Pumpkin Gutter makes evisceration easy

Making a Cylon Jack-o-Lantern will be a piece of cake--er, pie--with the Pumpkin Gutter, a $12 drill attachment that lets you zip through the sticky pumpkin prep stage and get right to carving. All you have to do is cut a hole in the top of the pumpkin, use the dishwasher-safe Pumpkin Gutter to loosen the strings and thin out the walls, and then dump the guts out. The tool even leaves the seeds intact for those who like to turn them into snacks.

We're always wary of seasonal gadgets, which often turn out to be a waste of money. But according to this review on Haunted Bay, the total time from raw pumpkin to simple jack-o-lantern was about 10 minutes, making the Pumpkin Gutter especially handy if you're preparing multiple pumpkins this season.

For a pumpkin-carving tool that might see the light of day at other times of the year, check out Sur La Table's serrated pumpkin carving knife (on sale!), which looks like it would be handy for all manner of thick-skinned fruits and vegetables.

And if you prefer eating pumpkins to carving them, Apartment Therapy: Kitchen has a guide to splitting the smaller, edible pumpkin varieties with a chef's knife, while Star Chefs has articles on pumpkin-friendly wines as well as wine pairings for pumpkin seeds, candy corn, caramel apples, and other Halloween treats.