At Chocolate Notes, there are no polystyrene cobwebs on the glass front door, no hairy spiders climbing the walls, no plastic bats swinging from the ceiling and no pumpkins with macabre grimaces.  Unlike in many other shops and cafés, the faces of the staff at Chocolate Notes are not painted with scars or trickles of blood.  I comment on it. “Why would we want to look ugly or scary?” Fiamma replies.  “Haven’t we got enough ugliness and fear in the world as it is, at the moment?”

I am about to remark that, with her Titian-red hair coming down in curls over the shoulders of her forest-green dress, Fiamma reminds me of a witch, but I bite my tongue, just in case.  That is actually how I always imagined witches when I was a little girl: with deep red hair and a dark green dress.

On the other hand, there are strings of maple leaf fairy lights hanging on the counter and over the CD racks.  There is a bowl with red, gold and sienna autumn leaves and glossy conkers on every table in the café.  

I can’t place the music coming out of the loudspeakers.  I know it’s by Paganini, but… I decide to ask. “Paganini’s Le Streghe [The Witches’ Dance], opus 8,” she says.

I try  to stifle a giggle but it’s too late.  Fiamma sees the expression on my face, gives me a wink and we both grin.

Fiamma has a point.  If you think of it, why this glorification of fear and horror? Do we really need a boost of adrenaline in these times?

There is a nod to the day, however, with a Squash and Rice Bake on the lunch menu.  

✿

I recently read in The Guardian that trick-or-treating may have originated over a thousand years ago, when folks would go from house to house, offering to pray for the souls in Purgatory in exchange for a little something.  At least, they were willing to provide something in exchange for the food or donation.  There’s something slightly entitled about demanding sweets – or else the threat of a trick (though I did use to find it adorable, in London, when titches dressed as witches and ghouls rang my doorbell – apples and clementines were accepted with surprising enthusiasm!).  It’s true that children enjoy it, but what are we teaching them? That they can obtain something by threat? How would it be, if children knocked on doors and said, “A treat for a good spell?”

I know, I know, I’m being a spoilsport.  I’ll stop now.

Only, while dressing as beasties and vampires and carving eerie grins into pumpkins, spare a compassionate thought for the thousands of women – and some men, and innocent pets – tortured and executed throughout the centuries for so-called witchcraft.  Women who fell on the wrong side of Society perhaps because they were alone, unprotected by men, or because they used healing methods looked on with suspicion by conventional apothecaries and physicians, or because they were too ugly or too beautiful.  They may have lived their lives slightly differently to other women, stepped to a different music because they may have heard the beat of a different drum.  They might have brazenly cultivated and exploited their talents instead of retreating behind so-called respectability and shrinking in much-commended female modesty.  They might have simply been innocents, nature daughters who lacked the craft of social survival, or just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.  

Spare these women a thought today.  One of them may have been your ancestor.

SQUASH AND RICE BAKE

(all measurements are approximate, see https://scribedoll.com/2023/01/15/new-blog-feasts-fancies/)

For some years now, I have carved squashes instead of pumpkins.  Pumpkins, at least in the UK, I find watery and bland.  Squashes, on the other hand, have a lovely, sweet flavour.  If I am going to spend an hour scooping out the flesh and cutting out patterns, then I might as well enjoy the culinary result.

Feeds 3-4 people

Composition:

❧ 1 butternut or red squash

❧ 200 g white basmati rice

❧ 250 g grated Parmesan

❧ 2 small or 1 large onion

❧ 2-3 cloves garlic

❧ small handful of fresh sage leaves

❧ 2 tbsp pine nuts

❧ a pinch of cayenne pepper

❧ 250 ml single or oat cream

❧ salt

❧ pepper

❧ extra-virgin olive oil

❧ water

❧ a handful of toasted pumpkin seeds to garnish (optional)

Very carefully, taking care not to injure your fingers, cut the squash into thick slices, then peel and remove seeds and the stringy part (if you have time and inclination, the seeds can be washed and dried). Dice each slice. Pour the olive oil into a deep frying pan or wok, heat, add the chopped onions and garlic and fry until golden.

Add the diced squash and a little water to facilitate the stewing.  Cover and cook, stirring regularly, until the squash is very soft.  At some point while the squash is stewing, add the pine nuts, salt, pepper and chopped sage leaves. If you like, sprinkle a tiny pinch of cayenne pepper.

Boil the rice in salted water until almost – but not quite – soft.

Once the squash mixture is soft, pulp with a potato masher, add the cream, half the grated Parmesan, and the cooked rice, stirring thoroughly.

Spoon the mixture into a greased oven dish, sprinkle the remaining Parmesan on top and bake in a pre-heated oven at about 200 – 220ºC, until the cheese has formed an appetising brown crust.

Serve with, if you wish, a sprinkling of toasted pumpkin seeds.