Cover image from my forthcoming Edgar Allan Poe cocktail book. I’m not making this up.
Well, here we are–on the cusp of another October with its promise of spooky decorations, pumpkin beer, and, ultimately, All Hallow’s Eve. And you know what that means: it’s the month that I turn over this blog to 31 days of Halloween-related content. In past years we’ve had reviews of Halloween snacks, Halloween candy, Frankenstein movies, my own serialized horror story, and other thematic content.
This is truly a magical season, as the weather (at least in my neck of the woods) changes from hot and dry to cool and misty. The days shorten, the sun hangs lower on the horizon, and wood smoke fills the air. The hub, not to mention the bub, of the so-called Winter Holidays is (barely) held in abeyance while we make this transition into fall. It’s my favorite time of year. And that’s why this blog celebrates the season through the whole month of October.
So, what’s on tap for this year’s October blog? I’m glad you asked. Beginning tomorrow, we’re going to present 31 Edgar Allan Poe tales, each paired with a bespoke cocktail related to the story. In each post I’ll give you a short excerpt from Poe’s original tale, a synopsis of the plot, a recipe for making the cocktail, and a “Poe-script” with some related trivia. I’ll even provide a link to the full text, just in case you’re such a Rube that you don’t already own a compendium of Poe’s works. This way, you can read the tale while sipping on your specialty cocktail.
Try one when you’re weak and weary…
One word of warning: I am not a trained mixologist. In fact, I’m pretty much groping in the dark with these recipes. All I can say is that I’ve created, tested, and refined each one until it is deemed drinkable…by me. (By way of full disclosure I should admit that most if not all of these drinks have earned a thumbs down by my wife. But she likes neither whiskey nor gin, so clearly her credibility in these matters is lacking.)
Try it–you’ll like it!
So, starting tomorrow, I invite you to spend the month enjoying my curated list of 31 Poe stories along with their associated, custom cocktails. As always, I welcome your thoughts, reactions, and hangover nostrums. If you’re not already subscribed to this blog, you can sign up below. And if you are already subscribed, spread the word! Make all your friends’ October Poe-tastic!
Ah, it’s that magical time of the year again. And I refer, of course, to the brief period near the end of summer when manufacturers of all manner of cookies, candies, breakfast cereals, and even, it seems, catfood will temporarily re-configure their products with some kind of nod to Halloween. The most notable and delicious example of this is the annual reappearance of Halloween Oreos.
Attentive readers will recall my earlier review of Halloween Oreos, in which I asserted Halloween Oreos are the most delicious Oreos of all. Now, I know there are some naysayers out there who disagree, claiming that there is no difference between the taste of regular Oreos and the Halloween version. But what do you have to back up that heresy? I mean, other than some vague comment about “same great taste” on the packaging?
2025 edition is now available!
…and the packaging glows in the dark!
Now, I’m willing to admit that the only difference, ingredients-wise, in the Halloween Oreo is the addition of a little orange food coloring, which is essentially flavorless. But that’s totally missing the point. There is so much more to taste than mere flavor. The spooky Halloween shapes, the Halloween-themed packaging, and most of all the pumpkin-orange filling all contribute to the full taste experience (what people in the business call “FTE”).
OK, I totally made up that part about the term “FTE.” But there is sound science backing up how appearance affects perceived taste. In 2001 a French neurophysiologist by the name of Frédéric Brochet added flavorless red food coloring to white wine, which had an enormous effect upon how professional wine tasters perceived the wine. Similarly, a 2007 experiment presented school kids with identical food, some of which was wrapped in McDonald’s packaging and some that was in generic packaging. The kids preferred the taste of the food in the branded packaging. And then, in 2015, Italian researchers found that the perceived sweetness of a dessert was affected by the color of the plate on which it was served. I’m not making any of this up.
So, yes, our enjoyment of a food depends in part upon its appearance. Ergo, Halloween Oreos can taste better than regular ones! QED.
NEWS BULLETIN: Loyal reader and favorite daughter-in-law Katelyn informs me that this year Nabisco is also releasing a second, alternate version of their Halloween Oreos, with both orange and green creme in the middle. Heart be still! I have been methodically combing the grocery aisles in the greater Placerville area to find a package, but so far have come up empty-handed. Please report any sightings to this blog.
Wanted: Dead or Alive
Anyway, I say all this by way of introduction to Krispy Kreme’s new Harry Potter donuts. I’m not sure if these are meant as Halloween offerings, or perhaps just a back-to-school promotion, but either way I find them captivating and intriguing. And I say this as someone who has never read a Harry Potter book or watched a Harry Potter movie. Seriously.
In fact, the only reason I know about this is because loyal reader Sara S alerted me, noting that they seemed right up my alley. Right you are, Sara!
They look good enough to eat!
So, I really have no choice but to get me some. The nearest Krispy Kreme is about an hour away, but this is the kind of sacrifice that I regularly make for my loyal readers. And thus it was that this weekend I found myself standing in line for some of these “House of Hogwarts”™ donuts.
Sadly, they were out of the Gryffindor donut (whatever that is), but I was able to nab one each of the Slytherin, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw donuts (whatever those are). Now, from a quick Google search (which may or may not be correct), it seems that the four “houses” are essentially dorms where the students at the Hogwarts school are housed. Each “house” supposedly is characterized by specific personality traits. Oh, and the job of assigning new arrivals to the houses is done by a “sorting hat.” And Krispy Kreme even has a special “sorting hat” donut, which will reveal your house by the color of the creme inside. Alas, my (semi-) local Krispy Kreme was out of the sorting hat donut as well. So I ended up with these three donuts:
Now, to return to our central thesis: I find these donuts to be highly tantalizing. They are bright and colorful, have a variety of textures, and those little crests on them are well-executed and unusual. It makes me wish I knew what the hell it all meant! But at the very least, I find these donuts to be playful and attractive and therefore worth trying.
I started with the Hufflepuff donut. It’s a heavily-iced donut with a custard center:
Now the advertising copy says that the filling is “brown butter toffee flavored custard,” which sounds delicious. But when I tried it, it tasted like the basic custard filling of the Boston creme donuts you find at the local AM-PM. Now, the Hufflepuff donut is also sprinkled with “cookie crumbles,” but this “feature” seemed more like the unintentional crumbs from poor storage practices. Meanwhile, the crest, which admittedly looks really cool, is NOT a white chocolate wafer (as I had hoped), but rather seems to be have been fashioned from a dried-out Gummy Bear that had been pounded flat with Harry Potter’s wand. Overall, this donut tasted OK but it was nothing special. Moving on.
The “Ravenclaw,” according to Krispy Kreme, is “gracefully dipped in a vibrant blueberry flavored icing that offers a burst of fruity flavor.” The copy-writers seem to have understood that “blueberry-iced donut” doesn’t really justify a cost of $3.59. So they decided to say it’s “gracefully dipped.” What does that even mean? And how does it affect either the flavor or the appearance? What we have here, folks, is a blueberry-iced donut. And it’s available at your local grocery store for 99 cents.
At this point, having consumed literally 600 calories (according to the “nutrition information” on the menu), I was heading into a food coma–so I let my brother Dave eat the Slytherin. He responded with a shrug.
So, what have we learned?
Appearance can definitely enhance the taste of a Halloween treat, such as Halloween Oreos.
But there’s a limit to how much appearance can compensate for a mediocre recipe.
Perhaps understanding the references to Harry Potter lore and storylines would have salvaged the House of Hogwarts donuts. In other words, maybe the visuals can’t fully do their thing if I don’t know what I’m looking at.
Anyway, there is this new treat to look forward to this year, and this time I get the reference!
Even though Halloween has passed, I’ve got a few more ghosts to share. First, remember my picture of that rambling house in Placerville that was done up for Halloween?
Well, I passed it the other night and it looks wonderfully spooky.
Amazing how a few colored lights can spookify a house.
Second, remember that I had attended Poe Fest in Baltimore last month? Well, loyal reader Peter D found this (dubious) evidence of Poe’s presence among us in Berkeley, CA:
One wonders how wise it would be to entrust your “brow and skin” to someone named Poe.
But what I really want to focus on is a ghost from my own past: my grandfather Henry Boilard (i.e., my dad’s dad). I never met the man. What’s more, neither did my dad. Grandpa Henry shipped out in the merchant marine just days after dad was conceived, and Grandma Ruth never saw him again. His name was never spoken around our house, as dad could never forgive his father for abandoning the family.
That’s pretty much all I knew about Grandpa Henry until a dozen years ago. That’s when I was contacted out of the blue by someone in Vermont named Bonnie. Bonnie had come into possession of a letter that my grandmother had sent to Bonnie’s grandfather in the 1980s. Bonnie’s grandfather was none other than Henry Boilard.
By sending her letter Grandma Ruth was trying to track down the man who had once been her husband and who was the father of her son. What she did not know was that Henry had died years earlier, and the letter she sent was received by Henry’s widow, Margaret. And Bonnie, who is Margaret’s granddaughter, found that letter and contacted me. Perhaps a family tree is in order:
So far as I know, no one among the west coast Boilards knew that Henry founded a second family on the east coast.
So, Bonnie and I are cousins. Her mom, Mary, is my aunt (and my dad’s half-sister). Bonnie knew Grandpa Henry until he died in 1967. She has shared stories and even some mementos with me.
At almost the exact same time that Bonnie contacted me, I came across a dusty old stack of typewritten pages that turned out to be my grandmother’s unpublished memoir. In it she describes the early years of her life in great detail, including her courtship and brief marriage to Henry. I edited that manuscript and had it published. If you’re interested, more information is here.
Just a month or two ago, however, Grandpa Henry came back into the picture. For the second time in a decade I’ve been contacted from out of the blue by someone who discovered a letter. This time my correspondent was a man named Jason, who came across some hundred-year-old letters in the attic of his childhood home in Champlain, NY. The home had once been owned by a family named LaFountaine, and somehow they left behind a sheaf of love letters that had been sent to the teenage daughter, Angela. Can you guess the letters’ author?
Henry Boilard
Grandpa’s Ghosts
Once Jason had discovered the letters in the attic he was kind enough to try to track down Angela’s descendants. In this effort he was unsuccessful, so he refocused his effort on the descendants of the letter’s writer. And that’s how I came into possession of a stack of brittle, yellowed, termite-chewed letters that Grandpa Henry had written to Angela LaFountain almost exactly a century ago.
Grandpa Henry at time of enlistment in the US Navy, when he was only 16 years old. (He lied about his age.)
It is taking me some time to carefully open each letter, digitally scan it, and transcribe it for posterity. Let me share, without further comment for now, a letter from November 1925–written within a few months of his enlistment photo, above. Transcriptions of all 17 letters are posted on the “Grandpa’s Letters” section of my website.
Champlain, N.Y.
Nov. 16, 1925
Dear Sweetheart
This is the first chance I have to answer your lovely letter, which I just received and I was very glad to get it too. You speak of troubles but what troubles do you mean? I don’t remember any. If I knew you folks wouldn’t have kicked me out I would have went after you last Saturday to go to Malene. I went with Uncle Leon and Trefflie to the auction on car’s [sic]. You asked me to tell you if I cared for you “Dear” you know well I care more for you than you do for me Sweetheart.
Well are you going to that card party tonight if you do look for me around there. I wish I could see you more often “Dear.” But you want to come up to my place some day it’s very lonesome here alone.
Sweetheart if you show this letter to anybody as you did the last time I’ll never [write] again. Leslie told me you showed it to him that very night so be careful this time or you won’t receive another, Darling.
Well I’ll have to close as this is getting late now.
Way back near the beginning of the month, when I was reviewing treats from coffee chains, I was salivating over Starbucks’ Mummy Cookie. Check it out:
(Official Starbucks PR photo.)
Now, I am a huge fan of Starbucks’ frosted cookies. In fact, their’ snowman cookie (available each December) is a treat for the gods. This mummy looks like it could give the snowman a run for its money, and all the online hype suggested it might even be better. The cookie is made of shortbread, and the frosting is white chocolate. The design is absolutely adorable, with that minimalist round shape and two googly-eyes. I figured I’d keep this treat in reserve for my final post, assuming it would be the hands-down winner, unless something better came along.
So today–October 31–I strode into my local Starbucks so I could finally test-drive the mummy cookie. Imagine my horror when I saw this in the bakery case:
Kind of notable that they have a pre-printed sign to that effect.
Foiled again! I immediately searched the Starbucks app for a store that had the mummy cookie. This is what I encountered over and over again:
Actual screen shot.
Eventually I had to accept the reality that I’d missed the Mummy Cookie Window for 2024. Nevertheless, I still needed to do my final blog entry and I still had a hankering for a frosted cookie. So I headed to the closest bakery:
I explained to the delightful, costumed young lady at Caffe Santoro in Diamond Springs that I was looking for a good Halloween cookie. She looked remorseful, as though I had asked her for unavailable medicine for my ailing child. “I’m so-o-o sorry! We’d made a bunch of ghosts and pumpkins and bats, but they’re all sold out. All we have are these dinosaurs.”
Dinosaurs?
After a few other false leads I finally ended up at Love Birds Coffee and Tea Company.
I breathlessly asked the barista if they had any Halloween cookies. “We have pumpkins! Do you want orange or white?” Naturally and unimaginatively I selected the orange pumpkin. This looked promising.
Finally!
Conceptual Soundness: Love Birds has a pretty solid cookie concept here. They took a standard round cookie, and decorated it with thick frosting to create a plump, orange pumpkin. What sets this concept apart from other pumpkin cookies is the attention to detail, which we’ll discuss under “appearance” below. That, and they are willing to actually have cookies available on Halloween. That’s worth 3.5 points!
Appearance: I have to say, this is one of the best-looking pumpkin cookies I’ve seen. The frosting is so thick that they’re able to achieve a 3-D effect. Just look at those carved vertical lines defining several distinct lobes! They’ve also used three different colors, creating curly green vines and a brown stem, in addition to the pastel-orange pumpkin itself. It’s appealing and colorful and fun. It’s definitely worth 4 points.
Taste: Having spent the previous hour unsuccessfully searching for a Halloween treat, I was eager to sink my teeth into this attractive treat. I was hoping to capture some of the delight I’d associated with Starbucks’ elusive mummy cookie. But even before this pumpkin cookie hit my tongue I could tell something was wrong. Something–either the frosting or maybe the cookie itself–was emitting an odd smell that reminded me of industrial bathroom disinfectant. Then, as I began to chew the cookie, I noticed that it was under-baked. It was simultaneously too chewy and rather oily. The frosting, too, had an odd texture that was thin almost to the point of being runny. Now, to be fair, I’d had my heart set on a shortbread cookie, which is crisp and crumbly and buttery. But even after adjusting my expectations, it was clear that this cookie was limp and oily and Lysol-y. I will give it 1 point, because the flavor (versus the smell and the texture) wasn’t bad.
Limp biscuit.
Value: This cookie cost $4. It’s a good-size cookie, from an independent baker, so I guess that’s the going rate. The mummy cookie is $3.75, and it’s definitely smaller. So I’ll give this 2.5 points.
Total Treat Score: 11 points/16 points
If you’ve actually eaten a mummy cookie, please send me your review in the comments below
MAIL BAG
Several faithful readers suggested I mark this week’s passing of Teri Garr (1944-2024), who co-starred in Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein. I’ve noted several times in this blog that Young Frankenstein is one of my favorite movies, and it’s ideal for a night like this. And watching it would be a great way to honor the memory of Teri Garr. Thank you, Teri, for all the entertainment you gave us through television and movies.
“Put the candle back!”
You can see the joke coming from a mile away, but it still cracks me up.
And so we come to the end of another October. I want to thank all my loyal readers, and especially those who shared their comments and recommendations, for joining me this month. It’s been a fun, albeit a very fattening, experience.
I’m already planning the 31 blog entries for October 2025. I can’t release details yet, but I think you’re going to find it to be both spooky and entertaining.
Meanwhile, I’m turning the blog back over to road trips, and we’ll have a couple of good ones in the next few months. Stay tuned, and have a Happy Halloween!
Today we’re talking about JFK’s widow, who remarried and became Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, or “Jackie O” for short. There was some controversy surrounding her second marriage, which…. Oh, wait. Sorry; I misread my notes. We’re not actually talking about Jackie O today; rather, we’re talking about the Jack-O pizza from Papa Murphy’s.
As you probably know, Papa Murphy’s makes “take ‘n’ bake” [a needless contraction of take and bake] pizzas that you, well, take home ‘n’ bake. During the Halloween season they offer a specialty “Jack-O” pizza (sometimes called the Jack O’Lantern pizza), which is a pepperoni pizza that supposedly resembles a jack o’lantern. They’ve been doing this since at least 2011, as evidenced by this 2012 commercial that says it’s “back.”
Given that the Missus is away at a horse show and I’m forced to fend for myself, I say we check out this pizza!
Conceptual Soundness: It’s a pretty simple concept: Let’s shape our pizza like a jack o’lantern. The silhouette is pretty easy to achieve just by adding a stem to the top of the pizza. And then you arrange the pepperoni slices into eyes, nose, and mouth. It’s not overly imaginative, but it definitely evokes the Halloween spirit. I’ll give it 3 points.
Jack-O before baking.
Appearance: You’d definitely recognize it as a jack o’lantern. The eyes and nose would have probably been better presented if they’d cut the pepperonis into triangles. But the addition of olives for corneas (or maybe irises?) was a nice touch. Overall, it’s a fun, friendly, iconic look that earns 3.5 points.
Fresh from the oven.
Taste: Let me say from the outset that I love pizza. I think it’s one of nature’s most perfect foods. And pepperoni pizza is probably the best kind of pizza, so I was fully expecting to love this Jack-O.
Years ago I tried to imprint my love of pizza onto my toddler son. He had a play kitchen with plastic cookware and a toy oven and fake salt and pepper shakers and everything else you need to make a pretend dinner. I got him a little plastic Pizza Hut pepperoni pizza that comprised six hearty slices in a plastic deep dish. Over and over he would “bake” that pizza for me and I’d pretend to eat it.
That’s what this Jack-O tastes like.
The problem is with the crust. It’s way too bready for a traditional-crust pizza. In fact, it comes across as stretchy and gummy. Plus it lacks the cornmeal dusting, the brushed-on olive oil, and the yeasty goodness you want in a good pizza crust. I realize that might be expecting too much from a take ‘n’ bake pizza, but my complaints don’t end there.
A good pepperoni pizza is a balanced interplay between a light, not-quite-crispy crust, a rich base of tangy tomato sauce, and an even layer of melted cheese, topped with a generous airdrop of pepperoni. This pizza, by contrast, has been barely moistened with some weak tomato sauce. The cheese isn’t bad, but–and here’s the fatal flaw–the arrangement of the pepperoni results in many pepperoni-less bites of pizza. The placement of the meat is limited to the perimeter, with a few stray pieces to form the eyes, nose, and mouth. One way they could have gotten around this would have been to cover the whole pizza with pepperoni (as one does), and then hide all that pepperoni with cheese, and then make the face.
As much as it pains me, the poor crust and weak toppings force me to award only 1 point for taste.
Value: This “large” pizza (half of which I consumed for lunch) costs 10 bucks. That’s not too bad, even for a pizza you have to cook yourself. I note that the same pizza was $8 in 2012. Adjusted for inflation, that would be $11 today. So I guess the value is pretty good. I’ll give it 3 points.
Total Treat Score: 10.5 points/16 points.
There’s only 2 days left! Let’s hope for a home run soon!
Chasing Phantoms 