Q: Do you have any tips for making a haunted house? My kids really want to do one this year, and I'd be willing to give it a try, if I just knew what to do. I'd like to do the front of the house scary, and then have people walk through to the kitchen for treats. And come to that, do you have some good Halloween recipes for cookies and things? We live in a pretty rural area, so trick or treaters stay quite a while before going on to the next house, and a few mini candy bars isn't much to entertain visitors with. Let me know if you have any suggestions.

A: For a haunted house, try these ideas:

• Get some large appliance boxes from a nearby store. Line your hallways with the cardboard. This way you can paint without leaving your house "haunted" permanently. Paint it black or midnight blue.
• Make scary trees. Twist trashbags (dark colored) and staple them to the cardboard. Use many for the trunk, singles for limbs and branches. Hang Spanish moss (from the craft store) for spooky effect.
• Hang cobwebs and bats from the ceiling along with hairy spiders.
• Have the family dress up in costumes to spook the visitors.
• Play scary music and sound effects for the visitors.
• Make a mad scientist's laboratory complete with monster and madman or madwoman.
• Paint a skeleton on the wall with glow-in-the-dark paint.
• Consider making the area where you serve treats into an "edible" cottage as in Hansel and Gretel. Use more refrigerator boxes. Cut out a doorway and place over the doorway to the eating area. Glue on some "cookie" shingles, place lollipops in the windowboxes, use a candycane door handle, etc. Let guests pick off what they want to eat!

Lead the brave souls who make it through the haunted portion of your house to these ghoulish delights:

• Have punch in a witch's vat. Float some dry ice for spooky smoke effect. Make the punch orange. Float some sherbet and mini-marshmallows in it.
• Make a Cemetery Cake:
• Make tombstones from marzipan, three days ahead of time. Dust a surface with confectioner's sugar, roll some marzipan (sold in tubes at store or bakery) to 1/8 ". Cut out tombstones. Paint on names or funny epitaphs with a fine brush and food coloring. Dry them out on racks.

Make devil's food cake from a mix or your favorite recipe. Add chocolate pieces. Make cupcakes. Frost with white frosting. Insert tombstones in cake. Drip green frosting to make "grass" by each tomb. Put some gummy worms on the grass for fun!

• Make or buy round sugar cookies. Decorate to look like jack-o-lanterns. Or put out decorations and frostings in small bowls. This is something kids can do while you chat with the parents.
• Make popcorn balls.
• Allow guests to bob for apples.
• Roast some nuts and experiment with different savory seasonings.
• Make apple pie or pumpkin cheesecake. Serve with mulled cider and vanilla ice cream.