"Day of the Dead" news and stories

• Your jack-o'-lantern's officially a has-been. Now what will you do with that pumpkin?
• El Dia de los Muertos is underway. One chef honors his late grandmother with this pork in chile-ajo.
• India's ghost pepper may be so named because one bite will haunt you for the rest of the evening.
• Call the kids into the kitchen -- cooking is good for them. Really.

Quiche Lorraine from Thomas Keller's cookbook. Photo: esposj, Flickr.

• The craft beer hype has brought stout beer into the mainstream -- but the public's perception of it as purely "stout" is inaccurate.
• Playwright humorist Paul Rudnick disproves parents everywhere in his new book, "I Shudder," by living 51 years subsisting mainly on candy -- and sveltely, at that. "What I love about Halloween is its childhood honesty," he says. "It's about what children want rather than what parents want them to want."
• A touching story on the "softening" of chef Thomas Keller preceding his last meal with his once-estranged father.
• Tater tots and Tecates have started to replace caviar and Chardonnay as foodie first dates take a more casual, adventurous note.
• Prompted by a resourceful reader in Beijing, a New York Times writer matches Italian wine with Chinese fare In a pairing fit to make Marco Polo proud.
• After ruinous delays for restaurateurs, the liquor license process has been streamlined by the new New York State Liquor Authority chairman, David Rosen.
• Restaurants: Flushing, Queens' Imperial Palace is "at the zenith of Cantonese cooking in New York City;" Green Apple BBQ in East Harlem proffers a Mexican influence on Southern cuisine; Brooklyn's Rocky Sullivan's in Red Hook tackles steamed lobster, successfully.
• Openings and closings; plus Dining Calendar -- highlights include Day of the Dead workshops, a pumpkin dinner and a meal in memory of Sheila Lukins of the Silver Palate.

• Gearing up for Day of the Dead -- home celebrations and Gardiner Museum's Harvest of Memories: Mexican Days of the Dead exhibition.
• Corey Mintz runs through the perks of Polish heaven -- Starsky.
• Recipes: Butternut Squash Soup, Tomato and Goat Cheese Strata, and Zombie with Tiki Snack Mix
  
• Wines: Cheap, red, and ripe for Halloween.
• Annabel Karmel went from the loss of a child and having a picky eater to helper of moms everywhere. She shares recipes for: oatmeal, chicken balls, buzzy bees, and chicken drumsticks.
• Finally, hearty sage -- an herb for the winter.

Have you ever sat on your sofa late at night, maybe watching Dancing with the Stars, and you think to yourself, "hmmm...I wonder if there's a way to make skulls out of sugar?" Well, yes there is! And this can show you how.

Last year we told you about Day of the Dead chocolate skulls, but these are even more frightening, with their blank, white skull faces looking through you from a pile of molded sugar. The site has a real nice step by step tutorial, with pics.

[via Boing Boing]