This product contains no corn

Autumn is the only season that can sneak up on you. The end of fall is cold and often indistinguishable from winter. Winter often peters-out and sputters over time into spring. Spring dries out and blossoms into summer. But fall, it gives you no warning.

Summer drags on, overstaying its welcome like the bad date who gets drunk, and won't go home. Then comes second summer, Indian summer, like the hickey left behind by the bad date that won’t dissolve before you have to return to work on Monday.

Then, one day you walk outside in short sleeves, or maybe you’re wearing rayon culottes, expecting a warm 70° degree (21° c) morning, warming to afternoon highs of 85° (29° c), when it hits you. First: “Damn, I’m gonna need a coat.” Second: “Hey, fall is in the air!”

I enjoy fall. I look forward to it. It means I can put away the George Winston Summer CD and pull out the autumn album. It means the missus will start to bake bread, and the dog, being part husky, will start to fill out his lovely winter coat. Stores will start to stock limited seasonal selections of Vampire Wine and Pumpkin Ale. CBS will play It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown. A&E will run repeated showing of Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow (with Christina Ricci…). Then come the kids in the costumes, with the sacks of candy and burning-pumpkin fumes wafting through the air. There is College football for folks who care, and nature’s throw-rug of fallen leaves.

The warmth and cold of the season of upheaval culminates with the second-greatest holiday in all the world. Thanksgiving. But we’re not here to talk about that. No, not yet. The blog will come, and probably soon, where I shall cover the glory that is the Feast of Thanksgiving, and why it is second only to the 4th of July, but this is not that blog.

This blog is reserved for that one irresistible icon of the fall, the bottomless bowl of Candy Corn. Candy Corn! What is it? No, I’m asking, what is it?? It contains no corn. It cannot be popped, buttered or salted. Yet, I crave it as if it were the very air to breathe.

The flavor is not quite vanilla, nor is it corn. It is sweet to be sure, but something else as well. Is it sent from heaven? I cannot resist its alluring charm. Is it from Hell? I have not been able to pass the bowl on the table near the door all weekend without dipping my fingers in for a kernel or three. Perhaps I should move it to a less-central location.

Well, welcome to autumn nonetheless. Time for a glass of scotch and a crackling inferno in the fireplace. Hmm… but first, I’ll have to pass the bowl. I wonder whether candy corn goes well with a 12-year Bunnahabain?