By PATRICK WHITTLE and JOHN HANNA, Associated Press

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Maine’s elections in recent years have been relatively free of problems, and verified cases of voter fraud are exceedingly rare.

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That’s not stopping Republicans from pushing for major changes in the way the state conducts its voting.

Maine is one of two states with election-related initiatives on the Nov. 4 ballot but is putting the most far-reaching measure before voters. In Texas, Republicans are asking voters to make clear in the state constitution that people who are not U.S. citizens are ineligible to vote.

Maine’s Question 1 centers on requiring voter ID, but is more sweeping in nature. The initiative, which has the backing of an influential conservative group in the state, also would limit the use of drop boxes to just one per municipality and create restrictions for absentee voting even as the practice has been growing in popularity.

Voters in both states will decide on the measures at a time when President Donald Trump continues to lie about widespread fraud leading to his loss in the 2020 presidential election and make unsubstantiated claims about future election-rigging, a strategy that has become routine during election years. Republicans in Congress and state legislatures have been pushing for proof of citizenship requirements to register and vote, but with only limited success.

Maine’s initiative would impose voter ID, restrict absentee voting

The Maine proposal seeks to require voters to produce a voter ID before casting a ballot, a provision that has been adopted in several other states, mostly those controlled by Republicans. In April, Wisconsin voters enshrined that state’s existing voter ID law into the state’s constitution.

Question 1 also would eliminate two days of absentee voting, prohibit requests for absentee ballots by phone or family members, end absentee voter status for seniors and people with disabilities, and limit the number of drop boxes, among other changes.

Absentee voting is popular in Maine, where Democrats control the Legislature and governor’s office and voters have elected a Republican and an independent as U.S. senators. Nearly half of voters there used absentee voting in the 2024 presidential election.

Gov. Janet Mills is one of many Democrats in the state speaking out against the proposed changes.

FILE – Democratic Gov. Janet Mills delivers her State of the State address, Jan. 30, 2024, at the State House in Augusta, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File)

“Whether you vote in person or by absentee ballot, you can trust that your vote will be counted fairly,” Mills said. “But that fundamental right to vote is under attack from Question 1.”

Proponents of the voter ID push said it’s about shoring up election security.

“There’s been a lot of noise about what it would supposedly do, but here’s the simple truth: Question 1 is about securing Maine’s elections,” said Republican Rep. Laurel Libby, a proponent of the measure.

A key supporter of the ballot initiative is Dinner Table PAC, a conservative group in the state. Dinner Table launched Voter ID for ME, which has raised more than $600,000 to promote the initiative. The bulk of that money has come from the Republican State Leadership Committee, which advocates for Republican candidates and initiatives at the state level through the country. Save Absentee Voting, a Maine group that opposes the initiative, has raised more than $1.6 million, with the National Education Association as its top donor.

The campaigning for and against the initiative is playing out as the state and FBI are investigating how dozens of unmarked ballots meant to be used in this year’s election arrived inside a woman’s Amazon order. The secretary of state’s office says the blank ballots, still bundled and wrapped in plastic, will not be used in the election.

Texas voters consider a citizenship requirement

In Texas, voters are deciding whether to add wording to the state constitution that Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and other backers said would guarantee that noncitizens will not be able to vote in any elections there. State and federal laws already make it illegal for noncitizens to vote.

FILE – Texas Gov. Greg Abbott speaks to reporters outside the West Wing of the White House, Feb. 5, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

Thirteen states have made similar changes to their constitutions since North Dakota first did in 2018. Proposed constitutional amendments are on the November 2026 ballot in Kansas and South Dakota.

The measures have so far proven popular, winning approval with an average of 72% of the vote.

“I think it needs to sweep the nation,” said Republican state Rep. A.J. Louderback, who represents a district southwest of Houston. “I think we need to clean this mess up.”

Voters already have to attest they are U.S. citizens when they register, and voting by noncitizens, which is rare, is punishable as a felony and can lead to deportation.

Louderback and other supporters of such amendments point to policies in at least 20 communities across the country that allow noncitizens to vote in local elections, though none are in Texas. They include Oakland and San Francisco in California, where noncitizens can cast ballots in school board races if they have children in the public schools, the District of Columbia, and several towns in Maryland and Vermont.

Other states, including Kansas, have wording in their constitutions putting a citizenship requirement in affirmative terms: Any U.S. citizen over 18 is eligible to vote. In some states, amendments have rewritten the language to make it more of a prohibition: Only U.S. citizens are eligible to vote.

The article on voting in the Texas Constitution currently begins with a list of three “classes of persons not allowed to vote”: people under 18, convicted felons and those “who have been determined mentally incompetent by a court.” The Nov. 4 amendment would add a fourth, “persons who are not citizens of the United States.”

Critics say the proposed changes are unnecessary

Critics say the Maine voter ID requirement and Texas noncitizen prohibition are solutions in search of a problem and promote a longstanding conservative GOP narrative that noncitizen voting is a significant problem, when in fact it’s exceedingly rare.

FILE – A voter marks a ballot at the polling station in Kennebunk, Maine, March 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer, File)

In Texas, the secretary of state’s office recently announced it had found the names of 2,700 “potential noncitizens” on its registration rolls out of the state’s nearly 18.5 million registered voters.

Veronikah Warms, staff attorney at the Texas Civil Rights Project, said pushing the narrative encourages discrimination and stokes fear of state retaliation among naturalized citizens and people of color. Her group works to protect the rights of those groups and immigrants and opposes the proposed amendment.

“It just doesn’t serve any purpose besides furthering the lie that noncitizens are trying to subvert our democratic process,” she said. “This is just furthering a harmful narrative that will make it scarier for people to actually exercise their constitutional right.”

In Maine, approval of Question 1 would most likely make voting more difficult overall, said Mark Brewer, chair of the University of Maine political science department. He added that claims of widespread voter fraud are unsupported by evidence.

“The data show that the more hoops and restrictions you put on voting, the harder it is to vote and the fewer people will vote,” he said.

Hanna reported from Topeka, Kansas.

By DAVID BILLER and SILVIA STELLACCI

ROME (AP) — The man who just took charge of Rome’s top tourist attraction wants to set the record straight: the Colosseum won’t be hosting any electronic dance music parties on his watch.

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Simone Quilici, director of the Archaeological Park of the Colosseum, shared his plan to bring concerts to the almost 2,000-year-old amphitheater in an interview with an Italian newspaper earlier this month, and social media proceeded to do what it all too often does. “Massive raves” were imminent, multiple accounts trumpeted alongside AI-generated images of multicolor light beams shooting from the arena into the heavens.

Quilici told The Associated Press that he heard complaints from archaeologists and ordinary Romans, dismayed their cultural heritage could be so desecrated. Even electronic music fans expressed concern online about the damage a whomping bass beat would inflict on an ancient structure that continues yielding new wonders, like the emperor’s secret passage that opens on Oct. 27.

Concerts must respect the Colosseum as a “sacred space,” Quilici said, as it is integral to Roman identity and has become imbued with religious significance. Today, it is the site of the Via Crucis (Way of the Cross) procession during Easter, traditionally presided over by the pope.

“The music must be carefully controlled. I mentioned certain artists — not by accident — who haven’t been ‘rock’ for some time, who play calm music and attract a calm audience, because the important thing is that it’s not a wild crowd,” Quilici, 55, said Friday in his first interview with foreign media since taking over on Oct. 20. “I joked about rock in moderation — that’s what I meant, a more subdued kind of music. But it was reported the opposite of what I said.”

Doors will open for Sting and gladiators

Concerts could be acoustic or jazz, he said, offering Sting as an example. The amphitheater could host poetry readings, dance performances and theater productions once the existing small platform is expanded. Also in the plans: historical reenactments of gladiatorial battles rooted in academic research.

“There are people who are extremely knowledgeable about daily life in past eras, with a remarkable level of scientific accuracy. So these activities are very welcome within the Colosseum park,” Quilici said. He stressed such presentations would be the antithesis of the shabbily costumed centurions who besiege the Colosseum by night, posing for photos with tourists and then harassing them for payment.

The Colosseum’s first concerts and performances will take place in no less than two years, he added.

Only a handful of concerts have taken place within the Colosseum over the years, including Ray Charles in 2002, Paul McCartney in 2003 and Andrea Bocelli in 2009. All were billed as special events and audience numbers were severely restricted.

“Unfortunately, as everyone knows, tourism is a commercial activity — an industry that does not always connect with culture,” he said on the Colosseum’s uppermost balcony. “Bringing cultural activities into the mix would enrich this place, making it not only a site to visit, but also a place where one can experience and enjoy artistic events.”

Looking beyond the Colosseum

Peering down into the arena’s ruins from high above, the bustle of tourists brings to mind the cross-section of an anthill. The Colosseum had almost 9 million visitors last year, up from 7 million the year before, according to data provided by the park.

Even in October, well outside the high tourist season of summer, the place was packed.

That’s partly due to the Vatican’s Jubilee year, held once every quarter-century, which continues to draw large tour groups of pilgrims. It’s also because the Colosseum is one of just two must-see spots for short-staying tourists, along with Vatican City, and “already is at maximum capacity,” Quilici said.

Therein lies the other great ambition for his tenure: inducing tourists to go elsewhere.

The park he oversees includes not just the Colosseum, but also other sites directly adjacent like the Roman Forum, which was the heart of the ancient city’s society, and Palatine Hill, where Rome was founded and the emperor’s palace is located.

Tickets lasting 24 hours include all three destinations. Still, one-third of buyers visit only the Colosseum, according to park data. If Rome’s an open-air museum, as is often said, that’s like catching a glimpse of Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” through the crowd at the Louvre, then leaving without even looking at the other masterpieces in the room.

“Last year, tourists in Rome didn’t stay just two and a half days; their visits increased to four days. So there’s also the opportunity to use the Colosseum as a starting point for exploring less-visited places,” he said.

‘A courageous choice’

Likewise, relatively few visitors go to the nearby Circus Maximus, the sprawling grounds of Rome’s high-adrenaline chariot races, depicted in the 1959 film “Ben-Hur.” The Appian Way, known as “the queen of roads,” goes even more overlooked, despite becoming a UNESCO world heritage site last year. Its giant paving stones provide passage into a golden countryside that evokes long-gone centuries and provides welcome respite from Rome’s tourist-thronged center.

Both the Circus Maximus and the Appian Park, which Quilici administered before the Colosseum, are free to visit.

All these sites and more are near to one another, though somewhat disjointed – archaeological islands mostly separated by busy roads. Quilici hopes to create new access points to his park as well as connections with others to better manage the crowds and establish one consolidated area for exploration and discovery.

“It’s a collective effort, one that requires cooperation from all the different administrations,” he said. “However, it’s more a matter of management than of infrastructure costs. Choices that sometimes can be simple decisions like limiting traffic — not necessarily involving major expenses, but rather a courageous choice to restore life to the heart of the city of Rome.”

CHICAGO — Before I moved to Chicago, years ago, whenever I found myself here in the city, I would carve out time and head to Wicker Park, trudge to the second floor of the Flatiron Arts Building and enter the House of Monsters, which was owned by a guy named Barry Kaufman who always seemed buried alive beneath latex vampire masks and imported Godzillas and dioramas of giant spiders and every back issue of Famous Monsters of Filmland, their old covers lined up like a demonic yearbook.

The old uneven floors creaked.

The clogged aisles screamed fire hazard.

It was the kind of place I would dream about when I was 10, but never did exist.

Not until it did exist, like some dark manifestation from the back pages of Famous Monsters, which were dank and ugly and peddled bootleg Darth Vaders and rubber werewolf masks and Super 8 reels of “Mysterious Dr. Satan” and X-ray eyeglasses. House of Monsters hung around for 11 years and folded its Wicker Park shop in 2007 but continues online, still operated by Kaufman, who once saw the future of horror-themed businesses and knew it was horrible.

Slowly, steadily, like a zombie pulling itself out of fresh earth, a small but quite lively patchwork of horror-and-gothic-themed shopfronts and cafes and restaurants and bars have been replicating across America. Call it a byproduct of the anxious early 21st century, call it capitalizing year-round on what Spirit Halloween only offers for 60 days, but right now, on Long Island, there’s a Haunted House of Hamburgers. Los Angeles offers an entire stretch of Burbank seemingly dedicated to horror shops. In eastern Indiana, you’ll find Famous Monster Pizza. When Orlando’s cheerfulness is driving you batty, the Post Mortem Horror Boo-Tique in nearby Kissimmee is like Ann Taylor for Wednesdays. Need a good book? The Twisted Spine, New York City’s first horror bookstore, just opened. In Arkansas, grab a Chicago Mothman hot dog at The Witching Hour food truck — or if you prefer a hamburger, they come “slaughtered” (chopped cheese) or “smothered” (melted cheese).

“I do hear from a lot of people these days that ‘Oh, we couldn’t have done a horror store without House of Monsters,’” Kaufman said, “but all of this feels inevitable. The interest was there, it just took people to recognize that the horror community wanted places to gather. But because of social media, because of horror franchises being so widespread, because of a perfect storm of reasons, these are basically mainstream spaces today.”

Horror as a lifestyle, in other words, is now an option.

And Illinois, in particular, leads the way.

(Save the “hellhole” cracks for TikTok, thank you.)

Morning on the Moors

Your day begins like every other.

You climb out of your crypt, vaguely revived, allergic to the sun. Good news: Chicago offers plenty of variety for the nearly undead. On the South Side, at the end of a quiet Bridgeport cul-de-sac is Jackalope Coffee & Tea, which only sounds pleasant. It is, in fact, disgustingly charming, if you’re cool with “Night of the Living Dead” posters, man-size aliens and one whole room largely painted black, set off with a tapestry of a Victorian woman haunted by a vaporous skull. In the center of the room is the perfect round table to host a seance. By the front door is a box labeled “Menstruatin‘ With Satan,” full of personal care items for free, sponsored by the Satanic Temple of Illinois.

Skulls adorn the curtains. As a nod to the neighborhood’s Latino influence, “The Shining” twins are painted onto a wall, refashioned as Día de los Muertos skeletons. Like many horror-themed year-round businesses, nothing about Jackalope comes off as indifferent or routine; a visitor is rewarded for peering close into every nook and cranny.

It opened 13 years ago as something of a response to the end of the moody, gothic punk scene that co-owner January Overton, now 48, once sought in Lakeview — namely the infamous Punkin’ Donuts era of Belmont Avenue and Clark Street. She and her husband, John Almonte, have been veterans of Chicago’s punk and metal scenes for years.

“I grew up in Bridgeport and wanted that aesthetic here,” Overton said. “Except, not so much dark as fun.”

And so, on a peaceful morning, The Slits’ “Typical Girls,” and a canon of punk classics, blast away while customers peck at laptops.

“I wasn’t sure about any of this at first,” she said. “Now it’s an extension of our home.”

A similar spirit animates The Brewed coffeehouse in Avondale, which is lined with display cases of horror memorabilia culled from personal collections of its owners. A “Dark Shadows” board game. A commemorative “Creature from the Black Lagoon” plate. Woven into the decor are nods to John Carpenter’s “They Live” and Jordan Peele’s “Get Out.” A skeleton nonchalantly occupies a stool among the living. The very name, The Brewed, is a clever take on David Cronenberg’s “The Brood.”

“We had an inkling this could work,” said Jason Deuchler, co-owner with Nick Mayor and Jen Lemasters. “What we didn’t know is how much this would be embraced.”

At least a a thousand customers attended a Halloween market on a recent Sunday, the line for coffee curling long past the shop’s antique tube TV, which plays either a clip of the spooky girl from “The Ring” or the malicious Halloween commercial from “Halloween III.”

“I think there’s room for more (horror coffeehouses) like this,” he said, “and you know, one person’s passion so easily can become a parody, but right now, with the way our daily lives can seem to be reflected by horror, I think we’re in a good place for more.”

The last thing Julia Goodmann, co-owner with Lisa Harriman, of Loaves + Witches coffeehouse in Edgewater wants is a parody of the dark arts. They are self-described “witchy” owners, practicing witches, “very much aligned spiritually with the occult,” Goodmann said. The look is elegant, black and white, with only a handful of clear references to witches.

But the gothic sensibility is undeniable.

“Some of my family thought we were going for kitschy witchy,” she said, “like Disney caricatures, with ‘Hocus Pocus’ cauldrons or something. And we were thinking witchy as in earth forward, nature, warm, inviting. Still, having witches here and there is fun.”

Anushka Sen, an assistant professor of English, reads at a table at Loaves and Witches on Oct. 16, 2025, in Chicago. Hanging on the wall behind her is a collection of bones and dried flowered made by an artist named Horisora. The bones have intentions written on them often as part of spiritual rituals. Loaves and Witches is a witch-owned, coffee house in Edgewater (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune)

They offer a Coven Cold Brew and a Hex Your Ex Coffee Cake, but the most outwardly frightening element are the images on their bags of coffee, which, like the coffee at Jackalope, comes from Parker Slade and his horror-themed Lakeview roasting business, Hexe Coffee. On the bag of his Brazilian and Peruvian blend, there’s an eyeball impaled on a knife; on the front of another bag of beans, a horde of demons and ghosts scream out of a man’s skull.

“I have definitely heard from at least one big grocery chain that ‘No, no, look, absolutely not! You can not put stuff like that on the side of a coffee bag,’” said Slade, who started Hexe in 2016 while he was roasting coffee at home and binging murder podcasts.

About six years ago, he got around the understandable hesitation for ghoulishly-branded coffee by opening a Hexe coffeehouse on Diversey Parkway. On a recent Saturday morning, like many mornings here, it had a line out the front door of parents and strollers and elderly couples and tech bros, a sharp contrast to Hexe’s dark industrial aesthetic.

An employee walks past a wall featuring a witches broom and a bulletin board entitled “The Coven” at Loaves and Witches on Oct.16, 2025, in Chicago. (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune)

A taxidermied tarantula beside the bar. Paintings of skulls and flowers. Antlers. On the wall behind one toilet, in a Ye Olde New England font, it read: “What Fresh Hell is This?”

And yet, that’s Steely Dan playing softly in the background.

“People always tell me that it’s so ‘cute’ in here,” Slade said. “And I get so angry at that. ‘Cute’ is really not what I was going for. And that’s when I will throw some Slayer on.”

Little Afternoon Shops of Horror

Before you’ve even stepped across its threshold, Ghoulish Mortals in St. Charles beckons. Tentacles (inflatable) uncurl out of the second story of its old brick storefront. The flower boxes out front are full of black (metal) flowers that glower. The wavering theme to Disney’s “Haunted Mansion” ride drifts across the sidewalk. You step inside only to trigger a motion sensor that, on most days, sets off the creeeak of a heavy castle door.

Inflatable tentacles poke out of the windows of Ghoulish Mortals, a horror themed store in St. Charles, on Oct. 16, 2025. The store sells monster as well as horror items and art in their various themed sections. (Dominic Di Palermo/Chicago Tribune)

Ghoulish Mortals comes on like a direct descendant of House of Monsters, though its wares are a mix of collectible horror movie tchotchkes and art prints, many by local artists. (“Creeptastic products” is how they put it.) “Is this all there is?” a woman asked me the other day, beside a shrine to “Creature From the Black Lagoon.” We were only in the first room, and like any good scary building, the place just goes on and on — past an H.P. Lovecraft alcove, a replica of the Christmas-lights living room in “Stranger Things,” and an Audrey II from “Little Shop of Horrors” big enough to selfie yourself in its jaws.

It’s the kind of place you browse without buying — what am I going to do with an cannibalistic-looking Elmo doll? Or a Bigfoot patch? Or the sweetest little crocheted goat demon doll? And, indeed, for a while, said Dove Thiselton, who owns Ghoulish Mortals with husband Warwick Price, “there wasn’t a vacation for years, we were sad and broke. Though now” — after seven years in St. Charles — “we’re making money.”

Dawn Dominguez, of Minooka, left, takes a picture of her friend Laurie Schneider, of Wilmington, who posed for a photo with a life-sized Michael Myers figure, from the movie “Halloween” in the basement of Ghoulish Mortals in St. Charles, on Oct. 16, 2025. (Dominic Di Palermo/Chicago Tribune)

What comes across is the simple nerdy joy of sharing a monster — or a love of the genre itself. The Horror House, across the street from The Brewed, will sell you a “Friday the 13th” T-shirt or a Pennywise fanny pack or sunglasses that appear to be soaked in blood, but the meat of the store is Frankenstein dolls, Dracula puppets, retro Halloween decor that, come on, nobody who shops here takes down after Oct. 31.

Personally, I’m less enthusiastic about the enamel Charles Manson pin that you can buy from Graveface Records & Curiosities in Bucktown, or a John Wayne Gacy shirt, but their taxidermied squirrels flipping the bird? What it lacks in classic horror it makes up for in fever dream. (To complete the vibe, they also sell cult horror film soundtracks.)

Bucket O’ Blood Books & Records in Avondale — its eye-popping psychedelic eyeball sign on Elston Avenue a neighborhood fixture after more than a decade — is not named for the 1959 Roger Corman horror comedy, but ancient slang for an unsavory business. It wears its name proudly, like a reminder that scary things were not always embraced so warmly. As you enter, the front is given over to horror literature, diced into countless categories — medical, indigenous, witchy, extreme.

“To be honest, this store came out of a personal need of my partner and I,” said Jennifer McKee, co-owner. “We were frustrated at not being able to find small press horror, out-of-print sci-fi, marginalized voices. And in the time since? We’ve grown and expanded. It was a personal project, it was never ‘Oh, this thing will become a trend a decade later.’”

Children of the Night

At Wolfden Brewing in Bloomingdale, I walked to the bar and asked where to find the ghosts. If one can roll their eyes loudly, the woman to my right managed. The bartender smiled. They get this a lot. Wolfden isn’t a horror business per se; its wolf motifs stop short of full moons and man-beasts. But Wolfden isn’t shy about being a local pub that happens to be haunted — they tout themselves as the most haunted brewery in Illinois.  They offer occasional ghost hunting tours of the grounds. The bartender told me to grab a table upstairs — “that’s where customers tend to feel something ghostly around here.”

It was dead silent — a stray bit of light seeped from behind a partially closed door.

Probably nothing.

And yet, Katie Wolf, who owns Wolfden with her husband Krys, said when they bought the 1851 building in 2017 and heard stories of ghosts, they thought it was nothing, too. Until plates started to fly. During trivia night, something growled into the microphone.

Should that make you want to hightail it out there and toward a stiff drink at a non-haunted place, might I suggest Electric Funeral in Bridgeport, owned by Overton and Almonte of Jackalope. The facade is jet black. When you enter, you will probably notice the two-headed goat breathing fog, and the full-sized coffins and a skeleton bartender (and a live bartender).

“We get normies who come in and gape like it’s a Rainforest Cafe,” Overton said.

Fog-producing goat decorations are seen above the entrance to the horror-themed Electric Funeral bar in Chicago’s Bridgeport neighborhood on Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025. (Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune)

Those folks might want to avoid the “Carrie”-minded blood drop planned for Halloween night at The Final Girl in Kenosha, Wisconsin, a small horror-themed neighborhood bar that opened last year, down the street from The Final Inning bar and The Tipsy Bear bar. You can catch the Packers on Sunday here, albeit beneath a mural of Jamie Lee Curtis and Michael Myers and a neon sign that reads “Hello Sidney,” a nod to “Scream.”

“I have to explain the name of the bar all the time,” said owner Chelsea Vecchione, “that it’s a reference to the horror trope of a last girl standing, but it’s also, to me, a reference to how my focus is on beer and Wisconsin but I work in a male-dominated area and I am a queer person who never felt my voice was heard — I am like a final girl, a survivor.”

I stopped by the other day. As I ate the Ripley’s Facehuggers (wings) with Pig’s Blood (Korean BBQ sauce), the door burst open. A boisterous couple walked in and stared at the horror all around us.

“Whoa, this place is nuts!” the man announced.

The bartender shrugged and took their orders. He’d seen scarier.

cborrelli@chicagotribune.com

Crackling leaves and nippy mornings, early sunsets and football games. These are sure signs of fall. But it’s a walk through a farmer’s market or the aisles of a supermarket’s produce section, that fires up my longing to cook autumn-style dishes.

Autumn’s pear crop is always a showstopper. Initially, it’s their voluptuous contours that captivate. The long, slender necks and arched stems of Bosc pears, the round, silhouette of Comice. The gentle curves of the bell-shaped Bartlett.

In the marketplace most often, they are as hard as boulders. They feel more like baseballs than fruit. Not a whisper of sublime sweetness. Not a whiffet of sensuous aroma. They are picked mature but before ripened, then kept in controlled-atmosphere storage. Tree-ripened pears get mushy because they ripen from the inside out.

But ripening pears at home isn’t difficult, you just need to plan on buying firm pears three to five days before you plan to eat or cook with them. The bag-ripening process works like a charm. Place those ever-so-firm pears in a paper bag and loosely fold the top closed. Let them sit at room temperature, checking them every day until the area at the base of the stem slightly yields to gentle pressure. Pears ripen from the inside out, so they usually are ready when there is only a slight give. Then either use or refrigerate them.

Roasted Pears

Roasted pears are delicious used in both savory and sweet dishes. They pair irresistibly with pork; serve them alongside broiled or sauteed pork chops topped just before serving with chutney or chopped macadamia nuts. Or for dessert, serve them with ice cream (salted caramel and butter pecan are favorites). Or for an appetizer, serve them sliced atop toasted baguette slices spread with goat cheese.

Yield: 4 halves

INGREDIENTS

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1 tablespoon sugar

3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

2 tablespoons vegetable oil, divided use

2 ripe (but not squishy) pears, such as Bosc, Bartlett, D’Anjou or Comice, peeled, cut in half lengthwise

DIRECTIONS

1. Adjust oven rack to middle position. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, stir together juice, sugar, cinnamon and cloves. Set aside.

2. Coat a medium-sized rimmed baking sheet with half of the vegetable oil. Toss pear halves in juice-spice mixture and place cut-side down on prepare baking sheet. Drizzle remaining oil on top. Roast until caramelized on bottom and tender, about 35 to 45 minutes (roasting times will vary depending on ripeness and size of pears). Remove from oven and allow to cool. Serve at room temperature.

Award-winning food writer Cathy Thomas has written three cookbooks, including “50 Best Plants on the Planet.” Follow her at CathyThomasCooks.com.

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