Halloween recipes from a real witch

Titania Hardie's guide to celebrating Halloween

Welcoming your guests
Make a little 'invitation' to benevolence for callers at your door: create a beautiful wreath (the emblem of open house) with bunches of blueberries or currants tied in among the foliage.

The frosty days will preserve your wreath wonderfully - and some people like to think of the berries and currants as 'fairy food', bestowing little blessings on the dwellers in the house.

A basket laden with apples, melon, plums and quinces, placed at porch, door or hall, will invite an uplifting smile from your guests - and also a gesture of luck from the earth and divine spirits who appreciate your gesture of thanks.

Adding autumn colour
Pumpkins are a vital symbol of the autumn harvest and Halloween. These wonderful, warm-coloured squashes have a heart, it seems, and make delightful shapes when hollowed out and carved. Fill with candles (use safe night-lights) and place in windows, on porches, steps or in gardens.They also look fabulous tottering off a garden wall or balcony, stacked in piles of different varieties and sizes.

For decoration at your winter/new year feast, scoop most of the flesh out of a large pumpkin and fill with chrysanthemums. The sight will completely lift your soul and honour every essence in nature - either conventionally religious, pagan, or just Wordsworthian.

Or find little nugget pumpkins and tie a name card to each of their stems - they will make wonderful place settings for your Halloween feast table. If you want to do this year after year, varnishing the pumpkins would be time well spent.

Good luck

Titania Hardie's Hubble Bubble: Titania's Book of Magical Feasts (Quadrille, £14.99) is available from Amazon.co.uk.

Get more tips on planning a Halloween celebration.