Punkie Night

Well, according to the Oxford Fact of the Day email I got today, tomorrow is Punkie Night, a strange English cousin to Halloween. A Punkie being a 'hollowed out mangold-wurzel.'




I had to Google that one. Turns out its sort of a beet. A big one, that can be hollowed out and basically made into a jack-o-lantern. And then carried door to door begging for candy on the last Thursday in October.



I didn't have any beets, but I did have Mo faunching at the bit to carve pumpkins.

Em refused to carve hers, insisting the paint job she gave it Sunday was too good to mar with a knife. Plus, I had the Broadway production of Sweeney Todd on DVD. Since I so far have decided against letting her see the Tim Burton adaptation (too grisly and realistic), despite her begging, this was a real treat as far as she's concerned.

I'm not nuts about George Hearn or Angela Lansbury, but at least you don't wonder if they used actual cadavers in the chute to get a realistic impact.



I hadn't realized, too, how many numbers had been cut in the production at my nourishing mother. And it was still a two hour (plus intermission) show. It's been so long since I'd seen this version, and the Burton version cut all kinds of stuff, so I'd forgotten the City on Fire number and a few others.



But back to our punkies, in this case actually pumpkins. Mo about couldn't wait to get a knife, but I don't let her use one. I got the lid off hers and told her to get all the seeds and string into the bowl. Thing is, she likes the feeling of her hand in it so much, she doesn't make much progress. I hollowed out mine, a big 'princess' pumpkin and finished carving the face before finally finishing the scoop out on Mo's for her.

That and she was eating bits of the hull and seeds raw. The kid's eaten weirder things, and I guess if I eat the seeds roasted and the hull baked into pies, it's not likely she'll poison herself with a few morsels of raw pumpkin.



Then I let her play art director. What shape for the eyes? Triangles, she said. That size about right? Yes. What about the nose? Small triangle. Like that? Bigger.

What about the mouth? Triangle! You want the mouth to be a triangle? No!



Triangle teeth? Pointy teeth? Yes!



So there you have it. Then I realized I don't have any candles. Last birthday cake candles I didn't lock up and Mo ate them.

So we made a quick run to the drug store where I found battery powered tea lights, a package of six for five bucks. And they even get brighter and darker to mimic a real flame's movement. Awesome.