Tasty Bloody Fingers + A Spooky Halloween Story

I never really got into Halloween as a kid. Sure the thought of dressing in costume and staying up late sometimes even on a school night to hang out with our friends to collect treats are all very good. But I had no real emotional tie to the holiday itself. I always chose the simplest costume that I could manufacture from items at my disposal. Once I dressed as a Black Cat, but more often than not I have been either a Good Witch or a Bad Witch.

Depending on the availability of clothing and my mood at the time. But we never could keep all of the sweets that we collected. My mother would commandeer our haul within a few minutes of our return. We were allowed to take a few pieces to have for the week and the remainder would be disposed of. To this day, I have no idea where all that sugary loot went.

In my young adulthood, it wasn't a point of focus. Except for one year, Halloween landed on a Friday. My restaurant was doing very well and the dinner service was better than expected as a new spot in town. I decided to offer as a treat for my guest a free reading by a local Psychic. I think that I put the advertisement in a local circular as a tongue-in-cheek way of competing with the many parties that would be commencing around town in various social circles.

As usual, my staff and I planned for the service of two turns for the restaurant which only seated 72 guests at capacity. I made a special lava cake for the featured dessert, which spewed red hot fudge once the cake was cut into. At the beginning of the dinner shift, I noticed that our reservations were suspiciously high for the 6 p.m. Seating. The Psychic had arrived and sat up in a corner near the rear of the restaurant for discretion and to set an eerie atmosphere for the evening.

This woman was straight out of central casting. Wearing loose-fitting clothing complete with gobs of scarves and dangling bracelets, there was no way that anyone would be taking this seriously. Before the doors were unlocked, I thanked the Psychic for coming to my business and doing this as a favor for us. She said that she liked our food and was happy to oblige. She offered to do a reading for me and of course, I declined. I explained that I still had plenty of things to do in the kitchen before the evening kicked off. She told me that she had a feeling that I was going to have a difficult evening and that she was happy to give me more details. I still was not interested. But I sent over a pitcher of water and some hot tea to help her settle in. I told one of the servers to make sure that our featured guest would be informed that dinner was on the house and that I would be unavailable during the service.

By 7 p.m. There was a line wrapped around the building of potential diners. I could not seat all those people for dinner! What was I to do? I clearly underestimated the draw of a "PSYCHIC" to my restaurant as a gag for the evening. I decided to go outside and allow the guest to wait online the chance to preorder their dinner and give them the chance to take a "rain check" or do carry-out instead because most of them would not be eating dinner inside of my establishment that evening. Many of them wanted to come to have dinner as they did not know that we were offering dinner as I only did a soft opening for dinner service. My primary business has been on lunch and wholesale baking. But a lot of those people standing in line to patronize my small establishment only wanted a reading from the psychic.

Slightly above my commanding culinary abilities as a restaurant chef, I take much pride in my business acumen. I am committed to NEVER say NO to a guest or customer. I'm always over-prepared for each day in my business and have never run out of food or energy whenever I'm at work. But this was a first. I couldn't deliver on a city-wide advertisement for my business. I have to be the bad witch and disappoint these people by turning them away. My team and I survived the evening without any damage to our business or my reputation.

Tasty Bloody Fingers

1 cup butter, softened

1 cup powdered sugar

1 large egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp almond extract

2-3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1/4 cup strawberry jam

1/2 cup sliced almonds

Directions

Mix butter and sugar and slowly mix in the egg and extracts.

Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Add to the cream mixture, slowly.

Divide dough into four equal parts. Cover and chill for 30 minutes.

Roll dough into 1 inch. balls. Shape balls into a finger shape

Bake at 325 degrees for 20-25 minutes.

Let cool.

Dip the tip of the fingers in the strawberry jam and place a sliced almond on top.