Hello, beloved listeners! Host Matthew here. It’s spooky season, and some of my neighbors take this time of year VERY seriously. In the past week, just walking around my neighborhood, I’ve seen:

By the way, you may not know this about me, but I’m also a talking skull. I mean, I have some other baggage surrounding the skull, but basically, talking skull. Boo!

It’s also pie season. Well, in my house it’s always pie season, because a couple of years ago WOTSL signed us up for a monthly pie club via Pie Bird Bakeshop, and now my life pretty much revolves around pie delivery day. The most recent delivery was Black Bottom Pumpkin Pie, with a layer of ganache. I don’t even like pumpkin pie, but I loved this one. And yes, I know that telling people you receive a monthly pie delivery is somehow more decadent than admitting you own a yacht. Well, call me Boaty McPieface.

(You may not know this about me, but I’m a pie-eating skull.)

This year we’re upping the pie quotient because WOTSL stopped in at Producer Abby’s alma mater, Book Larder, and brought home the new cookbook River Cottage Great Pies by Gelf Alderson, and I went ahead and made a squash and red onion galette with Stilton and fresh herbs. And not without some drama: I cut up and roasted a Delicata squash like I’ve done countless times before, and luckily I tasted it before I put it into the pie, because it was some tasteless, stringy garbage! I blame Bunnicula.

As I was sinking into despair, WOTSL said, “Hey, don’t they sell that precut butternut squash at the supermarket?” They do, and it really saved the day. This pie was fragrant, deeply savory, and… I’m just so glad summer is over.

By the way, these local businesses didn’t pay to get into our newsletter—that would be weird, right? I just like them. (Bunnicula slipped me fifty bucks.)

Upcoming episodes

This very day, Halloween, it’s Black Licorice, one of the only candies that has killed a man.

Next week, cherry tomatoes, because… hey, wait a minute, I said summer was over! And you’re giving me cherry tomatoes?

On November 14, we’re talking Spindrift, that sparkling water with a little sprinkle of juice in it. Also not sponsored. Hey, can we get some sponsors up in here or what?

October bonus episode

We’re doing a classic lightning round episode, one of our favorite things to do, and Producer Abby is once again in charge of the hat full of topics. I asked her if she was bringing a real hat and she said, “Do we need a literal hat? I shall bring my own vessel.” That’s ominous, right? She did promise some spooooooky topics.

Producer Abby’s description: Happy Halloween!! Anything goes at bonus time so we asked Producer Abby to produce topics at a semi-rapid pace. Listen as we shrug in the face of Disney, confess our fears, explain the unexplained, and share ghost stories before meeting The Yanker and The Stair Phantom. Molly is inexperienced while Matthew is flat and hot, but we’re all obsessed with protein.

As usual, you can get this and all other bonus episodes at magnumbonus.com (password: magnumbonum) or subscribe to the RSS feed at https://www.magnumbonus.com/feed/podcast/.

Our birthday is coming up

And we’re turning the big one-five! If you have any Spilled Milk memory lane you’d like to share, feel free to reply to this email or post on the Reddit thread. We’re going to read some favorite memories on the show in January.

What we’re into

Abby: Lately, Producer Abby has been embracing her crush on Seth Cohen/Adam Brody and spooky season so she’s been enjoying Nobody Wants This, Agatha All Along, the BBC podcast ‘Witch,’ and going to the pumpkin patch. You can find all her book recommendations on her substack the rolling ladder. Recent spookyish topics include: toil and trouble, houses that haunt and villains 

Molly:  Finally read NORTH WOODS, by Daniel Mason, and it was as clever and absorbing as I’d heard it would be (from many many people)

Recently on a long flight, I watched In the Name of the Father for the first time since the 90s — maybe since it came out, in 1993? — and it was every bit as good as I’d remembered. Daniel Day-Lewis is characteristically brilliant, and Pete Postlethwaite moved me to tears.

Matthew:
The Linda Lindas – No Obligation. You want to hear a perfect song? Put on “Nothing Would Change” from the new Linda Lindas album. Chef’s kiss.

Ranma ½ on Netflix. Disclaimer: I haven’t read the comic or watched any of the previous anime adaptations, so I don’t know if this particular adaptation is considered good or bad or heretical or what, but this is a lot of fun so far. It’s an anime series about a martial artist who frequently and arbitrarily switches genders, and his father, who frequently switches from human to panda form. Whenever I watch a show like this, I like to imagine how it would play out in real life. Like, “That’s Takeshi. Sometimes he turns into a panda. He can’t talk in panda form, but he basically still does human stuff.” How quickly would you get used to this? Probably not as quickly as people do on a TV show, right?

Migratory ducks – ’Tis the season!

Yours spookily,
Host Matthew