Fall Drinks

My husband and I love playing bartender. One of my fall favorites is the Dark and Stormy. To make a good one, you need to have Gosling’s Black Seal rum (it’s not very expensive, like $15 a bottle) and we like Blenheim’s ginger beer. Whatever brand you get, make sure it’s ginger beer, not ginger ale. You need the drier, spicier flavor of the beer against the rum. Blenheim’s is really spicy (you can get an ultra-hot version), but that’s just how we roll. You can layer this drink and see why it got its name. Serve with a lime wedge on the rim of the glass. Some people think of this as a summer drink, but we always have it in fall.  I think it's the inclusion of a dark brown spirit, plus the fact that the drink mimics the look of a dark, spooky, stormy sky.


I also like to make up apple pie and spice drinks using ingredients like apple cider, vanilla vodka, ginger brandy, and cinnamon schnapps. Mix in whatever ratio and combination tastes good to you! I’ve also seen a new, artisan-y apple pie liquor in the store lately that I hope to try this fall.

I found a recipe for making pumpkin-infused vodka that I’m going to try one of these years. Infused alcohols are pretty easy. I’ve already made limoncello, absinthe, Kahlua, and pear-cardamom brandy. The pumpkin vodka is then made into a “martini” involving a crushed gingersnap rim and whipped cream on top.

Mulled wine and mulled cider are also favorites. I love the Willams Sonoma mulled cider spices. They’re a bit expensive but better than any other mulled spice mixture I’ve tried. I love hot cider with some apple spice doughnuts as a fall treat. My grandpa used to have an apple orchard and a cider press and made his own cider with water from their natural spring. Doesn’t get much fresher or more delicious than that.

One of our favorite early fall signifiers is the first pumpkin spice cappuccino. We’ve already had the Starbucks version, then I found this recipe on The Kitchn:

Pumpkin Spice Latte

2 cups milk
2 T canned pumpkin or 1 t Pumpkin Spice Syrup
2 T sugar or sugar substitute
2 T vanilla extract
½ t pumpkin pie spice
1-2 shots espresso (1/4 cup espresso or ½ c strong brewed coffee)

In a saucepan combine milk, pumpkin, and sugar and cook on medium heat, stirring, until steaming. Remove from heat, stir in vanilla and spice, transfer to a blender and process for 15 seconds until foamy. Pour into large mug or two mugs. Add espresso on top.
Top with whipped cream and sprinkle pumpkin pie spice, nutmeg, or cinnamon on top.

It was amazing! It tasted just like the Starbucks version. Better, even. We don’t have an espresso maker, so Josh just brewed really strong coffee in his French press. We’d had the foresight to buy a giant bottle of the Toriani pumpkin spice syrup when we saw it at Jungle Jim’s a few months ago. I’m really glad we did, since I’ve learned they’ve discontinued their regular pumpkin spice syrup. We should have enough to last us several years! Well, maybe not that long now that we’ve learned how to make these at home.

Halloween TV

TV is one of my most favorite things.  So is Halloween.  TV + Halloween = Super Extra Awesome!

Of course, there are the annual (or, not so much anymore) Halloween TV specials like It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. Thank goodness they at least still show that one. More rarely seen are the Garfield Halloween special (which scared the crap out of me when I was little) and Disney’s Trick or Treat. Disney has like, twelve channels these days and they can’t manage to show The Legend of Sleepy Hollow or Trick or Treat once in the month of October? Disappointing.


But what I’d like to talk about today is the Halloween episode of a regular sitcom or drama. Any show that does a Halloween episode automatically endears itself to me. In fact, I probably would have never started watching How I Met Your Mother or Bones if neither had done a Halloween episode; now both are regulars on my Tivo list. But I’ll even watch Halloween episodes of crappy TV shows I’d otherwise be embarrassed to watch—Hope & Faith, Reba, Sabrina the Teenage Witch. For the entire month of October I put a “Halloween” watch on my DVR and watch everything it tapes. Does your normally painfully cliché sitcom have a ghost hanging in the window, a scene with trick-or-treaters? I’ll watch it. Here are some of my favorites, ones where Halloween wasn’t merely in the background, but a central tenet to the story and show:


How I Met Your Mother—I think The Slutty Pumpkin is still one of this show’s best episodes. It’s funny, almost everyone is in costume at some point, the rooftop Halloween party reminds me of hanging out on my apartment balcony on October evenings, looking out over the city (not New York for me, but the feeling is the same). Plus, it’s a sweet look into Ted’s desperation to find “the one” and there’s a nice moment between Ted and Robin at the end. This was also the episode that made me watch and subsequently fall in love with this show.


Roseanne—Of course, all of these are classics, but some are better than others. My favorite is the first one (I think), where they did the “walk-through” haunted house for their trick-or-treaters. The Alfalfinator? I’m so making one of my kids dress up as that one year, even though nobody will get it. Some of the later Halloween episodes were kind of weak (as was the entire show)—I’d remembered all the episodes from their first run in my childhood except the awful one with the AbFab ladies. I mean, you take an absolute recipe for success—Roseanne and Jackie, Patsy and Edina, and Halloween and make an entirely unwatchable show? Inexcusable. Fortunately, they don’t show that one too often. The rest are rerun almost constantly on various channels throughout October. I recommend all of them (except the one where Roseanne gives birth) to get into the holiday spirit.


Freaks and Geeks—I love this show so much. It’s so painful and amazing to watch. It aired during the fall of my freshman year of college and since I was a lowly, lonely freshman with nothing to do on Saturday nights I think I watched all the episodes that aired. I remember this one vividly—the boys, really too old to trick or treat, dressing up and getting egged. The mom happily baking cookies to pass out, not realizing that homemade treats had become dangerous. Such a great episode, tying together the childishness of Halloween with the show’s greater theme of growing up.


The Simpsons—How could I mention Halloween TV without at least a nod to the Treehouse of Horror? (I always mess up and call them Treehouse of Terror. I like the alliteration.) My favorite of these is “The Raven.” Probably because it’s one of the ones I actually watched after coming home from trick-or-treating when I was young. That makes me sound really young, but the show’s been on for 20 years. It seems like I never catch The Raven in the annual reruns anymore. Guess I’ll just have to buy the DVD.

And, for your viewing pleasure, here’s a list of shows that have done Halloween episodes that you might want to be on the lookout for in reruns this October (or fire up your DVDS to watch):

My So Called Life
Angel
The Office
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
South Park
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
Beverly Hills 90210
Home Improvement
Will & Grace
Friends
Sabrina the Teenage Witch
That 70s Show
Hope & Faith
Frasier
8 Simple Rules
Reba
Malcolm in the Middle
Bones
Supernatural
Charmed
What I Like About You

Halloween Magazines

There are a few Halloween magazines hitting the stands right now, as well as regular October issues with Halloween ideas in them. Let’s talk about them!


Better Homes and Gardens Halloween Special—This one is okay. I get this one every year and a lot of ideas and articles are recycled. I think I’ve seen the story on the lady who decorates her house in a “classy” black and white Halloween theme about 3 times already. Also, a “magic” themed kids party is not Halloweeny.

Martha Stewart Halloween Special—Again, a lot of recycled ideas from years past. I think I have all the Halloween special issues and October issues of Martha Stewart Living from back to 2000 or 2001 and look over them every year, so I may have a longer memory than most. But I’m pretty sure I’d seen almost all of the ideas before. There were a few new things, like the Victorian gothic article and some of the costumes. And, as always, everything is photographed beautifully. Even though I’ve seen some of the recipes and decorations before, it’s nice to have them all in one pretty, glossy place.

Woman’s Day Halloween special issue—This one was surprisingly good. There’s a lovely article of a house done up in sort of rustic Halloween décor that looks a bit like my house, so I’ll be taking inspiration from that. Lots of bare branches and owls—I’d do my house like that year-round! There were quite a number of owl projects in general, which pleases me greatly. I think I may also use the bat/cat/owl silhouette pumpkin carving templates this year. They look simple enough and I’m always looking for something new to carve onto pumpkins (ask me about the year in college I spent about three hours carefully carving an old, spooky tree into a pumpkin—when I lived in an on-campus apartment and nobody saw it except my roommates!).

Country Living, October issue—Again, a bit of a surprise. I tend to overlook this magazine, given its title and my distaste for calico and floral. But I really need to give it credit and start picking it up more often. They do a reliably good October issue. There were some great ideas in here. I love to see pictures of Halloween done in ways that please my “design” sense. I liked the article of the house that was maybe a little gothic and unusual any time of the year and just “enhanced” for Halloween with a few paper bats and some cheesecloth. This is kind of my goal for my own house. Country Living also released a Halloween book this year, which I eagerly anticipate flipping through at the bookstore to see if it’s worth the purchase. Also, I recommend checking out their website for a great pictorial of an amazing-looking vintage-style Halloween party in the woods.

Taste of Home Halloween issue (small one)—Taste of Home wants to take my money twice this year by issuing a “pocket sized” Halloween special as well as a regular magazine sized one, each with different recipes and ideas. So far I’ve just purchased the small one. I have a special place in my heart for Taste of Home magazines. The recipes are always horrifyingly calorie-laden and convenience food oriented, and sometimes just horrifying, but I’ve pored over my mom’s back issues for years. I guess it’s just that I’m a Midwestern girl and this is classic Midwestern potluck comfort food. There really aren’t any new ideas in this book. You’ve seen them before—potpies with spooky shapes cut out of the crust, soups or stews served in pumpkins, all manner of pumpkiny desserts. But it’s still fun to look at and it’s usually one of the first Halloween magazines to hit the newsstands, so I’m sure I’ll continue to buy it every year.

I saw Better Homes and Gardens October issue yesterday at the grocery store, but didn’t flip through it yet. And I always anticipate the October issue of Martha Stewart Living. There are usually a few gems in there even if they’ve done the Halloween special that year. The Matthew Meade Halloween “magazine” is out as well, although with its thick cover and $13 price tag, I’d consider it more a book. I hope to have some extra money to pick this up later in the season. It looks promising.

Halloween Books

In some sad, un-Halloween related news, the show Reading Rainbow aired its last show recently. If you’re about the same age as me, you grew up on this show, watching it at home as well as at school. In honor of this great show, some Halloween book reviews. But you don’t have to take my word for it!


Death Makes A Holiday

This book, by David J. Skal, is one of my favorite Halloween books. I read it every fall (or, more likely, late summer) when I start getting anxious for the holiday. It’s a fascinating history of Halloween, from its earliest origins to modern day horror movies. It successfully debunks the urban legend of razor blades in candy (revealing, in the process, the truly sad and sinister case that most such legends stem from, which leaves us with more to fear from immediate family than the stranger in the spooky, dark house). It explores the irony of the Martha Stewart-ization of a holiday that is, if anything, a night of controlled chaos and anarchy. Although the book is basically a history and sociological study of Halloween it is very readable. I can usually get through it in an afternoon. I recommend it to anyone to get into the spirit of the holiday.


Folk Tales

There are many iterations of the fairy and folk tales book. The one I read was found in my grandparents’ attic, with a gray cover, illustrations of the various characters held within dancing around the edges. That particular book is probably long lost, either to a rummage sale or to the fire on the second floor of my grandparents’ house my freshman year of high school. I still remember the stories, though. The Girl with the Yellow Ribbon, The Hitchhiker, tales of werewolves, witches, and ghosts. We would set up a “tent” in the back yard, consisting of a quilt thrown over the clothesline, the bottom corners held in place with rocks. We’d take turns reading from the book with a flashlight, the listeners covered in goosepimples, the reader delighting in the gory or scary ending they would relay. My grandmother was a master story teller and I loved when we could get her to tell us scary stories. She didn’t even need the book. She knew all of them by heart, adding her own creepy details. An afternoon of this, followed by some hot cider and chili and jumping in some leaves, was the perfect afternoon for me when I was young. Actually, it still doesn’t sound too bad!



Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark

I had this entire book memorized cold in about fourth grade. That’s how much I read it. I was always the one called upon to recite the stories at sleepovers. I especially loved the ones with a “jump out and get you” ending, where you’d make your voice quieter and quieter as the denouement as the story approached, and everyone would lean in closer and closer to hear, until you leaped forward and yelled the final line of the story and caused a half-dozen girls to jump and shriek and grasp their pillows. Don’t let the fact that this book is marketed toward the elementary school set fool you. The stories are pretty classic modern folk tales and urban legends, and the illustrations are still scary as hell.


Here’s one I vaguely remember and would love to remember more, if anyone ends up reading this blog and knows what I’m talking about, or has better Google skills than me. I remember reading this book in probably 2nd grade, so the book had to come out sometime before 1987. It was a kid’s picture book about two or three trick or treaters who happen upon a mysterious house on Halloween night. They go in somehow, whether invited or not I don’t remember, and end up going through a series of what seem to be different worlds or dimensions. The one I remember most was a desert-like one. In every “world”, just as the kids would think there was no way out and they were lost forever they’d happen upon a door or trapdoor and fall into the next “world.” After the last one, they fall into a giant Halloween party and it turns out all the stuff they’d just been through was a huge, elaborate haunted house. Anyone? I’d love to read or have this book again. Or just know it exists and that I’m not crazy.

Hitting the Stores!

Okay, it's the third day of September and I've already failed with my "posting every day" thing.  I was too busy doing fall stuff yesterday.  I put out all the autumn decorations and we went to a farmers' market and got mums for the front porch.  They had some pumpkins and I was seriously considering getting some, but I knew they'd be eaten by squirrels before October 1st if I got them this early.

I've already been regularly trolling the stores for Halloween goodness.  Target is beginning to put stuff out--there are a few things in the dollar bins and some costumes are out.  The craft stores always have things out early, so Michael's and JoAnn's have Halloween in full effect right now, probably only to be completely usurped by Christmas in the middle of October.  I wasn't super-impressed with the Martha Stewart Crafts stuff at Michael's this year.  It's more gothy/piratey than the vintage stuff they had last year.  Other stores are starting to trickle in, too.  I saw Halloween stuff at TJ Maxx, Kohl's, and my local grocery store.  We hit a real jackpot a couple weeks ago at HomeGoods.  They had tons of stuff, almost too much to look at.  We got two owl mugs, an owl candy dish, and two spooky silhouette plates that I'm going to hang on the wall.  My taste in Halloween decoration definitely leans more toward vintage and Martha Stewart style than scary or gory, so that's what I'm drawn to when I'm looking at Halloween merchandise. 

So here is some vintage Halloween inspiration, in the form of old postcards.  My grandma used to send us vintage Halloween postcards every year when my sisters and I were little.  Now I'm kicking myself for not keeping them.

I especially love the witches one because it's sort of Arts and Crafts style!

It begins

September 1st. Okay, I know fall doesn’t officially start for another 21 days, but in my mind, September 1st is the beginning of autumn. It’s the day I let myself put out fall decorations at home (Halloween doesn’t come out until October 1st). After this day you can be fairly certain that young people are safely ensconced in classrooms, not out running rampant with melted popsicles dripping down their chins. The weather may still be warm, but you know that won’t last too much longer. The evenings start getting cooler, we take blankets out of storage after too many nights of sleeping under only sheets or nothing at all. It starts getting dark at a reasonable hour instead of the 10 o’clock twilight of summer. It won’t be long until the shelves of department stores and grocery stores are filled with orange and black and shelves of candy. Pumpkins, scarecrows, corn, and bales of hay will start appearing on porches and stoops. I’m going to start incorporating piles of apples, butternut squash, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin into my cooking soon.

I know lots of serious Halloween fans count down the days until October 31st, but this is the day I count down to. This is the beginning of the season. The next two months are my favorite time of year. I enjoy every day on its own merits—the leaves, sweaters, apple cider, the slant of autumn sunlight in my kitchen, being able to cook and bake again without making the entire house an oven. I love the warm sunny days spent walking through piles of dead leaves. I love the cold rainy days when orange leaves seem a hundred times brighter against the gray sky and I feel perfectly justified in curling up on the couch with some soup and grilled cheese and a movie. I love the thrill I get when I see someone who’s gone all out in decorating their house for Halloween. I feel the most “myself” during this time of year, as if I’m living in a fall world all the time, but this is the only time when the outside world is in sync with my internal world.