An impressive start and finish to an autumn dinner—roasted baby pumpkins filled with mushrooms and shallots, topped with Gruyere for the first course and sinful white chocolate with candied orange peel, roasted pecans and reduced maple syrup for dessert. Recipes below.

Our last Halloween party some years ago was the kind of party that makes us call the police now. Seventy-five or so people overflowing from our apartment into the hall and onto the fire escape out back. About two in the morning, I started turning the music down out of some drunken semblance of courtesy to our neighbors. I turned it down three or four times, in fact. But at 4:30, when the last guests left and I turned it off, it was still impossibly loud.

Still, we have fond if blurry memories of that party—and a soft spot for Halloween in general. Continue reading “A pair of grown-up Halloween treats: Roasted baby pumpkins, white chocolate with buttery pecans and candied orange peel” →