. Boil mixture, swirling pan occasionally (but not stirring), until syrup is at 248°F, about 8 minutes.
3. Immediately remove the saucepan from heat, stir in vanilla extract, and pour caramel into prepared baking pan. Using an oiled rubber spatula, spread caramel evenly in the pan. Immediately press 24 cookies, pierced side down, into caramel, leaving space between them to cut them apart later.
4. Let cool until caramel is no longer warm to the touch and holds a slight indentation when pressed with your finger, about 40 minutes. Place filling in the refrigerator until caramel is firm and can easily be cut through, about 40 minutes.
5. Remove filling from the baking pan to a cutting board, caramel side down, and, using a sharp knife, cut around each cookie. Peel off parchment paper, place undipped candy bars on a cutting board, caramel side down, and trim away excess caramel. Immediately place on a parchment-lined baking sheet, cookie side down, and set in the refrigerator until caramel is hard, at least 10 minutes. (Note: It's best to work in a cool area for this step.) Meanwhile, temper chocolate.
For the chocolate coating:
1. To temper chocolate, fill a large bowl with 2 inches of cold water, add 3 to 4 ice cubes, and set aside.
2. Bring a saucepan filled with 1 to 2 inches of water to a simmer over high heat; once simmering, turn off heat. Place 18 ounces of the chocolate in a dry heatproof bowl. Set the bowl over the saucepan and stir until chocolate is completely melted and reaches 118°F. (Make sure chocolate does not come in contact with water or exceed 120°F. If either happens, start over, as the chocolate is no longer usable.)
3. Remove the bowl from the saucepan. Add remaining 6 ounces chocolate and stir until all chocolate is melted and cools to 80°F. To speed the cooling process, after all chocolate has melted, place the bowl over the reserved cold-water bath. Meanwhile, take undipped candy bars out of the refrigerator.
4. Return the bowl to the saucepan and stir until chocolate reaches 86°F; immediately remove from heat. Do not remove the thermometer from the bowl; check the temperature periodically to make sure it stays between 85°F and 87°F. (Chocolate must remain in this temperature range while dipping or it will not set up properly.) Keep the saucepan over low heat and use it to reheat chocolate as necessary.
5. To test if chocolate is properly tempered, spread a thin layer on parchment paper and place it in the refrigerator for 3 minutes to set. If chocolate hardens smooth and without streaks, it is properly tempered. (If it is not properly tempered, you need to repeat the process.)
6. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Drop candy bars one at a time, cookie side down, into tempered chocolate. Cover caramel side with more chocolate, then remove candy bar. To do so, hold two dinner forks in one hand, crossing the ends of the handles to form a V, with the tines pointed outward. As you remove each candy bar, tap the forks several times against the edge of the bowl and scrape the bottom of the forks across the edge to wipe away any excess chocolate.
7. Place Twixt on the baking sheet by tilting the forks so the edge of each candy bar touches the parchment-lined pan, then smoothly pull the forks out. Repeat until all candy bars have been dipped. Let sit at room temperature until completely set, at least 20 minutes.
8. Trim any excess chocolate from edges of candy bars and place Twixt in an airtight container. Twixt will last up to three weeks in the refrigerator or up to two months in the freezer. Let come to room temperature before serving.
Twilight, True Blood, and Vampire Diaries are just three of the newest examples of how vampires refuse to go dustily into that good night. And they're also why I found myself researching and writing VampireSmarts ("The Question & Answer Game that makes learning about Vampires before dating them easy & fun!") and digging up some of the wildest information about vampires a few years ago.
According to Rosemary Ellen Guiley's book The Complete Vampire Companion, there is some guy named Damien Vanian who is living la vida muerte in London. Damien Vanian, aside from having a name that's the undead equivalent of Amelia Bedelia, is supposedly "London's most famous living vampire." I didn't learn a whole lot about the guy, but I did learn that he came up with a blood substitute recipe.
There Will NOT Be Blood*
1 part tomato juice
1 part orange juice
Additional tasting notes on this recipe are that you should drink this cocktail warm -- ideally 98.6°F, because that's body temperature. Also, Vanian believes this effectively mimics both the taste and appearance of clotting blood, so you get all the blood bang without the worries of coming down with the Black Plague. Oh, yeah, that's another fun fact I learned when researching vampires: don't drink human blood. Not only can it be bubbling with bacteria and diseases, it might also act as an emetic.
I should note that since my primary source was published about 16 years ago, I have no idea if this guy is still living (or still living-dead, as it were), so if this concoction makes you vomit, don't blame me.
(*Trademark me. Damien-Banana-Fanna-Fo-Vanian did not come up with that cool-ass name.)
Now, if you're totally grossed out by that drink, but still feel the need to ape the vampiric lifestyle, consider stocking your bar with these delicious blood-like beverages:
Clamato, cranberry, and pomegranate juice: those health-improving antioxidents are very important, even to vampires.
Red wine: try a bottle of something from Vampire Vineyards. Because it means "blood of Jove," I'm sad they no longer make a Sangiovese.
Mineral water: helps thin out the tomato-based drinks and brings a little sparkle back into your life.
Twilight, True Blood, and Vampire Diaries are just three of the newest examples of how vampires refuse to go dustily into that good night. And they're also why I found myself researching and writing VampireSmarts ("The Question & Answer Game that makes learning about Vampires before dating them easy & fun!") and digging up some of the wildest information about vampires a few years ago.
If you want to keep vampires at bay, you should stock your kitchen with the following vampire-fighting ingredients:
Salt
Possibly because of its antimicrobial properties or because of how often it's used in religious rituals, salt has long been used as a Vampire-Be-Gone.
1. In Romanian folklore, it was believed that women who ate a lot of salt during pregnancy would have a normal baby. However, if you craved a low-sodium diet, you were destined to give birth to a bouncing baby bloodsucker. Just imagine the joys of nursing that would bring!
2. Ever make your parents so mad that they damn you to a postmortem vampire existence? Yep, we've all been there. Well, Greek folklore talks about using saltwater to reverse this very specific situation of a parent-initiated vampire curse.
3. Used as a tracking device, salt would be dumped on the bedroom floor of a vampire victim. The idea was that the vampire would step in the salt and the salt would stick to his bare, vampy feet, which would then allow the Buffys, Van Helsings, and Winchester Brothers of the world to follow the saline path back to the vampire's grave.
No word if the salt needed to be Kosher or not.
Seeds
It would appear that vampires suffered from extreme forms of OCD. According to ancient European peasant folklore, you could keep a vampire from rising and disturbing the peace if you filled his coffin with seeds. Upon waking from his dirt nap, the vampire would be compelled to count and eat all the seeds, and this would keep him occupied until sunrise. You could use carrot or mustard seed, but poppyseeds were favored because of their narcotic effect. After all, a drugged vampire is not a biting vampire.
If you think about it, this sort of explains why The Count on Sesame Street is obsessed with counting.
Garlic
Okay, everyone knows garlic prevents vampire attacks, but does anyone know how that belief came into being?
I do.
It would appear that during those annoying flare-ups of the Black Plague in the 1300s, people used garlic to mask the delightful scents of death and dying. Before it was known that the Black Plague was, in fact, a plague with explainable roots in rats, people assumed that sudden high body counts were the work of vampires and thus developed the association between garlic and vampires. (A lot of medical mysteries were blamed on poor, misunderstood vampires in the olden days.)
There's also a Christian myth that spins a tale of Satan stomping around the Garden of Eden. Supposedly, garlic sprouted from his left footprint after he, Adam, and Eve were tossed out on their asses. Not totally sure what that has to do with vampires, since it seems more like an explanation why Satan could have benefitted from Tinactin, but stranger associations have been made.
(Okay, this is weird. In researching Athlete's Foot to make the above joke, it turns out garlic is an anti-fungal and is often used as a natural treatment for Athlete's Foot!)
Lard
Because it falls five days before Christmas on the Eastern Orthodox calender, Romanians slaughtered pigs on St. Ignatius Day. (I dearly want to call it "St. Pignatius Day," but I'm afraid of the heavenly ramifications.) They then took the rendered fat and gave "suspicious corpses" a thorough rub-down with it.
The reasoning behind this porcine massage is not clear, but it's just another excuse to keep Fatted Calf bacon on hand.
Vampire Blood
People in Poland believed that if you ate bread made with the blood of a freshly-staked vampire, you'd be protected against vampire attacks. Romanians took it a step further and consumed the entire body. They'd chop up and burn the body of a suspected vampire then mix the ashes with water. This potent potable was drunk by the vampire's surviving family to prevent them from vamping out themselves.
In disturbing news, this vampire vaccine was used to inoculate relatives of a suspected vampire as recently as 2004.
So, there you go. If you're not a fan of the über hickey, make sure you have vampire blood, garlic, salt, lard, and various seeds on your shopping list.
A few days ago, I got an email from our editor here at Bay Area Bites asking me if I would incorporate "in my own very special way" a Halloween theme into this week's post. Rather than over think it I decided to do the first thing that popped into my head:
A Jackie O. Lantern.
As far as I'm concerned, creating this lantern satisfies three important Halloween criteria: 1.) It allows me to dress inanimate fruit in drag, 2.) It caters to the modern obsession with celebrity (the fact that said celebrity is dead and was a Roman Catholic is pure holiday gravy), and 3.) It gives an appropriate nod to the centuries-old tradition of warding off evil spirits. Of course, the only spirit a Jackie O. Lantern might ward off is that of Maria Callas. Or Christina Onassis.
I Googled images of Jackie O. Lanterns and was shocked-- there weren't any. Yes, there were a few that called themselves Jackie O. Lanterns, but they were either just female jack-o-lanterns or, more dishearteningly, Jackie-o-lanterns wearing pink pillbox hats.
And that's wrong, I tell you, just wrong. That pillbox hat-- that's not Jackie O., that's Jackie Kennedy at the moment of her first husband's death. I wanted to convey a more cynical Jackie (or practical, depending upon your point of view)-- I wanted the Jackie who cashed in her status as American royalty to marry an aging stallion/obscenely wealthy Greek shipping magnate in order to protect what was left of her family and garner unheard of shopping privileges.
So I borrowed a wig, big sunglasses, and a scarf from my friend Natalie, who likes to play dress up more than any other adult I know, and tarted up a little sugar pumpkin.
To make your very own Jackie O. Lantern, you will need:
Big sunglasses. It's all about the sunglasses.
A long brown wig
A sugar pumpkin. (Note: take the sunglasses with you while pumpkin shopping. If the glasses fit around the pumpkin's girth, you've got your pumpkin.
Some sort of carving instrument, like a small, sharp knife.
A spoon
A votive candle
A vintage scarf. (Purely optional, but it does complete the look. Pucci's nice.)
Preparation:
1. Cut out a lid on the top of the pumpkin at a 45 degree angle so that the lid will remain in place when pumpkin is hollowed. This opening should be just large enough to allow access to your clenched fist. The smaller the hands, the better.
2. Scoop out seeds and stringy bits of pulp from the inside of your pumpkin with a spoon, preferably made of sterling silver. It's even better if you are using a dessert spoon that has been stolen from the Plaza Hotel in New York. Since I have no such spoon, I had to settle for one I stole from the Algonquin Hotel instead. I am not advocating stealing-- I was just pretending I was Robert Benchley and was therefore necessarily pickled. Reserve the pumpkin seeds for later roasting, since the seeds of the sugar pumpkin are the best for toasting, which is something I learned from Elise Bauer's always helpful Simply Recipes.
3. Situate sunglasses onto the face of the pumpkin to determine the best placement for the eye holes. Cut out small holes with the tip of a sharp knife, then enlarge the holes with the same, stolen silver spoon you used to scrape out the pumpkin's insides. (Note: Holes should not be larger than the sunglasses.)
4. Put your now-naked Jackie O. Lantern upon some sort of pedestal (I used one originally intended for cakes) which, now that I think of it, seems entirely appropriate. Dress up your pumpkin doll with wig, sunglasses, and a purely optional scarf-around-the-neck. Presto! You've got an international woman of glamour sitting on a cake stand in your kitchen.
Lighting Jackie's Fire
To add an inner glow to your Jackie O. Lantern, remove the wig and lid from the pumpkin, place a votive candle inside her, and light. Replace lid and wig. Adjust hairstyle, if the need or desire arises.
For a delicious bit of added fun, summon the spirit of Aristotle Onassis with the help of your Ouija board. Once you have his full attention, blast a Maria Callas aria from your surround sound speakers, then sit back and feel the tension. Voi lo Sapete from Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana would do very nicely. I recommend hiding all valuable, breakable objects.
I do not recommend leaving your Jackie O. Lantern burning with fire from the inside unattended, unless you wish to melt your wig or set your house ablaze, but lighting it does make her eyes shine bright and wide, which makes sense, if you think about it:
That woman saw things that no woman should ever have to see.
Little did I know that a year later, I'd be knocked up (the planned kind of knocked up), and that two years later (meaning now), I'd lie awake at night lactating and plotting my baby's first truly public embarrassment: his 2009 Halloween costume.
I've actually hated Halloween for years -- to me, it's no more than excuse for otherwise pleasant adults to turn into masked assholes. The few times in the past 20 years that I've deigned to go out in costume on Halloween, I've resorted to my cactus get-up, which consists of green clothes + clothespins. The cactus get-up is perfect for those, like me, who are: 1) lazy, 2) cheap, and 3) open to the possibility of foreplay à la clothespin.
With the arrival of Henry, the erotic possibilities of clothespins have dramatically receded, and even I'm not mean enough to dress my child up as a cactus (imagine the "Oh, he's a prick!" jokes). I am, however, still lazy and cheap. And I love to kill two birds with one stone.
So, here was the suite of conditions for Henry's costume since he's more fun to dress up than I am:
1) Food-related so it could be BAB'd
2) Super easy because I'm exhausted
3) Cheap because we're in a recession
4) Handmade because I'm a snob
5) Green because it's his color and my color, and because these days you just can't go wrong with green
6) Wearable as a winter-layer long after Oct. 31 because I can't find a winter jacket for a 12-month-old that I don't think is horrid, and I’m sure as hell not going to sew TWO different things this fall when I could just sew ONE.
So, taking all of those factors into account, the only real solution was a poncho that could be interpreted as a costume. A fleece poncho. A green fleece poncho.
With this vague green fuzzy vision, Henry and I headed off to Stonemountain and Daughter Fabrics to cruise. And little by little, notion by notion, we assembled the materials that would prevent the erroneous perception of Henry as a Bolivian Kermit or a marijuana leaf fit for the Jolly Green Giant.
Photo and Photoshop by Wendy Goodfriend
Presto: A salad costume! Throw him around and he's a tossed salad. If he's tired, he's a wilted salad. Put him on a horse and he's a Cobb salad. Not only will this costume get a kid through the cold months, but it can also double as a Christmas tree blanket.
Ingredients: Fleece, buttons, rickrack, thread, brazen enthusiasm for humiliating your child.
These photos are from a frighteningly delicious Halloween Food group on Flickr.com. If you are already a member of Flickr you can easily join the group and contribute your scary food photos!
Since I always start my posts with a warning, here goes: Don't read this if you have an aversion to Sarah Silverman or food that resembles body parts or if you worship the ground that Martha Stewart stencils.
I mean it. Move along now.
Okay, for those of you who can hack it, my assignment for this Halloween was to write again about scary food, this time with the political incorrectness on the side. (It turns out that political incorrectness is not only very high in calories, but it's also raised on corn in Burma and slaughtered by four-year-old orphans who have flies in their eyes and harelips and call out, "Angie! Angie!" during the two hours of sleep they get a night.)
Whoops.
Anyway, let's start with a definition.
Scary [skair-ee] Adjective, scarier, scariest 1. Ridiculous 2. Tacky 3. Of or pertaining to Martha Stewart
So, I just watched the Sarah Silverman Show last night, and these little numbers bring to mind a song she sang called "What happened to the white dog poop from the Seventies," which I thought raised a very legitimate question. (Attempts at answers located here, though I tend to think the most likely culprit is CORN and no one says so expressly. Get Michael Pollan on that immediately, dammit.)
Anyway, as usual, I digress. In short, Martha's Ghoulish Petit Fours made me thankful that poo doesn't smile at you. (But what if it did?) Then I realized that it's unclear if the lower dot on the Martha ghouls is supposed to be a mouth or a nose, which led me down the path of imagining some poor lackey at Martha HQ making these things and getting the face wrong the first time and getting strangled with the licorice "lace" that supposed to go around the base of the witches' hats.
(Note, never accuse Martha of not recycling a great idea, as with these Mashed Boo-tatoes.)
Moving on, let's take a look at I Scream Sandwiches. The salient quote? "For neat rounds of ice cream, snip away the carton with scissors, cut ice cream into 3/4-inch-thick slices, and make shapes with a 2 1/2-inch cookie cutter."
Shoot me now.
And now, the Martha piece de resistance:
Ladies' Fingers and Mens' Toes, which the site calls "ghoulishly good", a term that made me wonder just how much crack Martha's editors smoke to get through the day. At first I thought these atrocities were pastries of some sort, but they are in fact pretzels. Pretzels with almonds? Martha, c'mon.
The part I liked the most about this recipe was the implied part: Notice that the last ingredient listed is "fried rosemary (optional, for toes)". Not fingers, mind, just toes. Toe hair.
Good grief.
Before I wrap up Martha bashing, I did want to bring your attention to something else I found on Martha's site, which while not food that can be eaten, I hope still qualifies to be on BAB.
Who would do this to their child? Notice how it looks like either a) the lobster is pooping the child (so sorry, I'm channeling Sarah Silverman today), b) the lobster is giving birth to the child (at least it's not breach), or c) the lobster and the baby are inter-species conjoined twins and appear to share a rectum. And note the evidence, yet again, of Martha's editors smoking crack! "In the end, any costume you design will be memorable and guaranteed to be loved by your friends, family, and, of course, baby!" (My italics.) Since when do babies that age love anything but boob and Teletubbies?
Okay, I'm done with Martha, but lest you think I'm a horrid bundle of vitriol who deserves to be bound with licorice, gagged with hairy man's toe, and tarred and feathered with a hot glue gun, let me leave you with two videos of Halloween recipes that didn't make me want to slit my wrists.
Behold British mini-Martha, whose name is apparently Tilly. (Tilly! Tilly! And don't you just want to eat up her accent?) I played this three times just for the sheer joy of hearing the mysterious braceleted Tilly say "lolly sticks."
And now meet Pink of Perfection's pumpkin soup, which is easy and I bet scrumptious. Oh, and I like her dress. "Her" being Sarah McColl, winsome talent/Juliet Binoche lookalike behind Pink of Perfection, "the thrifty girl's guide to la dolce vita."
Something tells me Ms. McColl would be great fun to go lingerie shopping with, then afterwards you'd stop by some chic tiny little restaurant at 3pm and wind up there until 6:30 when people start coming in for their dinner reservations and you've drunk four glasses of Beaujolais and have a horrid case of the giggles and start laughing about your vibrators and the bartender -- who is very cute and you have been flirting with -- has to cut you off.
A few days ago, I got an email from our editor here at Bay Area Bites asking me if I would incorporate "in my own very special way" a Halloween theme into this week's post. Rather than over think it I decided to do the first thing that popped into my head:
