Okay, right…it is Day 16 and that post will come later. But here’s one for Day 15…and my excuse for not getting a post up. I was dogsitting Doc. Here she is from Halloween last year with a Cleveland Indians-carved pumpkin and her custom-made Indians jacket. So, she’s the post!

I have only one real Halloween recipe: Roasted Pumpkin Seeds. We used to carve four pumpkins — one for each kid — so we always had plenty of seeds.

When you scrape out the pumpkin “guts”, put it all in a big bowl. Clean off all the stringy pulp you can and then wash under running cold water in a colander. Soak the seeds in salty water for awhile. At least an hour.

Take one (or more depending on your amount of seeds) baking sheets and spray with Pam (or the equivalent). Drain the salty water off the seeds. Spread the seeds out in a single layer on the baking sheet(s).

Roast them in a 300 degree oven for about about 40-45 minutes till they are golden brown.

They are tasty just that way and low in fat, but if you want to get fancy, after roasting them for 30 minutes, toss them with olive oil, garlic, and paprika OR with grated Parmesan cheese and a little oregano. Cook them for another 20 minutes.

Boo! And now for some other scary sounds…

This is a promotional trailer for Halloween Horror – Scary Sounds and Music, an album of creepy sound effects.

And here are a couple of other places to find free downloadable Halloween sounds:

Partners In Rhyme: Free Scary Halloween Sounds/Royalty Free Horror Sound Effects

Free-loops: Halloween Sound Effects

Dayton Examiner Review:

Readers who enjoyed the hotly anticipated The Night Circus and want more may look to Mechanique for something similar. Some of the themes are the same, like a mysterious circus that has strange powers, but the overall tones are completely different. While there were some dark moments in The Night Circus, the overall feeling was that the magic was whimsical and was a beautiful thing. The magic in Mechanique is never fully explained and at times it seems to be a cruel thing to use, especially after seeing how it affects those who decide to “take the bones” and travel with the circus…the characters are fascinating and make the reader want to learn more about their mysterious pasts.

Since we announced our witch anthology we might as well give you a witchy treat: “The Witch” from Andrew Lang’s Yellow Fairy Book (1894) with illustrations by Henry Justice Ford. It’s a Russian tale.

I first read the Yellow Fairy Book a very long time ago, but I recall liking this story very much for two reasons. First, the witch’s cat is the hero and, second, the “magic” articles the cat gives the children to aid in their escape made sense to me for some reason: a handkerchief that turns into a broad river and a comb into a dense forest.

And since the cat is the story is gray, here’s my favorite gray cat (and latest addition to my family), Nala.