I got the idea one year (many years ago) to cook my jack-o-lantern after Halloween. OMG! Not good.

• Watery as hell;
• Stringy;
• Didn’t taste like pumpkin (wait, what?!)

Then I was informed by a friend with more experience that there are pumpkins, and there are pumpkins (and there are “pumpkins,” but that’s another story). The ones we use for carving are bred to be hollow and dry out nicely; the ones we use for eating have flavor and smooth texture and don’t carve for crap.

So I went back to my youthful treatment of carved pumpkins, post Halloween — put a bunch of old candle stubs inside, let the wax melt all over the innards as the stubs burn, let the whole pumpkin turn into a glimpse of Hell with flames erupting from the eyes while the mouth blackens and shrivels. And it all smells like real pumpkin (albeit burning pumpkin — think of that pie that time you forgot to set the timer) until the top shrinks too much and plops into the burning mass. [I’m not actually allowed to do that any more, by the way. Something about making a mess on the porch. Spouses!]