A Foodie’s Five Observations on Halloween

Photo Credit: Dean & Deluca

Yesterday, as I raced through the Stop & Shop in Brookline searching for paper goods and cleaning supplies, I paused to gaze longingly at a display of bright orange baked goods. The cookies with Halloween smiley faces and cupcakes with bright orange frosting were no doubt made with vegetable shortening, not butter. Reminding myself that stuff looks a lot better than it tastes, I moved on, chosing not to degrade my palate by picking up one of the molded plastic containers.

Trust me, if something’s made with sugar, I’ve tried it. With Halloween still more than a month away, my five observations are largely, though not exclusively, related to sweets:

(1) Starbucks is a Mecca for Halloween goodies -- the Grande Pumpkin Spice Latte at 260 calories, the pumpkin bread at 330 calories per slice, the Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffin at 490 calories if you buy it in New York, and 370 calories elsewhere, and the thing I’ve been most trying to avoid -- the pumpkin scone at 480 calories. Be assured the baked goods are packed with enough butter and cream to make them temptingly good. Thus far I’ve been disciplined enough to settle for a Clover brewed Guatemala tall, and when discipline fails me, a Banana Strawberry Vivanno.

(2) I assume concerns about food coloring are leading to the demise of the bright red candy apples on sticks that were an autumnal staple of the tiny candy stores of my youth in Jackson Heights. It seemed to gall my mom that after chipping away at the hard candy coating, I had little interest in eating the apple. Aside from being something of a health nut, my mom is a child of the Great Depression, and can’t bear to see food being wasted.

(3) Kits for making apples on sticks dipped in caramel and nuts for the do-it-yourself crowd can still be found in produce departments. But the gourmet palate will settle for nothing less than the super-sized, toffee and nuts versions I’ve seen in years past in the Bloomingdales and Nordstrom’s on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile. This purchase, somewhere in the neighborhood of $15, can be rationalized as a relatively inexpensive way to get one’s garage parking validated. (Hat tip to my daughter-in-law Jane.)

(4) The aforementioned Jackson Heights of my youth – the ultimate urban neighborhood with nothing but tall apartment buildings and no security systems -- was a trick or treating paradise. Unaccompanied by adults, my brother and I scoured the terrain between 77th and 81st Streets, large shopping bags in hand. On one occasion, Mom’s friend, Julia La Scalzo, helped us get made up for the occasion, deciding that my gypsy costume needed a rhinestone embedded Maltese cross. (Julia always pulled her window shades down when opening her jewelry box amid concerns that nosy neighbors might get designs on her finery.)

(5) During all my years at the house in Chestnut Hill, I stocked up for Halloween at the Star Market, now going into year two of a renovation that has the place closed. Wouldn’t it be a hoot if the place had its grand re-opening in time for all those suburbanites to get the candy essential for greeting the children of one’s neighbors? I struggled over my selections, ultimately choosing bags of mini Kit Kat bars, Milky Ways, Three Musketeers, and Forever Yours. After placing the bars into our largest plastic mixing bowl, Dennis and I would sample the candy, while taking turns answering the door to hordes of little ones in costume – accompanied by parents reminding them to say thank you. I’ve never seen any trick or treating in our Brookline condo complex, and no longer have any excuse for buying Halloween candy.

May I suggest for my Halloween wish list?