When I think of Halloween, I think hot dogs. People tend to find this
association odd, some are even angered by it, but to me it feels
perfectly natural. When I was younger, my mother used to grill hot
dogs in our driveway for the trick or treaters and dole out beer in red
plastic cups to the adults, providing a bit of a respite for parents
whose kids were running around the neighborhood injected with copious
amounts of sugar.
I was never much of a walker and I never got off on
travelling in packs (why I live in New York I don't know), but
even more importantly, I loved and still adore a good hot dog.
Essentially, this ritual made my Halloween quite perfect.
The ritual ended, sadly, when I moved to New York to go to
college. There are very few driveways in Manhattan, and there is a bar
or a Gray's Papaya on every street corner, so if people need a beer or
a frank, they are basically set year round. Nobody shared my passion
for hot dogs at Halloween, unless they were terribly after drunk taking
too many orange jello shots at some themed downtown party, in which
case that little beef wonder became something of a valuable commodity,
a bonafide savior in fact.
My sister thinks I’m a great cook. She thinks my chocolate chip cookies
are perfect, my panini-grilled sandwiches are divine and my omelets,
the best she’s ever had. My sister also thinks Kraft Macaroni and
Cheese is a gourmet delicacy.
It was the day after Christmas, we’d had too much sugar and a fair share of post-modern stress so, it was probably a bad idea to try to go “sale” shopping. 
Americans in particular love a good chocolate chip cookie. That's in large part do to 
Is everyone familiar with panettone, a sweet, Italian bread loaf, full of candied orange peel and raisins? It comes in a very tall, lofty box we only see at holiday time.