In this Halloween nightmare, Anne Ehmer tells the story of her blighted Halloween party. Anne hoped to enjoy the company and also to show her cooking and entertaining abilities to advantage, but the party turns into a disaster, to the point of giving her a guilty conscience and a ghostly visit.

Halloween Nighmare

I woke up to ghoulish faces, raised hands, and pointing fingers. Ghosts surrounded me. Startled, I tried to reach for my husband, sleeping by my side. He was gone. I searched between the silent spirits until I located him, behind all the others… My heart started beating to an impossible pace. “OH NO!” I said to myself, while my alarm scaled out of control as my worst fears became true, “All have died of food poisoning and I have killed them!”

How could my perfect party have turned into such a nightmare?

I had been organizing for weeks. I had done very much the same thing the year before, out of the blue, and it had been an astounding success; so much, I decided to repeat theme. It would be something tried and trusted for me, therefore, easy to carry out. It would the genuine novel Halloween experience for my new acquaintances. My guest from the previous year had moved away; none would be coming back.

I felt at ease with the American ways and I wanted to share my “vast” experience with a bunch of my expatriate friends who did not seem so comfortable with the quirks of life in the East Coast. A Halloween party was the perfect occasion to have a good time together while showing my cooking skills to advantage and, as we don’t celebrate Halloween in Europe, I would not have many more chances to organize this kind of party.

I had invited a group of… well, some couples and their children, which attended the same school and were of similar ages as mine. I don’t want to get into stereotypes. Let’s say that there were cultural dissimilarities between my guests, the United States and me; none between my guests and husband. There is always some degree of cultural conflict between people from different nationalities. Whoever tells you otherwise is completely misguided and was never there.

Halloween was on a Sunday this time: perfect to have an early dinner and go trick or treating afterwards; trick or treating in a group is much more fun. The menu was to include delicacies such as “bats and bones mac’n’cheese,” “mummified dogs,” skulls and peas,” “red eyes” salad, and a seafood paella. I know paella is not very Halloweeny, but one of my guests was a vegetarian, of the kind who don’t eat meat consider milk, cheese and fish suitably edible. She wouldn’t find any of the other dishes acceptable and I had enough complication with the rest of the menu. I wanted something easy for me to cook. I usually prepare great paella, eyes closed. I planned serving drinks with names as suggestive as “blood for the vampire,” “werewolf smog,” or “floating eyes grog.”

I had to adapt my original idea and plan for an “open day” kind of celebration. Everyone was delighted when I mentioned the idea, well in advance, but when it came to the time of the RSVP, after sending my hand-made invitations, everyone had something else going on the day and no one could come at the same time. Some would come for lunch and dinner, some just for dinner and some more would arrive in between. Would I mind? No, I wouldn’t. I would lay a buffet-tapas style lunch. Ham, salami, but also cheese, corn chips, guacamole, fresh salsa, varied dips, and other finger appetizers appealing to everyone, vegetarians included. I would prepare much in advance and I would get some help on the day, so I could have some with my guests without leaving dinner unattended.

I had collected most of the superb recipes I would prepare from a variety of family oriented magazines with articles devoted to Halloween entertaining. I love cooking magazines. I subscribe to a couple of what you would call upscale ones, but I am fond of some of  the family and cooking magazines you typically find at the supermarket till, where I never failed to buy them. You can find great ideas and I do so love when they explain how to throw together a pack of this, a can of that, something frozen… microwave it for a few minutes, and get a tasty meal.

Most of the chosen dishes were very easy; a couple of the recipes were more elaborate in time or effort, nothing to worry about, though. Everything was under control, even the dessert, which I had decided not to bake myself. I would buy, instead, one of those gorgeous cakes decorated with tombs, skeletons, cats, witches, ghosts, and every spooky thing known to man. Last minute, I decided on one of my wonderful Autumn Compotes for those odd beings not fond of chocolate, unbelievable, but they exist and you never know if there is one between you twenty guests. We have a few favorite fruit combinations. This time I chose dried apricots and prunes flavored with a vanilla pod and brandy. A recipe that never fails to delight and it practically cooks itself. It required a spell of last minute speed shopping. I was able to spot my favorite brand of dried fruits though I was not in my usual grocery store.

Shopping for the occasion took eons, having set my mind on choosing tablecloth, napkins, plates, and even kitchen towels, with Halloween motives. I got flowers, vases, jars, and candleholders with big Boos painted; picked dried leaves, sticks, hay, for the dining room centerpiece; hand painted place card; and created a giant ghost to hang from the cathedral ceiling, accompanied by several little ones hanging from the walls, at the entrance. I spent ages setting up the decorations, except the hanging ghost. Best doing it last or it would be in everybody’s way.

I had been agonizing about party bags for the children. They would be trick or treating; that meant plenty of candy. I wanted to give them any Halloween memento, but sweets. Choosing the right little presents and preparing the bags, again hand crafted and covered in cats, witches, spider webs, bats or skeletons, had taken half my nights, but I was really pleased with the results.

The day before the party, I picked up all the fresh goods and pre-cooked food I had ordered in advance, cake included; a work of art, I must say. I had asked the fishmonger at the store, for instance, to cook the seafood, saving any juices. It was not the first time they did it. Things like these save time and stamina. I did not want to collapse right after everyone went home. I thought I was entitled to have fun at my own party. I spent part of that evening preparing everything that could be prepared in advance.  I wouldn’t need to spend Halloween in the kitchen, hardly talking to any of the guests. We missed on the large ghost. The ladder collapsed and we had to renounce, a slight setback.

I had never planned a party more carefully. Since my impromptu entertaining usually came out well, I felt confident that this very well planned event would be another success, even more so, despite of the incident with the ghost. I had timed every minute of the all day event, including a light lunch, time to socialize over coffee and drinks, an early dinner, followed by the trick or treat tour. Work and school called for an early start the next day leaving us without much time to hang out afterwards. Tea, coffee and cakes would be ready, just in case. I went to bed early. My husband was in charge of changing the house many clocks; the night to start winter hours coincided with the Halloween Eve.

The big day was finally here. We woke up to a flock of fallen little ghosts. The sticky plaster used to hold them had given up. If I had set them a couple of days later, it would have been fine. I was glad I had arranged extra help; it would be impossible to finish the preparations and tidy up the house at the same time. We cleaned and finish decorating. I finally set my assistant to wrap some hot dogs in pastry in a mummy shape, a time consuming operation. My sense of being in control would not last much longer.

The phone started ringing: one of my guests announced they would not be coming in the end; mixed dates picking someone at the airport, sorry. No problem; we would still have a good time and food leftovers. A second call, another guest in trouble, mixed hours this time. Drop child to another party. They would still be coming, but not for lunch, just on time for dinner. I always buy extra and we had the unexpected cancellation, we would make do. My plan was flexible enough to deal with some unexpected change.

Back to work. Every step was timed, remember? I kept checking any of the three kitchen clocks. The mummy dogs proved more laborious than anticipated, we had to prepare so many more than the previous year! The children knocked down one of my flower jars; soon mended.  I was fully task driven by then; my mind was in a robotic sort of start and stop state. Things were running behind schedule; but my guests were being late and I considered that small mercy. To save time, I decided to forgo changing into my Halloween costume; I just threw over a seasonal waistcoat. The pleasure of entertaining our first guests, when they finally arrived an hour late, compensated me for the array of bad luck incidents.

The elation I felt when I was able to sit down and enjoy their company while Adriana was in charge at the stove was short lived. Soon Adriana called me back to check the aspect and smell of the seafood for my paella: completely rotten. Imagine a clam chowder without clams, well, I was expected to produce seafood paella without seafood. I did my best to transform it into fish and vegetable paella, using some fish from my freezer. Not so tasty, but it as the best I could do given the circumstances. The delicious vanilla scent of the Autumn Compote announced it was cooking exactly as it should and the mummified dog batches coming out of the just right were comfort to my troubled self. The lunch buffet proved to be a good idea, as guests kept dropping by in batches. Actually, they were coming in so many batches, that I was about to run out of snack food.

Dinner had to be delayed by an hour, waiting for our lasts guests to arrive. When we finally sat down to eat, the effort to keep the food warm had made most of it dry, over cooked, almost an inedible meal. The children left most of their entombed pasta on the plates. Thanks to the mummy dogs, they had something to eat. The adults, forced by good manners, had to swallow some of their food. I was sure they would have a stomach ache later. The conversation stopped while everyone was munching dry ham cats and bats or black, almost burnt, mushroom skulls. No one said a word. Though I tried to behave as if nothing unusual happened, I was fervently wishing to dissolve into thin air that very minute. I could only think how nice it would be to vanish and appear somewhere else, preferably somewhere without an oven.

My husband’s face changed with every plate from mildly annoyed with the appetizer to plain disbelieving when the worst paella in the history of mankind was served. The sight of the chocolate cake was welcomed. Unhappily, it was not meant to sweeten my misery. As soon as I took the first bit of cake to my mouth –I now understand why custom dictates that the host is the first to start eating- I had to request with a strangled voice, “Please, don’t eat this.” It was beautiful, but moldy. At least those that chose the heavenly smelling Autumn Compote would be having a good experience.

Everyone went trick or treating, but me. While I was alone at home, I made a startling discovery. No one had arrived one hour late that day. All the times, I had been an hour early. My timing had been wrong because my husband had seen to all the clocks in the house but the three in the kitchen, and I was not aware of it. He had mentioned it at some point and I had not registered with my task driven brain. This was the last straw. I was so upset that I forgot about the party bags. Understandably, no one mention to stay for coffee and cakes, just in case.

I went to bed very early, praying that no one would get sick as a result of the adventure.  When I woke up to the sight of accusing ghosts, I knew that my wish had not been granted, everyone had perished of food poisoning. Still my utterly polite ghouls did not utter a condemning word about the bad food. It was a joke that I, the cause of everything, was the only one alive. This was a perfect occasion to faint, in shame, not in fright. A first, but faint on my bed I did.

When my dizzy head touched the pillow, I woke up for good. My husband was sleeping placidly by my side. It had been only a bad dream, a Halloween nightmare.

Relief flooded through my being. I got out of bed, a renewed spring in my step, and went down for breakfast. The clock at the stairs said it was still October thirty first.

Dared I hope I had dreamed the whole thing and it was still Halloween day?

Half sleep but feeling better by the second, I decided some of the Autumn Compote would be a nice start to the day. The pitted dried apricots and pitted prunes stewed in vanilla syrup had a heavenly aroma, sure to vanish any ghost… Wait a minute! Autumn Compote? Hadn’t I cooked that on Halloween?

“Honey,” my husband’s voice came from the bedroom as he was getting up. “I think the kids did something yesterday to that clock out there.” The terrifying idea started to sink in as I put the spoon in my mouth, ready to take pleasure in the compote’s taste, and bit in… almost to leave my teeth behind. Neither the apricots nor the prunes were pitted. Being on a hurry and not in my habitual grocery store, I had picked my usual brand, just not just my usual pitted kind. Not even my perfect dish was spared. The ghosts were just a dream; the rest of the story was a real Halloween nightmare.

Word from the author

When this story was published the first time I didn't get into every detail to make it more fluent to the readers. Many wrote to say they found it very funny and expresed their curiosity about what had been left out. that's why I have writen a more complete version. I will also add that, to my greater dismay, a few days after my blighted Halloween party, light was made, as why I had such a hard time coordinating my guests, when I found a bunch of dirty letters in my mailbox. None of my hand made formal invitations had been delivered. Apparently the stamp was on the wrong side of the envelope and the size was slightly out of the standard. Having not received confirmation of day, time and place, many were not sure -or thought the dinner party was not happening- and made other plans.

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