It’s Halloween today. Which means the kids in our little village are preparing for their annual sugar pilgrimage, costumes are being taped together last-minute, and I’m staring lovingly at the last slice of a pumpkin pie that I definitely made for “testing purposes” earlier this week.

I’ll admit, when we moved here, I wasn’t sure Halloween would be a thing. I imagined polite autumn strolls and tidy porches with not a jack-o-lantern, skeleton or cobweb in sight. But I was wrong. Germany loves a good excuse for a costume and I shouldn’t have been surprised. After all, Halloween’s roots stretch right back to Celtic and European soil.

Originally known as the pagan festival, Samhain, it marked the end of the harvest season, when spirits were believed to wander freely (so naturally, people dressed up to confuse them). It began in what is now Ireland and Scotland, and made its way into northern France, Germany and now the rest of the world. Fast forward a millennium or two, and we’ve traded bonfires and druids for fog machines and party playlists. But the spirit of it all (pun intended) is still here.

And honestly, this year’s foliage has been so stunning it feels cinematic. The wide valleys are blanketed in red, yellow, and orange leaves that could make even Vermont blush. (And I say that as someone who’s lived in Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Maine. The Europeans might have been winning autumn all along. Between the countless Apples Fests and the Pumpkin Fests and the any-exuse-to-drink fests… there’s been no shortage of adorable Autumn charm here in Germany.

So today, while the kids are plotting how to maximize their candy-to-house ratio, I decided to sit and write about something cozy, earthy, and unapologetically orange.

A Slice of Halloween Nostalgia

Every October, I used get so excited about the prospect of what my parents might be for Halloween.

Most kids obsess about their own costume, but not me. My parents were… different, and it made Halloween that much more fun.

My dad treated it like a full-scale art installation; paper-mâché, spray paint, hours of cursing in the the front yard over a hot glue gun. When she was pregnant with my sister, she went as a nun, and my dad went as a priest. In today’s climate, they’d probably get canceled by sunrise, but back then people still had a sense of humor and my parents were on top of it. Another year, my dad made this alien costume using a large balloon, paper-mâché, and the lenses from sunglasses. He looked like he’d escaped from an 80s-themed nightclub where the dress code was “extraterrestrial chic” in silver spray painted members only jackets. My mom, being German living in the U.S. was the actual “resident alien,” which is the kind of irony that writes itself.

They let me get weird too. When I was eleven, I insisted on dressing up as an old lady. Not a witch, not a vampire, not Britney Spears… a literal old woman. Wig, cane, my grandmother’s floral dress, the works. And my parents just nodded like, “Yeah, that tracks.” They even let me wear it to school. This was 1999 and still somehow wasn’t the strangest thing to come out of that year. Plus, if that wasn’t a preview of my future gay adulthood, I don’t know what was.

I kept the tradition going well into college and after. One year I was the werewolf from Michale Jackson’s Thriller. Another year, the skeleton singer from Hocus Pocus, then the male version of Natalie Portman’s Black Swan. And then there was the time I went full drag as the undeniable gay-icon, Nancy Downs from The Craft. It was my second and last time in drag, not because it wasn’t fun, but because removing wig caps and black lipstick stains from my teeth took three to four business days.

Now, here in Germany, I may not have a costume this year, but I do have pie. And between the smell of roasting pumpkin, the sound of leaves crunching outside, and the faint echo of “Süßes oder Saures!” from down the street, I’d say Halloween found me anyway. So let’s get started:

Why Roast When You Can… Roast?

Forget canned pumpkin. (No shade, I grew up on Libby’s, but once you’ve roasted your own, there’s no going back.)

I used a Hokkaido pumpkin here, which is wonderfully earthy and doesn’t need much sugar, but any pumpkin will do.

All I did was:

Wash it, cut it in half, and roast it for 30 minutes at 180°C (until it’s soft enough to scoop).
The seeds come out easily once roasted and it’s oddly satisfying, like nature’s version of bubble wrap.
Scoop out the flesh, compost the skin, and if you’re feeling fancy, toss the seeds back in the oven with a bit of sugar and salt. Snack secured.

Roasted & Rustic Pumpkin Pie

Ingredients:

For the crust:

150 g all-purpose flour
75 g cold butter, cut into cubes
1 Tbsp sugar (optional)
¼ tsp salt
2–3 Tbsp cold water

(or use a store-bought piecrust if you want to keep it simple)

For the filling:

About 500 g roasted pumpkin flesh (no need to peel, just scoop it out)
3 eggs
100 ml cream (or half cream, half milk)
50 g brown sugar or maple syrup (to taste)
1 tsp vanilla extract
½ tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp ground ginger
Pinch of nutmeg
Pinch of salt
Optional: 1 Tbsp rum, whiskey, or orange liqueur for depth

Instructions:

1. Make the crust

Rub butter into flour, sugar, and salt until it looks sandy.
Add water one tablespoon at a time until it just holds together.
Shape into a disc, wrap, and chill for 30 min.
Roll out and line your tart pan. Prick the base with a fork and chill again while you make the filling.

2. Make the filling