Bena Mae’s Kitchen: Halloween

October, the month when ghosts and goblins and unworldly beings roam through the night. They don’t scare me. They bring back a time when my beliefs were spawned by tales told by older aunts, relatives, and neighbors who got them from their forebears who brought them over from the old world and passed them on. The stories were deeply ensconced in their culture and they held fast to what they had learned from their own childhood.
One myth that has held fast and is still being used today is the thought that those wishing for luck will often cross one finger over another, a gesture that’s said to date back to early Christianity. Anything associated with the shape of the Christian cross was thought to be good luck. The tradition gradually became something people could do on their own; these days, just saying “fingers crossed” is enough to get the message, well, across.
Another myth that shows the inanity of some of the old beliefs is the one that says that if you sew on Sunday, when you die, you will have to pick the stitches out with your nose.
So it is with a bit of doubt and a big maybe that these tales have stuck with me all these years, never fully taking them all with a grain of salt.
From early childhood, I recall my siblings and myself listening to this elderly neighbor regaling us with eerie tales of witchcraft, spells and hexes that had been handed down to her when she was a child. She was a wonderful story teller and as she talked, she put herself into the character in the story, making it even more real and scary.
We would sit in the swing while she talked, our shoulders hunched together and touching (for security), our eyes big as saucers as she went from one tale to another. We loved it! When she got to the punch line, we gasped in horror and huddled closer together. To my knowledge, we were never traumatized or became a Freddie Krueger as a result of having our wits scared out of us. That night, we would sleep with the covers pulled over our heads as thoughts of monsters hovered over our beds.
Since there was no television then, we weren’t privy to the cut and slash movies that are all over the TV screen today. I much prefer it that way. It was much more fun sitting in the swing with goosebumps all over us as our old story-teller regaled us with stories that might or might not have been true. Our imaginations did the rest.
Have a happy and scary and safe Halloween.

Garlic Bread

Mix 1/2 cup (1 stick) room-temperature unsalted butter, 2 tablespoons finely chopped flat-leaf parsley, 2 finely chopped garlic cloves, and 1 teaspoon kosher salt in a small bowl.
Cut 1 baguette into 1-inch slices, without cutting all the way through; spread both sides of each slice with butter mixture.
Cut baguette into 4 equal pieces.
Wrap each piece in foil.
DO AHEAD: Bread can be prepared 2 hours ahead. Let stand at room temperature. Preheat oven to 375°.
Bake bread on a baking sheet until butter is melted and bread is warm, 5–8 minutes.