October 30, 2026
Only Five Steaks a Night
Late October leaned into its two favorite moods this week, a little fright and a lot of digging, and Slow News Co. kept the porch light on for anyone wandering by.
Skeletons on the Lawn
Halloween has quietly stopped being a single night. On one New Jersey street, the neighbors treat their Hackensack Halloween block as a lifestyle, and the towering yard skeleton has officially earned permanent residency in American front yards.
For a sharper chill, some tours now lead visitors through a former psychiatric hospital and a funeral home. The Sporkful revisits the 1974 Pixy Stix poisoning, which explains why your parents inspected every fun-size bar. Out in Half Moon Bay, a carver dubbed the Picasso of pumpkins makes the usual jack-o'-lantern look like a first draft.
On one Hackensack block, Halloween is less a single night than a way of life for the neighbors who live for it.
Make no bones about it: the towering yard skeleton is now a fixture of Halloween across America.
Some Halloween tours are taking thrill-seekers inside a former psychiatric hospital and a funeral home. It is not your average sightseeing itinerary, which is exactly the point.
On Halloween in 1974, five Houston-area trick-or-treaters received Pixy Stix laced with cyanide, sparking a nationwide panic that lasted decades. This food true crime tale digs into what really happened, plus the surprising origins of Pixy Stix themselves.
One pumpkin carver has earned the nickname 'Picasso of Pumpkin Carvers' for bringing real artistry to a Halloween tradition. It's proof that a knife and a pumpkin can produce more than a gap-toothed grin.
A Cupboard in Pompeii
Plenty of the week's best reads involved peeking behind something. Specialists lifted three Odilon Redon murals off an 11th-century monastery's library walls and found an art history surprise underneath. A plain Pompeii cupboard proved just as revealing about ordinary life before the ash.
Astronomers think they've matched Van Gogh's sky to a June 1889 morning outside his asylum window, though skeptics aren't buying it yet. Closer to home, Gothamist slipped into the hidden chamber that runs Lincoln Center's fountain, a backstage pass to a show nobody realized had a backstage.
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Since 1911, murals by French Symbolist Odilon Redon have graced the library walls of the Abbaye de Fontfroide, an 11th-century Cistercian monastery in Narbonne, France. When specialists took three of them down, what lay beneath was hailed as a discovery for the history of art.
A humble cupboard from Pompeii is offering a fresh glimpse of everyday life in the city before Vesuvius erupted.
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In a letter from early June 1889, Vincent van Gogh told his brother Theo he had watched the countryside from his asylum window before sunrise, with a morning star that looked very big. Now astronomers think they have matched that Saint-Rémy-de-Provence sky to his famous painting, though skeptics aren't sold.
Lincoln Center's magnificent fountain gets all the applause, but a hidden chamber does the real work. Gothamist heads inside that secret space to see what controls the show. Consider it a backstage pass to a performance that usually happens out of sight.
The Seven-Minute Pour
The kitchen stories rewarded restraint. Ashleigh Carter spent a decade on lager and now holds America's top brewer title, thanks partly to a seven-minute pour. In a Georgetown alley, Alfie's sends out only five curry steak frites nightly, each a 26-ounce rib-eye under massaman peppercorn sauce. Arrive early or arrive sad.
In Japan, Takamori cattle dine on sake leftovers, and American restaurants must win auctions just to get a taste. The cafeteria version of luxury is humbler: Maryland kids are protecting blue crabs by eating invasive catfish for lunch, which is conservation with a side of tartar sauce.
Raid the candy bowl before the good stuff disappears, then pull up a chair at Slow News Co. for whatever else is still in the bag.
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Ashleigh Carter has spent a decade perfecting the lager, and Food & Wine has named her America's best brewer as part of its annual Drinks Visionaries program. Her signature beer takes a full seven minutes to pour. The program honors the people changing the modern beverage industry, and Carter makes a strong case that patience belongs on that list.
Alfie's, from chefs Justin Ahn and Alex McCoy, brings northern Thai cooking and local DMV ingredients to a permanent Georgetown home after pop-up stints in Petworth, New York and London. Only five of its 26-ounce rib-eyes leave the kitchen each night, finished with a massaman curry peppercorn sauce and a pile of bar fries.
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Takamori cattle are raised on sake byproducts, and the result is richly marbled beef that U.S. restaurants must fight for at auction. Only a handful have won those bidding wars, including Halls Chophouse in Charleston, South Carolina.
Invasive blue catfish are preying on native seafood like the blue crab in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. Local schoolchildren are helping keep them in check the tastiest way possible, with catfish on the lunch tray.