Zombie

Hallowe’en used to be kid stuff but these days it’s become an entire industry of food and costumes for both children and grownups, in a “season” that lasts for weeks and only culminates on Hallowe’en, which is this weekend in case you’ve been visiting outer space and had no clue.

I don’t know about anyone else but when my kids were young we took them trick-or-treating and somehow Hallowe’en was always the night when then weather broke and it was suddenly cold and often rainy so the costumes were hidden below heavy sweaters and raincoats and no one really saw the princess, ballerina, vampire or witch underneath. By the time we got home everyone was cold and shivering and needed something hot to drink. Hot chocolate the way my Dad used to make it (recipe elsewhere on www.ronniefein.com) or hot mulled cider (a recipe also on the site).

Occasionally something stronger would be needed after the kids were asleep. I’m sure things like this are no different today, so for those of you who are in need of a tasty libation to warm you up when Hallowe’en moves into the later hours, here’s a recipe for a Zombie, a fitting drink for the occasion.

Zombie

• 2 ounces dark rum
• 1 ounce light rum
• 1/2 ounce apricot brandy
• 1/4 cup orange juice
• 1/4 cup pineapple juice
• 2 tablespoons lime juice
• 1 teaspoon confectioner’ sugar
• ice

Place all the ingredients in a cocktail shaker or blender, shake until well blended and pour into a tall glass filled with ice cubes.

Makes one

The Farmer’s Cow Hot Mulled Cider

Hey locavores and anyone with a great family recipe — help promote local Connecticut agriculture!

The Farmer’s Cow, a group of 6 dairy farms in Connecticut that produce hormone-free milk and other dairy products (and great apple cider) is looking for your recipes. They’ll post their favorites on their website. Get them in by November 12th. Send recipes to recipes@thefarmerscow.com

For more info go to: www.TheFarmersCow.com.

In the meantime, if you’re going trick or treating for Hallowe’en and you need something warm to drink when you get back home (the weather always turns cold on Hallowe’en night doesn’t it?) try their mulled cider recipe:

The Farmer’s Cow Hot Mulled Cider

6 cups Farmer’s Cow apple cider

1/4 cup Connecticut maple syrup

2 cinnamon sticks

6 whole cloves

6 allspice berries

1 orange peel cut into strips

1 lemon peel cut into strips

Pour apple cider and maple syrup into a large saucepan. Place the cinnamon sticks, cloves, allspice berries, orange peel and lemon peel into a square of cheesecloth, tie the cheesecloth with kitchen string and place in the cider. Heat the cider over medium heat until it is hot but not boiling. Discard the spice bag and serve. Makes 6 servings

Pre-opening Tour of Stamford, Ct Fairway

Got a personal pre-opening tour of Stamford’s Fairway Market. Howie Glickberg (he’s the guy in the photo), grandson of the man who started the original store on Manhattan’s upper west side, showed me the enormous 85,000 square foot space — the largest of all the Fairways.

It’s not finished, but people were busy stacking shelves and checking equipment.

All I can say is — I’m impressed. I already have a shopping and lunch date with one of my friends, just to fill up on all our regular groceries plus great olive oil, hand-rolled bagels, fresh fish for dinner, gluten-free almost everything you can think of, an enormous selection of produce and all the Thanksgiving products you need, either regular or organic.

But then there’s the Cafe. A place to get lunch and sit in the glassed-in atrium and have some social time. My first thought about the Cafe was that it reminded me of the cocktail hour at a wedding or bar mitzvah. Honestly, there’s going to be a carving station with things like prime rib and kobe beef, salmon and pastrami,  a “wokery” and pasta station where you get to pick your personal stirfry ingredients or pasta additions and a chef will cook up your food right then and there, a salad station (of course), soup station, pizza (from a brick oven), sandwiches and paninis, and sushi. There will also be a chef cooking fresh burgers, hot dogs and Philly cheesesteaks (fries with that!). And the snack and dessert stations: smoothies, gelato. A barista bar with different coffees and pastries.

Can I spend the whole day? Hmmm. Forgot to ask about wireless internet service. Have to make a quick phone call…..

Agreed. Those costumes were lame, cheap and uncool. And they were worn at *least* twice.

Submitted by cookiequest

The new Fairway in Stamford, Ct

Fairway market is just about to open in Stamford. There’s been a lot of hoopla here in town because the store was built in a once-thriving section of the city, a part that has seen better days, and this will be the beginning of a huge revitalization not only for one neighborhood, but the entire city. So bravo, for the foresight and good luck to all those who are part of the Harbor Point Project!

I, for one, who shops in several of the other Fairway stores in New York, hope — and believe it will — be a big winner for everyone.

The shop is almost ready — the photo shows one part of the store that has a hand-drawn mural depicting Stamford streets (there are other painted murals throughout the place).

Some festivities are planned before the official opening on November 3rd. One is a Hallowe’en party at the Boys & Girls Club of Stamford (347 Stillwater Avenue, Stamford, CT.), on Friday October 29th at 6:00 p.m. Stamfordites — you’re invited. Actually, the event is open to the public, and only costs $10. There will be entertainment, crafts and games and lots of food donated by — of course — Fairway market. All proceeds go to benefit the Boys & Girls Club, which helps underprivileged kids in the area.

My Pathetic Hallowe'en Costumes

My daughters are still po’d at me because I was so inept at Hallowe’en costumes. Even though it’s many years later and they are both now working moms with kids.

I hate to sew. And I am awful at it. And when they were little kids Hallowe’en was not the huge zillion dollar 2-month celebration it is now. Unless you wanted to spend a fortune (I didn’t) the only costumes were the ones you could buy at the local drugstore. Lame, cheap and uncool. There were mothers then who made nice costumes for their kids.

I wasn’t one of them.

One year I took white pillowcases, cut out holes for eyes, nose and mouth, plopped them over my daughters’ heads and they went trick-or-treating as ghosts.

I have to say, to confess, it was lame, cheap and uncool. And if my daughters are reading this, I apologize. But even now I think, I’m just not good at costumes.

Nevertheless they are still po’d about it and it’s one of those things (every family has these) that comes up regularly as conversation.

They still believe I made them wear those costumes for YEARS but it was only one year.

Okay, maybe two. AT MOST.

There were always nice things to eat when they got back from getting their candy stash. Usually my father’s recipe for hot cocoa (recipe’s here at www.ronniefein.com) and caramel corn or some other kind of popcorn or cookies.

I do hope they remember that part.

Heavenly Hash Popcorn

2 quarts popped corn

1 cup miniature marshmallows

1/2 cup peanut, cashew or almond pieces

2 4-ounce plain chocolate bars (such as Ghirardelli 60% or 70% baking bars) or 8 ounces chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Spread the popped corn on a large baking sheet with rims (jelly roll pan). Scatter the marshmallows and nuts over the popped corn. Break up the chocolate bars and place the pieces over the popped corn. Bake for 5-6 minutes or until the chocolate has melted. Cool slightly, then toss ingredients. Makes 2-quarts+

Fairway in Stamford, CT

Wishes do come true. Several years ago I wished that Fairway market would come to Stamford, Connecticut where I live. I even emailed them, asking when they’d open here, suggesting that there would be enough of us in town to do justice to the store.

So, here they are, opening up in Stamford, Connecticut on November 3rd! The largest Fairway of all!

When I first read about the possibility that Fairway might open here I almost couldn’t believe my eyes. No, really, it wasn’t because of that email, I know.

I am not a witch ….

But I confess, I am addicted to the place. I usually go to the one in Manhattan on 133rd street, on my way home up the west side. But they also just opened one in Pelham Manor, and that’s only 30 minutes away, so that’s next best. And I occasionally find myself on Long Island to see my eye doctor, who just happens to have his office in Plainview, where there just happens to be an enormous Fairway, not to mention the one I go to in Brooklyn, when I visit my daughter.

Yeah, it’s a grocery store. So why do I find that exciting? Well, I am a food writer, so I look for good food and sometimes ingredients can get a bit boring, so it sort of lifts the boredom factor when you can shop in a place that doesn’t look like every other place and also has so many different high quality varieties and brands that you can’t help but be charmed by a can of beans or a bottle of olive oil. And also fresh fish and meat. And good bagels and some of the best fresh popped popcorn ever. I know that I can go to Fairway and get quail without even calling first to see if they have it.

But they also have plain hamburger and the usual groceries that most of us keep, like breakfast cereal and laundry detergent and soda. I can get kosher stuff. Good vanilla extract. Organic oats and quinoa. Even the milk varieties are interesting. Fairway is like a dozen specialty stores all rolled into one in a place large enough that you don’t have to go anywhere else to get what you need. And it’s not some prissy, too-pretty store either, that makes you feel either that you really don’t belong there or that you do and you’re among the elite.

It’s just a store, a really really good one. And I am lucky enough to get a sneak preview of the place, all 85,000 square feet filled with food and other stuff, next week.

So I’ll let you know what I find.

The Hallowe'en "Season"

Has anyone else noticed that Hallowe’en is no longer a “day” but a whole “season?” And it starts just after Labor Day and everywhere you go there are window displays complete with ghosts and witches, spiders, skeletons and pumpkins. You can buy any kind of costume, from princesses to vampires.

And the candy! TONS of it. In my local supermarkets the Hallowe’en candy takes up more space than boxed cereal. And that is saying something!

If people are actually buying all this stuff our economy must be in better shape than we think it is.

Hallowe’en was much simpler when I was a kid. I hate to sound like an old codger, but back in the day if we went out trick-or-treating it was during the afternoon and we went to just a few neighbors, who would give us some homemade cookies.

Imagine that.

Most of the time we had a family Hallowe’en “party” (that meant my brothers and me and sometimes my cousin Leslie) at home.

My Dad would put coins in apples, put the apples in a huge bowl filled with water and we would dunk our faces in and try to bite an apple (and get to keep the coin). Sometimes he would tie the coin-stuffed apples to a string and we would have to jump up to bite them.

It was fun. And always followed by roasted marshmallows and my father’s fabulous hot chocolate.

Those were good days and warm, terrific, safe and fun Hallowe’ens.

Here’s his recipe. He made it with whole milk, but use what you want.

My Dad’s Fabulous Hot Chocolate

• 2 cups milk

• 4 regular size marshmallows

• 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

• 2 tablespoons sugar

• pinch of salt

• 3 tablespoons very hot or boiling water

• 3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Heat the milk with 2 of the marshmallows over medium heat until near-boiling (the marshmallows should be melted or almost completely melted). While the milk is heating, mix the cocoa powder, sugar and salt together in a bowl. Pour in the hot water and stir ingredients to form a paste. When the milk is ready, add the cocoa paste and vanilla extract to the milk and stir to combine ingredients. Pour into 2 cups OR, for better results, whirl the mixture in a blender, then pour into 2 cups. Add one marshmallow to each cup.

Makes 2

What to eat when stressed

Dear Mom,  

I am sorry that you got a flat tire; that happened to me once with Z in the car and we … . Well, very long story short, we began on 94th and Park and ended up in the Lower East Side where a guy named Dominic whose “shop” was a folding chair on a random stretch of sidewalk, hooked me up with a new tire.  

And all the while Z had to pee.  

And I was pregnant.  

And late to see a client.  

Hm, and it was your car.

I had indian food that night, I happen to remember.  

I don’t think there is a solution for how to keep the right stress food (for me it would be like potato pierogies or steamed roast pork buns or bubble milk tea) in the car and not just eat it every day.  But I bet there’s an app for locating the closest vendor.

Mer

Thanks Mer! It was certainly frustrating. And I think your idea is right — get something comforting from a nearby restaurant. There is a fabulous Middle Eastern place down the block from that gas station (Waterfalls Cafe on Atlantic Street). I could have had mujadarah!

Next time. Oh no! I hope there is never a next time!!