October pops into view!

It's almost October! Halloween season in earnest! This month, Peg Bracken's The I Hate to Cook Almanack (1976) emphasizes how different Halloween was 40+ years ago. Now, even people who love to cook don't think about making Halloween treats to hand out to trick-or-treaters. Parents pitch anything that's not individually wrapped and sealed in the factory, fearing that a poisoned homemade treat will turn the night into the stomach-turning scene from Trick 'r Treat (even though poisoned Halloween candy from random strangers has never been a thing).

I'd usually pity the cooking-haters condemned to make their own handouts for Halloween, but I don't know here....

Spending a late-October evening popping and candying a couple quarts of popcorn sounds like a lot more fun than grading a couple classes' worth of essays, which is what I'm sure to be doing. Maybe a little of that Halloween magic was enough to make Bracken's disciples sort-of enjoy cooking once in a while. (Or, more likely, they were handing out Bit-O-Honey, Bottle Caps, or Laffy Taffy while ignoring the almanac's advice!)

Well, all this talk of candy has made me ready to hunt down some Reese's peanut butter pumpkins. Have a sweet October!