Getting ready for the holidays
Credit: Aldi UK
It is autumn here in the northern hemisphere and we have gone from sunny, warm days to chilly autumnal ones (still a bit sunny) in a flash. Of course, when one starts thinking of fall, one also begins to think of (whisper it), Christmas. Yes, the holiday season is around the corner, with its cheese boards, and dense portions of fruitcakes, all the Christmas biscuits, and the chocolate selection box that will be grazed through over the season. Then regretted all January.
Before that, North America goes mad for pumpkin spice. Never was quite my thing – I left just before it all went a bit mad over there for pumpkin spice everything, but still, apple and cinnamon says autumn like nothing else. Interestingly, this craze has moved west in the past few years, with Starbucks introducing pumpkin spice lattes in places such as Vietnam. It’s all about novelty.
It was also interesting when my co-worker reported back that the local stores were chock-full of Halloween decorations here. It used to be that Bonfire Night on 5 November was big, but now the holiday has moved back several days and been taken over by Halloween.
I am not complaining. I’m not a fireworks person and would hide indoors when we used to have Bonfire Night parties. Not sure we should be celebrating the attempted destruction of the government centre (Parliament) and the subsequent executions of the people involved, with toffee apples and a bonfire, either. That’s just me.
At any rate, Halloween is fun enough. Ghouls and witches and enough sweets to fill a plastic pumpkin bucket. It is a useful marketing tool for supermarkets, with Aldi here in the UK offering a cobweb cheesecake recipe, as well as a way to make its Cuthbert caterpillar cake spookier. A toffee apple is also offered. I may try and conjure up the monster eyeball cupcakes or ice cream myself. I’d say, get ready and get baking, all.
- Suzanne Christiansen, editor, Dairy Industries International.
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