 by Ellen Lewis
It was that time of year. I snuggled up on my sofa with my fuzzy blanket, seasonal coffee, and warmed up pumpkin muffin. I opened a brand new horror novel, and suddenly...it was all wrong! Sure, I was eating fall foods and reading a spooky story, but I wasn’t in the right mood. It took me a minute to realize that the pumpkin muffin was making me feel warm and cozy, not ready to read about blood and monsters. As you sit down to read your favorite type of book, are you indulging in the correct food or drink—the one that will set the mood for your reading and not pull you out of it? Consider giving these suggestions a try to bring your reading experience to the next level. Embrace different genres by using food and drink to transport you to another world. Horror So where did I go wrong in my own example, with the seasonal muffin? After all, pumpkin is a typical fall food, and horror, though enjoyable year round, does have that spooky quality you often find around Halloween. It all fit. And therein lay the mistake. It fit. Good horror is not just about monsters or creaky staircases. Good horror makes you uncomfortable. It takes the mundane and expected and makes you unable to anticipate its next move because nothing acts as it should. So, how would one enhance their horror story with an appropriate snack? Go for the jarring and unexpected choice! Does your horror story take place in the fall? Eat an Easter Peep! How about a refreshing glass of lemonade? Awaken your senses to something being off. Maybe your horror story isn’t necessarily seasonal. Eat what seems strange for your environment. If it’s summertime, turn up the air and drink some hot cocoa. Drink a glass of champagne on a random September day. It’s good food, but enabling good horror.
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 Image provided by kylewagaman License CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Source Flickr by Elizabeth Mosolovich
Halloween is a time for tricks and treats, when children--and some adults--run about in costume going door to door and asking for candy. Stories of monsters, ghosts, and witches become easier to believe as people decorate their houses with jack-o-lanterns, cobwebs, and gravestones. There are plenty of ways to get into the spirit of this holiday, including watching movies like Friday the 13th, or the more kid-friendly It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, as well as reading books like the old classic such as The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving or a new favorite like Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz. But Halloween is not for everybody. Though the holiday has become rather secularized, its origins are a mixture of pagan harvest festivals and the Roman Catholic feast days All Saints’ and Souls’ Days; therefore some Orthodox Jews and Muslims do not celebrate the holiday. Other Christian groups also refrain from partaking in Halloween festivities, as they dismiss the day because of its partially pagan beginnings and fear that celebrating Halloween equals celebrating witchcraft or Satanism. And those attitudes are fine--everyone is entitled to their opinion and to practice their religious beliefs freely. However, when these religious beliefs, especially fears about the occult and witchcraft, involve suppressing people’s access to literature, it becomes a problem. |
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