But when Halloween rides the Harvest Moon, we dust off our last lone family tradition.

On Halloween Eve, Great-great-greatly-Aunt Anastasha’s recipe for Bat Flitters rises out of the vault.

Cousin Evelyn, no bats are harmed these days. Maybe ever.

So impossibly old that it’s printed in the same Cyrillic script she used to list her descendants on the Family Tree, which all of us have seen or heard of but nobody knows just who lost it.

So precious that the crumbling papyrus is permanently pressed between two panes of window glass bolted together with sterling silver carriage bolts and capnuts.

~~<^-^>~~

Funny story that. Dad always tells it in hoarse whispers out in the dark, waiting for the bats,

“My Uncles – I mean my Uncle’s uncles - argued every year whether or not Greatly-Aunt Anatasha’s man, Igor, just bolted the silver carriage bolt onto the silver capnut or whether he went back and silver-soldered it.

“Oops, there’s a bat!” Must be the same bat, he sees it at this point in the story every year.

“Long story short, just as Great-Uncle Fronk grabbed the silver frame with the vise-grips and grabbed his hacksaw, Aunt Tasha cut his finger off.

“See? Bats all over this end of the meadow. It’s all the bugs. Get the net.”

For years, it was my job to forget the net.

OK, Evelyn?

~~<^-^>~~

So anyways, we all get to touch the silver frame and then Aunt Natasch pretends she can read Cyrillic whilest peeking at a hand-written recipe taped to the back of the frame,

“Greatly-Aunt Anastasha’s Bat Flitters

- Pin the bats to the trencher with wings spread wide in wonder.

- Sear before the fire until the wings will no longer fold or the trencher scorches.

- Unpin. Braise until done.”

Aunt Natasch always puts the joke in next.

- “You can tell the bats are done when they stop trying to bite the spoon.”

That’s the joke. It’s not really in the recipe. But I still smile and little girls giggle.

~~<^-^>~~

And that’s not even the real recipe. The real recipe is for the sauce.

I mean bat wings? No! These days it’s chicken wings.

Spread the wings like flying and broil under a bacon press.

Cheaper.

Bats? If you could find and afford the price,

Would you eat them?

No you wouldn’t, Evelyn.

We haven’t caught a bat in years, ever since that one bit Great-Uncle Fronk. Him with his finger amputated to save him from the rabies.

Even though Great-Uncle Fronk swore that our family harbors an age-old immunity to blood-borne poisons, “Better safe than sorry,” as Great-Aunt Tasha said.

~~<^-^>~~

The sauce!

It starts with one impossible ingredient.