Ahhhhh…Fall is in the air! While some people are generally galvanized into action by the coming of Spring – Spring Cleaning, Spring Break, Spring has Sprung and all that – I love nothing more than the turning of the leaves, the nutmeg scent of holiday baking in the kitchen, pumpkins and haystacks and scarecrows in neighborhood yards, and last but not least…THE PUMPKIN PARTY!
Yes, every year my house is jam-packed with friends and family about a week prior to Halloween for my annual Pumpkin Carving Party. The house gets decked out in its Halloween best. We all get dressed up in our costumes, have a friendly fire in the backyard pit, listen to great music, and of course, carve our jack-o-lanterns before the night is over.
I remember days gone by when all I had was a big spoon, a marker and a knife. These days all sorts of contraptions exist to enable even the least coordinated person to successfully carve a pumpkin without loss of limb. This year, my husband bought the drill attachment for gutting the pumpkins. Any excuse to buy a new tool, right? You just gotta love human invention! When our guests feel like carving, they can design their own or use templates that I provide to create any kind of pumpkin they want. Afterward, we line them all up and take pictures. They look so amazing all together, lit up and glowing…it’s like our own little Pumpkin Shine…awesome!
Naturally, we also have food; what party would be complete without it? But, being a Halloween party, the snacks can’t just be garden-variety you know! The year we bought our house I went all-out and became a regular Martha Stewart (minus the insider trading) and made all kinds of ghostly goodies. These included a 15-inch-tall witch hat made of chocolate rice-krispy treat, and a cookie-and-frosting centipede with licorice for legs! But the budget doesn’t always allow for that kind of thing to happen on my own dime, and so last year I decided to go potluck – in the form of a “Spooky Food Contest”. It was such a big hit we almost didn’t have enough room for all the food!
Entries included such delicacies as Graveyard Dirt (a crushed-oreo and pudding concoction), Skeleton Ribs (spicy chicken filling inside French bread and sliced like ribs), Candy Spiders and Mini-Mummies (pigs in blankets). Prizes were given for Most Popular, Spookiest, Creepiest, and “Gross”-est!
That contest was, hands-down, the best party idea ever! It made for an amazing display of heretofore-unknown creepy culinary skills – people who didn’t even usually cook or bake came up with wonderful ideas and had a great time with it. I can’t wait to see what everyone comes up with this year!
— Michelle Roppolo
