#165 Halloween Wars and Ghoulish Ghost in the Marshes

I get up every morning excited about what I'm going to do today especially if it is Saturday morning!! This weekend I was at a Pumpkin Farm to pick a pumpkin to carve.  While you're out shopping for Halloween and coming up with ghoulish new dishes, you are bound to pay attention to the pumpkins that are on display everywhere. It is Fall after all, and you can find so many interesting things to do around this time with the arrival of Fall Produce and Starbucks starts serving up their Pumpkin Latte. That's when you really know Fall is here!!

If you are lucky you may run into ghoulish ghosts or grotesque goblins while you're gearing up to go trick or treating!! If you check into a bar looking for one of the 'Scary" drinks on the menu...a good cocktail never goes out of style just like the bar menu so you may find a special drink or maybe a special someone!! Sinfully good cocktails are not hard to find these days. But the only scary thing about Halloween-themed cocktails is that they taste frightful like the Jack-O-Tini which is a mix of sour-apple schnapps, cranberry juice and bourbon-sounds gross doesn't it?
Now, I am at the Farm scattered with all kinds of Pumpkins getting ready for some carving. I pick out a smooth medium pumpkin but none for cooking. Why? Because the jack-o-lantern pumpkin is not the best pick for eating and not every pumpkin will make a great soup or pie. I take the pumpkin home and draw the face on it. Then I carve the eyes, mouth and nose with my carving knife, scooping out the insides and seeds. Then place a little candle inside the hollow cavity and voila! Doesn't my Jack-O-Lantern look phenomenally cute and 'spooky' now?

I carved this smiley face !!

A few weeks ago my family went down to Harper's Ferry, West Virginia enjoying the sun soaking in the beauty and color of the fall leaves and the last bit of warm weather. A photo of the trees and steeple at Historic HF.

They say that late at night if you were to walk up Hog Alley-a short steep street in Harpers Ferry, you might see a tall black man dressed like a gentleman from the 1800s pacing up and down. If you get close enough, he slowly lifts his head and looks up with piercing blue eyes. When he lifts his head a little more, you will see blood dripping from a scar that goes from ear to ear......creepy right? But, what rings true is that a 6 foot Virginian slave named Dangerfield Newby (who was freed) joined abolitionist John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry in 1859 and ended up dead there. He was shot in the neck, his limbs were cut off and he was stabbed repeatedly and left to die behind the tavern. It is gruesome but true. There's no better time than Halloween season to hear a good ghost story. Funny what ghost tales can do to a person...because after hearing the story, a shiver goes up  my spine when I see little things like someone's shadow on a staircase or a little black cat crosses my path.

I was a bit Skeptical about what to make on Halloween after the paranormal heebie jeebies. Of course I know that all evil spirits are right now being driven away by the Pumpkins at our doorstep and we're safe:).

Anyhow, with all the magic and mystery of the trip, I had to create a simple, supernatural 'Ghost from the Marshes' dish out of a roti and leftover Spinach Saag which I am sharing with you today....
Booo ..........HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!