Halloween creepy chic: ghostly white pumpkins

CHICAGO — These pumpkins look like something scared them.

Eerie-looking white pumpkins — naturally white, not painted — are finding their way into more and more homes this Halloween season.

The albinos are called Ghost pumpkins, Snowballs, Luminas or Caspers — presumably a reference to the friendly ghost. And the ones about the size of a baseball? Baby Boos.

White pumpkins are a little bit more expensive than their orange cousins. But parents and party planners say they are more ghoulish and offer a better canvas for drawing or painting a jack-o'-lantern face.

Those who carve the pumpkins will find they have orange flesh beneath the white rind, adding to their ghostly appeal when a candle is put inside. "When you get a dark night, I think they're going to look pretty cool outside," said Karla Neely of Dallas, who bought a white pumpkin for her home last week. "They seem like they will almost glow."

White pumpkins have been around for a while, but what was once a curiosity at farmers markets is now making the scene at larger groceries and pumpkin patches.

Gensler Gardens, a family farm near Rockford, Ill., decided to grow 6,000 white pumpkins this year because the 1,000 last year proved such a hit. But more than a week before Halloween, all 6,000 had been sold, and the Genslers probably will grow 20,000 next year, Scott Gensler said.

"People that are throwing parties tend to buy them," said Deborah Racicot, the executive pastry chef at Gotham Bar and Grill in New York. "These guys ... are looking for the coolest thing to make their party a little more chic than normal."