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Creative costumes, sweet treats and carved pumpkins are common occurrences this time of year. Although candy is tempting and you should absolutely nibble in moderation, splurging on a little candy-inspired fashion is more than acceptable.  Think bright hues, bold stripes, prominent jewels and generally fun styles to rock all year long. Happy Halloween!

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Solestruck, $165

Dessert party on your feet

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Frockaholics, $500

Sweet color blocking

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Anya Hindmarch, $160

Keep your change all wrapped up

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Kenneth Jay Lane, $125

Gumball ring

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Lipsy, $39

Candy cane and cotton candy combined

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Kate Spade, $35

Don't deprive your iPhone of a sweet treat

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Jardin Des Orangers, $280

Light and dreamy, like strawberry fro-yo

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Moschino C&C, $445

Dessert party on your neck

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Tarina Tarantino, $105

Dangling candy wrappers

The holidays begin in less than four weeks. It has always been a major hassle for my wife and me to prepare, serve and clean up. My daughters and their families are there to help but it still requires a tremendous amount of time and effort. This year we made a decision to buy prepared dinners from our local grocery store. We settled on a turkey dinner and ham dinner for Thanksgiving and two of the prime rib dinners for Christmas.

My daughters and their husbands volunteered to split the cost of the four dinners which served to move it from the idea stage to the definite stage. The cost of the dinners is reasonable—especially with all of us sharing it equally—so that brought it down to the issue of quality. After all, you don’t want substandard food on the biggest feasting holidays of the year.

I decided to find out just how good the dinners were. I waited until mid-afternoon when the business in the delicatessen had slowed down considerably and then walked up to the counter and asked for the manager. I wanted my wife to come with me but she had the idea that we shouldn’t put the store staff through a taste test of the dinners—which is what I wanted.

Both daughters were working so I was on my own. I certainly was not reticent about what I was going to ask for; after all, we were going to spend approximately $300 on this venture. The manager walked out from the kitchen and I explained that I wanted to sample as much of the dinners as possible.

The guy was very agreeable and immediately set about rounding up samples of the various foods. The dinners are purchased from the manufacturer by the grocer already cooked and packaged. The grocer then organizes them into the respective dinner combination.  The customer then picks up the refrigerated dinner and heats it at home.

For samples, the manager took out a plate and sliced off prime rib onto it from a piece he was selling as one of the dinner entrées on the hot foods counter. He placed stuffing, gravy and a combination of carrots and sweet potatoes on the plate from the foods on the side-dish section of the counter. He had to open some packages of turkey and ham but assured me he would sell them out the next day on the hot counter as a lunch or dinner.

Everything looked very attractive and tasted extremely good. I even asked him to make up a sample plate to take home to my wife so she could try it and not worry about the quality all the way up to Thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving!

When possible, a career counselor should always be consulted when mapping out the path to your life’s vocation. However, if you are an adult intending to pursue a career in foodservice, take these considerations into account before you make your decision.

Step 1: Be absolutely certain you will stick with your career plan once you get started.  Foodservice requires someone with the ability to work well with fellow associates and relate positively with customers. You must be a thinking person, able to focus on the task at hand while juggling several different undertakings at one time. Foodservice is hard labor with long hours at a minimum wage salary until you get experience and gain knowledge. If you invest time and effort in foodservice work and then decide you don’t want to continue, you will probably leave without savings. Remember, the pay isn’t at a level where you can anticipate paying personal expenses and saving money. This means you will possibly begin a new career search—from scratch—with no money to fund your efforts.

Step 2: Find a job at any level in a full-service restaurant or café. Initially, avoid coffee houses and fast food establishments; these jobs do have some currency as an entry qualification for full service restaurants but it is much better to gain your initial experience at restaurants. Take any job that’s available, you eventually will need to know everything that goes on in a restaurant anyway. Work as hard as possible while giving your total attention to the job the entire time you are on the clock. Stand in front of the mirror at night and rehearse these words, “yes sir" and “yes ma’am” and use them on everyone, everyday, while you are at work and off-work. These words are magic keys to opening doors of opportunity faster and more surely. Make your goal to advance to the next job level while gaining as much experience and knowledge as possible.

Step 3: Don’t hesitate to move to another job when an opportunity to learn more or advance faster is available. Leave on good terms with an adequate notice to the employer. Work just as hard as you always have right up to your last day in the job. Ask for a recommendation from your supervisor. Many companies don’t allow management to give recommendations at least ask for a letter that gives your dates employed, the fact you gave notice and whether or not the restaurant would rehire you.

Step 4: Maintain a typewritten journal of your employment history in which you list the following information for each employer:

• Name, address and phone number of the restaurant
• Dates of employment
• Your job title (no matter how humble) and your duties in detail
• Recommendation: Y_____    No_____
• Reason why you left: Don’t leave for any reason other than getting a better job. Just suck it up, stick it out and work harder if you are having problems at work. This is your career you’re working on, not just the job you have today
• Keep the letters of recommendation clipped to the journal pages in the order in which you listed the jobs

This information is necessary to use when securing another job or applying for culinary school.

Step 5: In addition to the employment ledger, employers and culinary schools want to gauge your level of interest while verifying your knowledge level.

• Research and then attend industry conferences, food shows and conventions: many restaurants give badges to interested employees to attend these functions.
• Read books on the industry as well as culinary books.
• Attend food preparation classes at local community colleges.
• Attend environmental health classes.

Next year, my wife and I will celebrate our 40^th wedding anniversary. Already, when we’re asked and reply that we’ve been married for 39 years, we receive instant attention, congratulations and even a degree of respect.  I realize that 39 years of marriage is only a beginning by some standards.  After all, we’ve encountered numerous couples that have been married at least that long and many more that have been together up to 60 years.

Regardless, especially among younger people—25 to 40 years of age—we get more attention than we ever thought we would or even should.  In fact, some of the youngest are downright enthralled to find out that we been married for 39 years.  Initially, we put this down to the fact that they had many more years ahead of them in life and 39 years must seem like an eternity to them.

However, over a period of time, it’s become obvious that the entire group of 25 to 40 year olds is so impressed because their family either broke up early in their life or they were raised from birth by only one parent.

Many of them have been married and divorced at least once and almost all of them are living with their partner—in many cases with children—with no expectation of marriage. Marriage is also a financial consideration because almost always at least one of them has a disastrous credit rating. Therefore, the other has to sign for every debt incurred.

Obviously, as you might expect, women are most impressed and sometimes even wistful, but even so, they show only vague indications or none at all of ever getting married. My wife and I are slowly becoming one of the last generation who accept that long-term marriage is normal and expected. As every day passes, long-term marriage becomes a concept that burns dimmer and dimmer.