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.

Two Halloweens ago, I bashed baby costumes, and heaped quite specific vitriol on the infamous Martha Stewart lobster baby costume.

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

Let's start with the "Ghoulish Petit Fours."

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.

Behold the lobster baby costume.

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.

So much more fun than Martha.

I'm a white girl writing about the scariest foods I could find at Ranch 99, the Asian supermarket in Richmond. Prepare yourself: what follows is not politically correct.

But before we get into the nitty gritty, let me make myself clear: I think of myself as an equal opportunity eater, someone whose palate is endlessly expandable--I took on sushi at age 20 and haven't since met a piece of unagi I didn't like, and kimchee and I became fast friends in my thirties. And as for what other people eat, well, I tell myself that given the opportunity to develop a taste for it, I'm sure I too would develop a hankering for buffalo placenta soup when it's in season, as do a few of my Thai friends, or the crunch and instant protein fix of deep fried bugs, as does a British friend of mine who has lived in southeast Asia for twenty years.

And I'm conscious that my distaste for unfamiliar food is a luxury, in part the birthmark of someone who has grown up in a society that can afford to throw away guts and organs, tongues, ears and snouts.

The irrational wincing of the tongue, the squinching of the brow when faced with threatening food must surely be conquerable. In the context of food, "scary" is just another word for "unfamiliar."

I've long been a fan of Ranch 99, purveyor of fine pea shoots, crustaceans, galangal, kecap manis (a thick Indonesian soy sauce), and pastel-colored rice flour pastries that I grew so fond of when I lived in Thailand, and I delight in even seeing the packaging for "chicken paws" (feet), "free run chicken" and Confucious Family Liquor.

But this visit, the Sunday before Halloween, I was shopping differently: I was on a hunt for the six scariest food items I could find. And dammit, I was going to face my fears and eat them. And so was my friend Tristan who was visiting, who brought with him his usual penchant for talking about disgusting things he'd eaten and how disgusting the gas was that they gave him. We thought we were sooooooo sturdy. Nothing could possibly be as disgusting as our worst imaginings made them, right?

And so, dear reader, here you are, in reverse order, the top six scariest foods to be had at Ranch 99, including reasons for deeming them scary and taste-based assessments:

Number 6: Vermont Curry

Reasoning: As a native Vermonter, I've long wondered about the absurd pairing of the words "Vermont" and "curry" every time I see this ubiquitous item in an Asian market. But I've been willing to keep an open mind about it given that Vermont is actually known for some surprisingly tasty weird combinations, like the tuna sandwiches dipped in egg, fried like French toast, and topped with maple syrup, that I scarfed up as a child. So it made it into my shopping basket in the spirit of supporting Vermont quirkiness in all its permutations.

Verdict: Vermont Curry surprised me by emerging from the box in dung-colored blocks, sort of like a large chocolate bar. I broke off a few and tossed them in with carrots and onions, as directed by the package. After I cooked it, I let it cool for a few minutes, and a dark brown sludge had gathered across the top--far thicker and more ominous looking than the skin the develops on hot Jello chocolate pudding. ("It's okay," Tristan said with hope in his voice, "My mom's gravy does that, too.")

But by the time Tristan and I sampled the pleasures of Vermont Curry, I was already in high gag mode from a few other items listed below. My tongue was contorted in anguish, and poor Vermont Curry got the short end of the stick. Were I offered a plate of Vermont Curry under different circumstances--like after release from a concentration camp or tempted with the reward of a million dollars--I would eat it.

Number 5: Smoked Veggie Goose

Reasoning: I found this in the deli section, and while it did look a bit like goose, complete with goose-pimpled skin, it looked like goose that had spent a few centuries in a catacomb and then been rehydrated with pond water.

Verdict: One would think that mere wheat and soy sauce pattied to resemble meat would be innocent of culinary crime. Tristan noted, "It's a shame when you recreate meat you have to include the skin" and then took a bite. Then I took a bite. After a few minutes of debate, we arrived at an apt description: smoked veggie goose tasted like rotten chalk with a hint of imported barnyard.

Number 4: Fried Gluten with Peanuts in Soy Sauce, from Taiwan

Reasoning: There's nothing in the name to indicate that this would be offensive (aside from the word gluten), but a mere glance at the scrambled-egg like globs floating in dishwater-colored salt water with peanuts that looked like they'd suffered from elephantiasis was enough to earn them a place in my shopping basket.

Verdict: Like Vermont Curry, fried gluten with peanuts in soy sauce was a victim of lineup--the smell of Scariest Food Number 1 (keep reading, you're almost there) was wafting through the kitchen, and had the gluten been chunks of perfectly ripe honeydew decked with proscuitto, I probably would have gagged. I took a bite, gagged, and staggered toward the garbage, only to remember that that was exactly where Scariest Food Number 1 was lurking, so my gag volcanoed into a hefty spit into my palm. I closed my eyes and tossed the gluten in the direction of the garbage pail and Scariest Food Number 1.

Poor little gluten. It probably isn't so bad.

Number 3: Pig Ears in Soy Sauce

Reasoning: Like the smoked veggie goose, I found pig ears in the deli aisle, but thinly sliced and looking quite harmless in a clear plastic deli container. "It could be brown chewy ginger/soy/wine-infused coleslaw," I thought. I've eaten cracklings, and I love scrapple and hot dogs, both of which surely have fragments of pig ear. Dogs highly recommend pig ears. Maybe I'm missing something.

Tristan tried it first. "I just thought about what it is," he said as a swallow turned into a gulp and look around for grapefruit soda. A slice of pig ear--I looked for a bite that looked like it was more meat than cartilage--made it into my gullet.

I discovered there's a reason I don't like dogs. Dogs like pig ears.

Number 2: Preserved mudfish fish sauce, from Vietnam.

Reasoning: I'm a fan of fish sauce in general--a tablespoon or two adds a lovely piquant je ne sais quoi to spaghetti sauce, and of course it's a staple in sanitized western-style Thai and Vietnamese cuisine. But this, with its tightly packed filets of clearly aptly named mudfish, intrigued me. In comparison, it made the pigs ears look like a pulled pork sandwich from Everett and Jones.

Verdict: We opened the jar to be mystified by a plastic strainer installed on top of the fish. At first I thought that it might be so that cooks would use the liquid that drained from the fish, not the fish itself. But no, that didn't make sense because only about a tablespoon of liquid dribbled out, and the jar said it contained a whopping 22 servings.

I pried off the plastic strainer, holding my face as far away as possible for fear of flying fermented fish juice. I stuck a fork in and pried up one filet and took a sniff. This was beyond piquant: was this mudfish fermented in a public toilet?

"Please don't make me eat this," Tristan pleaded. "I don't want to be yacking up mudfish."

And mudfish is where we both drew the line. They say smell is an integral part of taste, in which case both of us were surely off the hook.

And now...

Number 1 Scariest Food to be had at Ranch 99:

Pig's Uterus.

Reasoning: Pig's uterus faced some stiff competition from the pre-packaged meat section from the likes of black-skinned chickens with the heads on, pork bung (intestine), pork snout, pork brain, and liquid or solid pork blood, but if my mission was to find the scariest items I could find in Ranch 99, pig's uterus could hardly be overlooked. It lay pinky grey behind the shiny plastic wrap, and I was drawn by its uneven, scalloped, might I even say Baroque tubes.

Verdict: I looked on line for pigs uterus recipes, to no avail, so I decided that maybe stir frying it, with oyster sauce, might work. The oil heated in the wok and I peered at the package. The oil just started to smoke, and I plunged my fingers into the pink labyrinth and dumped it in the oil.

And it began to cook.

And it began to smell.

"Jesus Christ, there is NO WAY, I'm tasting that," Tristan shouted. The smell got worse, perhaps mixing with eau de fermented mudfish. "It smells just the way a cooked [uterus] probably should smell," he cried above the hiss of the oil and the mass of sizzling pink-grey tubes.

It was already unspoken that the uterus was going to bypass oyster sauce and go directly into the trash. I dumped it in and thought, good God, I'm taking that trash out this instant.

But I stupidly waited, thinking I'd wait until the end of this dreadful experiment. And before long, Elizabeth, one of my two cats, was sniffing with determination around the garbage. Bear in mind that she has never shown any interest thus far in either the garbage or anything other than kibble, but apparently pig uterus lightly seared in peanut oil was enough to drive her wild. I slapped her away and went to enjoy the tangy splash of a beer and an escape from the stench in a better-ventilated living room.

And then I heard a rustle from the kitchen and slid back my chair to see Geraldine, my other cat--who has also never been interested in garbage or anything other than kibble--lapping delicately at a chunky string of uterus she'd lugged out of the garbage onto the linoleum.

I'll tell you I have never, ever been so happy to take out the garbage, an everything-must-go excursion that won't even spare the not-so-scary things. It's all ruined, contaminated by association with pig uterus and my own defeat--a girl who likes tuna sandwiches fried with maple syrup on top, foie gras, uni, and lima beans but isn't necessarily an open-minded eater.