Halloween: Ghosts, mummies and mom

One recipe and a few memories

Hello! Hello!

When it came to Halloween, my mom was in it for the candy. My candy. Happily, it was easy to divvy up my haul. I’d get the M&Ms and the Heath Bars – she wasn’t much for chocolate. We’d fight over the boxes of Good & Plenty – we both loved black licorice. And she’d get the candy corn and the peanut-shaped marshmallows, neither of which I liked then or want to eat now. Trust me, I wasn’t a candy snob. I loved candy out of a bar, box or wrapper, but candy-corn? Nope. And those faux marshmallows? Double-nope. They were called Circus Peanuts; they were dappled on top to resemble peanut shells; they were orange, which had nothing to do with peanuts; and they were kind of hard, not at all like marshmallows should be. But my mom loved them and when she couldn’t get them from my Halloween basket, she’d buy big bags of them at the supermarket.