On Halloween Past

For three years in a row, I was a black cat. With long whiskers and a little nose drawn on my face with eyeliner, a tight headband with felt ears, and a black turtleneck and leggings, I pranced around our neighborhood, meowing, hissing, and embracing my role with verve and vigor. Sure, I wasn’t the most creative at dressing up for Halloween, but it was a holiday I loved nonetheless.

I looked forward to scooping squishy handfuls of guts and seeds out of big orange pumpkins. On such occasions, Mama would cover the kitchen table in yesterday’s newspaper, preparing the work space of the family artist: Daddy. Daddy’s deft hand would then trace that year’s masterpiece onto the surface of the pumpkin. I loved to watch him, as he cut out each sliver and chunk, the spooky face of the gourd emerging before my very eyes.

After the carving was complete and as the sun was setting, we’d deliver, with much ceremony, the finished Jack O’Lantern to its rightful spot on the front porch. Mama would place a small tea-light in the bottom, light the wick, and Jack would come to life, glowing spookily in the early dusk of the October night.

These memories of early Halloweens are still treasured, and the same sort of excitement that gripped me as a child when the air would cool and pumpkins would start popping up on front porches still bubbles up every fall.

In a perfect recreation of that childhood ritual, Jeremy and I line the kitchen table with newspaper. The perfect pumpkin, which has been chosen with much consideration to carving surface, stem, and color, graces the table, as my mad scientist husband brews up a suitably unique theme. Last year was “Cannipumpkin,” in which a smaller pumpkin was affixed to the larger one as if it was being eaten. This year the theme seems to be leaning towards zombies; they’re trendy right now, and we want to be as timely as possible.

Cannipumpkin

My grown-up Halloween doesn't include the trick-or-treating of childhood days gone by, and to be honest, I sometimes miss the process of going door-to-door, smiling shyly, and receiving the fruits of my labor. I miss getting home from a hard day’s night and dumping that plastic pumpkin and all of its treasure into the living room floor. Organized child that I was, I would group my candy by type and color. The bounty of Snickers bars, Smarties, and Dum-dum pops would sustain my sweet tooth for days.

Nowadays, I have to purchase my own trick-or-treat candy for those potential ghosts and goblins that will grace my front porch on Halloween night. I wish I could attest to being one of the “good houses” with the best candy, but alas, the alarmingly high price of that “best candy” means we offer mostly off-brand fare. Nevertheless, we still get to enjoy the antics of trick-or-treaters, even though we’re a little bit too big to join them. I’m lucky enough to live in a big, friendly neighborhood with lots of families…which is an even bigger reason we have to go with the cheaper candy.

There’s just something really special about Halloween. It’s the only holiday that occurs during my favorite month. It’s at the perfect time of the year weather-wise. It’s got candy. And even more important, it’s got that special combination of mystery, spookiness, and family-time that makes for some wonderful memories.

Happy Halloween! May your trick-or-treat bag be filled with Snickers, Milk Duds, and Skittles and all the other great goodies of the "good houses."

 

Happy Hallothanksmas!

Time flies. Christmas will be here before you know it. It’s officially forty-six days until the big day, and we all know those forty-six days will fly by in a whirlwind of shopping, baking, and gift wrapping. We’ll all blink, and it’ll be Thanksgiving, and then, we’ll blink again, and it’ll be Christmas. The old cliché “as slow as Christmas” just doesn’t seem to apply anymore. Christmas is fast, folks, and with each passing year, it only seems to get faster. But where does the time go? It’s the great rhetorical question of the century and, apparently, one of life’s great mysteries.  

In an effort to not blink away this fleeting and rare time just before the holidays begin for real, I thought I would record some of my favorite parts of the moments in between candy binge and turkey binge, otherwise known as Halloween and Thanksgiving.  Without a doubt, this is one of my favorite times of the year.  The excitement for the holidays starts building early, and I find myself in a perpetual state of happiness for nearly the entire months of November and December. I’m pretty despicable.

Part of my happiness is due to the weather. In the South, the time in between Halloween and Thanksgiving is neither too hot nor too cold. As Goldilocks would say, it’s just right, just the right amount of fall breeziness mixed with just the right amount of beautiful golden leaves and vast and impossibly blue autumn sky. It’s the recipe for perfect weather: light-jacket weather, sweatshirt and jeans weather, football weather, homemade potato soup and chili weather. Don’t you just love it? You should probably stop reading this right now, throw on a light jacket, and go play in some leaves. You’re never too old to play in a pile of leaves, right?

Perfect weather aside, this time of year also brings us the underappreciated and often ignored in-between holiday of Veteran’s Day.  I really hate that holidays like Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day don’t get more attention than they do. They are, after all, honoring and memorializing the heroes and heroines of our country, but let’s face it; patriotism is not what it used to be. I only hope that as new generations grow up to lead our country that some of that lost patriotism is restored. To my brave father and my late PawPaw, I’m proud of all that you did to support our country and our freedoms, and at this time of year especially, I am reminded of the sacrifices you made, and others still make, for love of country, and I thank you.

Undoubtedly, there are a lot of things to love about this time of year: the weather, Veteran’s Day, oyster stew on Friday nights, soft blankets and cats to cuddle, dark and chilly nights with mugs of hot chocolate, and the first few glimpses of the joyful season to come. Speaking of that joyful season, my husband and I made our first Thanksgiving grocery store trip on Sunday. I stocked up on pumpkin and cinnamon and crescent rolls, gleefully planning my contributions to the family Thanksgiving meal. I can’t decide who is more excited: me about the cooking or Jeremy about the eating.

But as excited as we may be, we must remember not to wish away this precious time in between. Time already flies by, instead of wishing for Thanksgiving and Christmas to get here quickly, we should cherish the anticipation, the looking forward to family and friends and togetherness. Oh, and the food…we should never forget to look forward to the food. 

What do you love most about this time "in between"?

Author's Note: This was written in response to The Lightning and the Lightning Bug's "Time of the Season" prompt. You have until Wednesday to link up. Come visit us! 

Text-a-Scare: Doors

To: Rebecca

From: Unknown Number

Sent: 3:06am

Received: 3:07am

I’m right outside your door. Which door? I can’t tell you. For your sake, hope you don’t guess wrong. 

via

Author's Note: This week at Write on Edge we were assigned to "text a scare" in 160 characters or less. Hope you'll come check out the great scares this morning, just click the link below!

chicken noodle gravy

It's another hot afternoon in September. It should be Fall already, but it's really not...despite my best efforts to make it true. My Halloween decorations are out three weeks too early according to my husband, but I am so tired of the Southern heat I could scream. I've always prided myself on the fact that I am a Southerner through and through, but I'll be the first to admit that this summer has nearly done me in. Bring me Fall!

Along with the Halloween decorations, I've also pulled out my repertoire of Fall-ish/Winter recipes, hoping to conjure up some Autumn breezes and color-changing leaves. Because we're saving for a trip to Disney World in a few weeks, the first of these magical recipes also happens to be the cheapest. World, I introduce to you: Chicken Noodle Gravy.

Those three words make my heart sing! They bring back memories of my childhood, of my mama or daddy in the kitchen cooking that warm and hearty dish that's loved by millions the world through. Chicken Noodle Gravy? Okay, maybe it's not loved by millions. In fact, I seriously doubt that it's even loved by hundreds. But if you know what it is, chances are you love it.

Chicken Noodle Gravy is a relatively simple dish, but like a lot of things, it's beautiful in its simplicity. Okay, maybe I'm getting a little too deep there. After all, it is a gravy dish; how complex and symbolic can it be? Well, let me tell you: Chicken Noodle Gravy is a lot like me. It's simple, old-fashioned, and cheers you up when you're feeling low. It's the food version of me, and that's why I've named my blog after it, just in case you were wondering.

But seriously, Chicken Noodle Gravy is very simple to make. You'll just need a few ingredients, most of which you probably already have in your cabinets:

1 can of condensed chicken noodle soup (duh!)
1 cup (more or less) of milk
2 tablespoons of butter or margarine
1/4 cup to 1/3 cup of flour
salt and pepper to taste (careful with the salt though, the soup already has tons!)
4 to 5 slices of bread

You start Chicken Noodle Gravy as you would any other gravy, by making a rue. Put your 2 tablespoons of butter or margarine (make that butter, in the South butter's where it's at!) in a medium sized frying pan and over medium heat. Once it's boiling, add your flour. This is where it gets tricky. If you add too much flour, you'll have an excellent adhesive to use for various craft projects or household repairs. If you add too little, you're going to end up with runny gravy, and nobody likes runny gravy. On this note, my husband claims to like runny gravy, but this is probably due to the fact that I've made him runny gravy on numerous occasions. He probably thinks that I mean to, but I really don't. There's just a really fine balance in making gravy, and I'll admit I don't always hit it.

So when you have your perfect amount of flour, (I always try to add enough to absorb the liquid of the butter fully) stir and be sure to get all of your flour mixed well with the butter, then add your can of chicken noodle soup followed close by your cup of milk. The milk's usually a little tricky as well, again it's all about balance. Can you tell that I'm the type of cook who likes to color outside the lines? I rarely listen to a recipe myself, so it's kind of hard to write one without lots of qualifiers. If you're like me, you're going to tweak it a little yourself anyway, so just go with it. Make cooking an experience. There will be successes and failures, but that's what it's all about: fun, experimentation, and the stunning thrill you get when you get a dish just right.

Continue to heat over medium, stirring often. Gravy will thicken within a few minutes. Remove from heat, serve over toast, and enjoy this unique and cheap meal.

Maybe if a lot of us prepare it, we'll conjure up a little Fall weather.