Halloween

I am a person who remembers absolutely everything. I remember being sick when I was two years old and believed (one, hopes, due to fever and not psychopathology) that tiny men were marching out of my laundry hamper. I remember the first day of kindergarten, the exact words in the note from Eric saying he didn’t like me that way in fifth grade, the way the flap of skin looked after I jumped on a clam shell in Maine when I was ten, and the phone numbers of all my friends from high school.  I remember the way the air smelled in Boston on a day when it carried the ocean into the City, and the diesel smell of the streets in Europe. I remember slights and offenses and try hard to forget them. I remember generosities and kindnesses, and try to cherish them.  I remember to do the things I say I’m going to do, unless I’m under enormous stress. (That’s a whole different issue).

So remembering things about Halloweens past should be easy, right?  All of the pumpkins, and costumes, and cobweb-covered porches should transport me back, like Proust in Rememberance of Things Past:

And suddenly the memory revealed itself: The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I did not go out before mass), when I went to say good morning to her in her bedroom, my aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane.

No dice. I love Halloween; in general I prefer the autumn holidays because they don’t happen in summer (which I dislike) and I don’t have to buy gifts, decorate the house or forget to send cards again.

Despite my family of garlic haters, I love garlic. And I love lots of it in all forms. A very close older family friend eats it raw and rubbed on toast, then spread with butter or rendered duck fat. It's now his daily health ritual since he learned garlic has been shown to keep the heart healthy and keep cancer at bay. Maybe he knows a thing or two, because he's going to be 90 next year. Sometimes I even indulge in a slice of garlic toast too. Though I try to keep the practice at a minimum because I don't want to go around smelling. Even so, almost all my cooking and the recipes on this site start with sautéing garlic. Garlic is just one of those vegetables that many people use and it crosses many cultural boundaries. It's a base flavor in Mediterranean, Asian, and North African cuisine. I have always wanted to use garlic for something more than just a base, instead a main ingredient.

A few weeks ago I had the idea of making garlic soup. With the chilly weather here in the Northeast, I was craving a warming and comforting soup packed with flavor. But when thinking about garlic soup, 'comforting' might not be the exact word that comes to mind for everybody. Most people hate garlic for its pungent taste and odor, but boiling it really tames its pungency. The garlic becomes mellow but still keeps all the wonderful properties of its unique flavor. Another bonus of this preparation is that there is much less smell after eating compared to sautéed garlic. Garlic haters might actually change their minds after eating this soup.

It was pumpkin season in Hungary when I was visiting there in early October. On a ride through the countryside, bright orange pumpkins could be spotted in yards, laying in the warm sunshine, probably waiting to be carved into a jack-o-lantern. Signs at restaurants announced the celebration of pumpkin week. Restaurants in Hungary are very mindful of using local, seasonal ingredients on their menus.

A chalkboard sign outside of Anno Taverna Restaurant in Balatonszárszón, a little village on the south side of Lake Balaton in the Hungarian countryside, announced they were celebrating pumpkins that week. My two traveling partners and I pulled the car into the small parking lot and chose an outdoor table to enjoy the October sunshine while we had lunch.

In Philadelphia there is an apartment complex on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway called Park Towne Place. It is a cluster of four high rises – cleverly called East, West, North and South. I had three friends who lived there – Laura, Adam and Erik – and most years I spent Halloween night with them, riding the elevators in our costumes and tearing through the hallways, ringing every bell we could get our little hands on in an effort to collect maximum quantities of candy.

It was widely understood that trick-or-treating in an apartment building was the most efficient way to trick-or-treat, and for that reason Park Towne Place was the ne plus ultra because there were four apartment buildings arranged in one lucky clover shape – the prospect of that much candy simply boggled the nine-year-old mind. Our method was to exit the elevator, dash up and down the hallways ringing every bell, and then we’d wait a breathless moment to see who answered their door.