October 23, 2007 

The month is October.  It is the advent of autumn.  Oppressive summer heat gives way to cooler weather and bountiful of fall foliage.  A chill in the air, rather shorter days bring thoughts of ghosts, ghouls, good souls, bad souls.  By the time it gets to be Halloween day, we take our clocks back by one hour to end the “Daylight Savings Time”.  Halloween is an interesting concept.  Young people go around from house to house Trick or Treating and getting candies.  They come in costumes starting from a monster look- alike to a prince or princess.  Any imaginable character comes alive on Halloween day. 

The idea perhaps originated with the harvest season.  People grow pumpkins in the summer that ripen at the end of summer and during harvest time in fall, bountiful of pumpkins are visible everywhere in Nurseries, in Farms.  Hay rides and pumpkin patches catch the minds of the young and the parents go pumpkin picking with their children to large Farmlands.  Hay rides are added charm of Halloween.  It is a part of Americana that is gaining popularity over the years.  Earlier times, people used to put out a few pumpkins outside their houses just before Halloween.  Nowadays, there are decorative ghosts, monsters, tombstones that crowd the front yards of houses with a chill!  The celebration starts in the beginning of October.  Decorative and spooky lights, large helium filled structures of pumpkins and monsters stand tall in the front yard of rather extravagant houses.  There is no scarcity of creative ideas to make your dwelling look spooky.  It is the last day of October which is the 31^st day of the month when Halloween is celebrated.  But like Christmas, popularity of Halloween has gone up; you got the entire month of October to spook up outside and inside of your house.  There are public places where haunted houses get created; as you walk in, some ghastly creature will jump out from out- of nowhere to have a thrill, scream and chill.  Crawlers of every kind, flying bats, witches flying over the moon with broom sticks in hand are common themes at this time.  Spider webs, cob webs cover shrubs, climb walls of houses to make it look haunted. 

In the end it is all about the spirit of fun, laughter of young children, and their joy of being someone else with that costume on; someone they always have been afraid of; or admired or loved. It is a day of fun for children of all ages in America.  Billions of pounds of pumpkins are bashed every year on Halloween day to herald the harvest season as a custom. 

Swati Singh
17 Mitchell Ave, Piscataway
NJ. 08854, USA
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Spider-web Soup

Tomatoes – chopped coarsely

Onions – chopped

Butter

Salt-Pepper

Soya Sauce

Tomato Ketchup – little.

Corn flour

Sour cream

1 Tbs. milk

Plastic sandwich bag

Toothpick

Herb of your choice for decoration

Bread Sticks

First of all, we’d have to make the tomato soup. For that heat a pan, melt butter, fry onions. When the onions are nearly done, add the tomatoes and ketchup. Add salt and pepper. Cook well. Take it off heat, cool it to room temperature and then blend in a blender. Re-heat the pan, melt butter and add the mixture. Add Soya Sauce. Stir well. Let the whole soup boil. Add corn-flour to thicken it to the consistency you want. Turn off heat. Place soup into bowls. Make a mixture the sour cream and milk. Pour the mixture into a plastic sandwich or freezer bag. Cut a very small piece out of one of the corners of the bag, and starting from the side of the bowl, swirl the sour-cream mixture inward to the center of the bowl, creating a spiral. Using a toothpick and starting in the center of the bowl, move straight to the edge of the bowl, and repeat several times to create a spider-web design. Put the herb in the centre. Serve hot with bread sticks.

Baked Stuffed Pumpkin

1 pumpkin (8 to 10 lb.)

1 1/2 lbs. ground lamb/goat

Onion, chopped

Garlic, minced

Sugar

Salt

Pepper

Tomato puree

Regular rice, uncooked – 1 cup

Shredded cabbage – 3 cups

Seasonings for Meat – chilly powder, cumin-coriander powder, cinnamon-cardamom-clove powder. .

Rinse pumpkin, cut off top and scrape out and discard seeds. Cook ground meat slightly; drain off grease. Add onion and garlic, and sauté slightly. Add seasonings and tomato puree; heat. Mix with uncooked rice. Wash the shredded cabbage well. Layer one-third each of cabbage, rice and meat mixture in pumpkin placed in a large baking dish or pan with sides. Repeat layers. Replace pumpkin lid. Bake at 350°F for two-and-a-half to three hours or until done. Pumpkin is done when it is soft when pierced with a fork.

Dirt Pudding

Cream together and set aside:

¼ Cup margarine

8 oz. cream cheese

1 cup powdered sugar

Mix:½ cups milk

2 (6 oz.) pkgs. French vanilla pudding

12 oz. Cool Whip

Chocolate Cookies (Dark in colour)

Worm-shaped chewy fruit snacks

Beat milk and pudding 2 minutes with mixer. Fold in Cool Whip. Combine with cream cheese mixture. Crush cookies in blender or food processor, a few at a time until the consistency of dirt. Place ¼ of cookie mixture in serving cup, then 1/3 of pudding mixture. Keep layering this until you end with “dirt” on top. Refrigerate. Add the fruit snacks and refrigerate.

Soumyasree Chakraborty