Halloween

As the trick or treaters approach my door with their parents in tow, I often wonder who exactly is wearing the costume...

BOO!

Candy corn—you either love or hate the candy. I used to despise candy corn as a kid. I'd always be disappointed If ever anyone gave me candy corn when I went trick or treating. What, no chocolate?

But as an adult I came to appreciate a nibble here and there of candy corn. Maybe it's the melt-in-your-mouth sweetness, but I think Halloween just wouldn't be the same without it—whether you like it or not. If you happen to have bagfuls of leftover Halloween candy, why not use it all up in these sweet treats?

Shortbread makes a perfect base for many cookies and none more so than these bar cookies. They're spread with melted white chocolate and then topped with colorful candy corn. Everyone will love the sugary sweetness—just make sure your family and friends don't eat too much because you don't want them turning into cookie monsters.

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I was a weird kid. I never ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. My mother never had to tell me to straighten my room. And I liked Halloween more for the decorations than the candy.

Except for Snickers. I loved Snickers.

Something about the mix of sweet chocolate, sticky caramel, dense peanut butter nougat, and crunchy peanuts made me swoon. I still remember the house at 101 Pinewood Drive in our neighborhood that gave out the king size Snickers bars to every kid who came by on Halloween.

Bam! That big bar would hit the bottom of your plastic pumpkin. Then you'd have to center it, otherwise your pumpkin would lilt for the rest of the night. After you hit that house, it didn't matter how many Dum Dums or Tootsie Rolls you got.

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.