Their small pushcart quickly grew into a thriving business, and soon they opened a store, Chocolatier Petros, at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania. Mary wrote to her brother Petros, Zoë’s grandfather, to come to the U.S. to work in the chocolate business. Petros and his wife worked side by side in the business for many years.

Zoe’s father, George decided to visit her grandfather’s family, and began learning the recipes. He met his wife, Elaini, and the visit turned into a permanent stay.

George, a master chocolatier, has been making the family chocolates ever since—now along with Zoe’s brother, Petros.
Every bite of Zoë’s Chocolate is packed with three generations of love and devotion. But there’s also fun, as you can see in these gourmet Halloween chocolates.

Halloween dudes: skills in white, dark and milk chocolate. Photo by Elvira Kalviste | THE NIBBLE.

Chocolate Bark: How about a bag of batalicious bark (photo below)? White chocolate is decorated with Halloween’s favorite flying friend ($14).

Chocolate Skulls: Spookalicious skulls are available in dark, milk or white chocolate (photo above, $3.50 each).

Marshmallow Ghosts: Soft and gooey ghostly marshmallows with hints of Tahitian vanilla are perfect for those who don’t like chocolate (yes, there are some folks like that). For a ghoulish trick, watch the ghosts disappear in a cup of hot chocolate ($12.00 for a box of 3).

Petros’ Pumpkin: Hollow dark chocolate pumpkins are filled with chewy sea salt caramels and delicious Drunken Pumpkin chocolate—milk chocolate ganache blended with a silky pumpkin puree and combined with cinnamon, nutmeg, and a hint of Cognac. Classic and beautiful, as well as delicious fun ($18.00).

Head over to ZoesChocolate.com to order yours.

Go batty for white chocolate bark. Photo by
Elvira Kalviste | THE NIBBLE.

If your idea of chocolate is a box of ganache- and caramel-filled bonbons, look at Zoë’s classic fare.

While we don’t have space to show them here, head over to ZoesChocolates.com to see them for yourself: beautiful bonbons, half of which have Greek accents:

 
Writing this has taken its toll: We must find a piece of chocolate!

Looking for gluten free treats, mini treats, kosher treats or simply something new and fun? Head to Treat House, a sparkling new establishment that serves up a great selection gourmet Rice Krispies treats.

The flavors include:

Read the full review, and think of Treat House for gluten-free Halloween or holiday treats.
  

Some of our favorite, affordable gifts are customized chocolate bars from Chocomize.com, a NIBBLE Top Pick Of The Week and ongoing favorite.

The base chocolate bar, excellent Belgian chocolate in your choice of dark (72% cacao), milk (34% cacao) or white, is $4.50 (the bar is 3.5 ounces). You can add toppings for about 70¢ apiece, which are then embedded in the top of the bar (some choices are more expensive, some are less).

There’s a seemingly endless combinations of candies, fruits, herbs and spices, nuts and decorations—it’s actually 300 million possible combinations, according to Chocomize.

But for Halloween, you can limit your decision-making to these fun toppings:
HALLOWEEN CHOCOLATE BARS

Head to Chocomize.com and design a few for yourself or for gifts.

The recipe below, courtesy of Mrs. T’s, combines lightly browned apple slices with cooked sweet onions and sautéed pierogies. The dish is topped with a sour cream-cinnamon mixture that smoothly ties the sweet and savory flavor elements together. Think of it for brunch, lunch or dinner.
WHAT’S A PIEROGI?

Pierogi (pee-ROW-gee, with a hard “g”) has many spellings.* But no matter how you spell it, what you get are baked or fried dumplings of central and eastern European provenance.

Pierogies and apples with a side of cinnamon sour cream. Photo courtesy Mrs. T’s.

Pierogi have been made in Poland since the 13th century as a holiday food. Each holiday had its own type of pierogi recipe.
 
*The Polish word pierogi is plural; the singular form is pieróg, but is rarely used since a typical serving consists of several pieces. Alternative spellings include spelled perogi, pierógi, pierogy, pyrogy and pyrohy. Turkish börek and Ukranian varenyky are the same food.

Potato and cheese pierogi with sour cream and bacon garnish (we’d add some chives, too). Photo courtesy PolandForAll.com.

RECIPE: AUTUMN PIEROGIES & APPLES

Prep time is 10 minutes, cook time is 15 minutes.

Ingredients For 4 Servings

Preparation

1. SAUTÉ pierogies as package directs.

2. COOK onion slices in hot oil in a 12-inch skillet over medium heat. Stir occasionally until lightly browned and just tender. Remove to bowl.

3. MELT butter in the same skillet over medium heat. Add apple slices and 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon; cook until lightly browned, stirring occasionally.

4. COMBINE sour cream with remaining 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon in small bowl.

5. COMBINE pierogies with onions and apple mixture; toss to mix well. Serve with sour cream.
 
Find more pierogi recipes at Pierogies.com.

See all the October food holidays.

What’s QVC’s David Venable making for Halloween? These ghost shortbread cookies, iced with white chocolate! He shared the recipe with us:

RECIPE: GHOST SHORTBREAD COOKIES

Ingredients

For The Cookies

 
Preparation

1. PREHEAT the oven to 350°F. Line one (or more) baking sheets with parchment paper.

2. CREAM the butter, sugar, lemon zest, salt and vanilla in the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with a paddle attachment, on medium speed. Reduce the speed to low, add the flour and mix on low speed until a dough forms.

3. PLACE the dough on a surface dusted with flour and form it into a flat disk. Wrap it in plastic and chill for 25 minutes.

4. RETURN the dough to the lightly floured surface and roll it to a 1/3’’ thickness. Cut with a ghost-shaped cookie cutter. Place the cookies on the baking sheet(s) and bake 18-23 minutes, until the edges are light brown. Set the cookies aside to cool completely.

5. MAKE the icing while the cookies are cooling. Melt 10 ounces of the white chocolate in the top of a double boiler set over warm water. Stir constantly until completely melted. Add the other 2 ounces of white chocolate and stir until melted.

6. SPREAD the chocolate on top of each cookie with a spatula, and place the cookies on a parchment paper-lined surface (you can use a cookie sheet). While the chocolate is still warm, decorate the cookies, as desired, with the black candy.

 
Here are more of David Venable’s recipes from “In the Kitchen with David” on QVC.com.