Hello, Readers! I suppose most of You who are kind enough to take Your time and read Kitchen Witchcraft, like trees. It’s a reasonable assumption to make about us Witches, isn’t it? And I suppose many among You might also like broccoli, since it’s a pretty neat vegetable. Well, flower, actually, although we should not get all botanical on the matter, because strictly botanically speaking, there is no such thing as “vegetables” – there are flowers and leaves and roots and fruit and tubers and rhizomes, all doing their best to be delicious. And I don’t think we have had even one recipe with broccoli here on KW, a problem which I will attempt to rectify as soon as I get any decent ideas*. In the meantime, You can admire (or shake Your head in exasperation at) the fruits of my lazy Saturday afternoon on this here picture. Because I think that maybe at least some of You like LEGO, and I suppose most of You were, at some point in Your life, amazed at the miniature tree that a broccoli flower actually is.
Oh, and blessings for the coming spring, too.
* There is a vegetarian bar in my city which does absolutely perfect lasagne with broccoli and blue cheese. I have tried, time and again, to reproduce it at home, but was unsuccessful.
Hello, my dearest readers! I realize I have been neglecting You more than usual, what with having been silent for half a year. The thing is, after I allowed myself to get crushed under, well, more or less everything – mostly the weight of my failures – I pretty much lost all motivation to ever get up. And yes, I know You have read this here before, and each time I promised to be back for good, and I wasn’t. A friend I only see once a year told me that, each year, as he asks me how have I been, I tell him the same story, only the details vary. And that’s true, although not exactly encouraging.
New Year has come and went, without much (positive) impact on my life, and I’ve been so wallowing in self-pity that even the Winter Solstice didn’t help. What did help, was an Unexpected Journey.
Yes, I mean “The Hobbit” film. It’s been a bit late to this part of the world, and I’ve been a bit late to the cinema, but there was something in that brief shift to the Middle Earth that made me think, I want adventure, dammit! Where’s my excitement? Where’s everything?
Well, actual adventure does not come knocking just like that – not unless Your last name is Baggins – but I guess something can be done about that. We’ll see.
And in the meantime, I think You should definitely see this - one Englishwoman’s astonishing scale model of Bag End, complete with, well, everything. Since we are all Kitchen Witches here, I will only show you the stove, with its boiling pots, and let You discover the rest.
Note the… and the… and everything.
I have some recipes incoming, although picture quality will probably be rather sub-par. I still don’t have a sensible camera to take them. Yes I do know how pathetic this sounds.
It seems my displeasure with the weather was taken into account – it’s even colder today. But we Witches know that the year is round, and the frost has the promise of fire deep within it, as a great author once wrote. So we wait, and do our best to pass the time reasonably and wisely. And we make candles, eat cheese and celebrate the day of Imbolc.
The recipe for the mulled wine will come up in the next few days, although to be honest You already have it all on the greeting card.
It’s Midwinter again – the second I am celebrating by, among other things, writing a post here. I know I’ve been neglecting my readers more than usual lately, and I also know you must be growing tired of constant excuses. So there won’t be any.
Let me just say something that hasn’t been said in here for some time. Hell, I can’t even remember the last time I wrote here and was not, in some way, depressed. It was probably some time around last autumn, although there have been plenty of reasons to feel lousy since. And yet, here I am, all optimistic and eager to finally make something of my life. We’ll see how long this lasts.
And in the meantime, we have the Solstice to celebrate! It’s not as astronomically significant as the last one, but hey, can’t have everything. And the turning of the tide of darkness should always be a moment of joy. Which, of course, can be greatly expanded by right food, company and music.
I can’t promise to upload the recipe today, but I’m celebrating with a carrot cake this year and you will definitely hear about it in near future. Well, if it comes out all right.
So, there’s no pentagrams in the snow, no blood-shedding, just the warmth of candlelight and of the oven. Time for some plans, too, because it’s going to be all uphill from here.
And, as a small solstical bonus for my readers, here’s a ‘recipe’ – really, it does not deserve the term – for cinnamon oil macerate. It’s pretty handy for both solstical baking and prosperity charms.
I’ve been neglecting my readers, have I not? Well, there’s not much I have to say to excuse myself, but let me tell You this – I’ve been neglecting a lot of things lately. I didn’t even remember the Equinox was today until a friend reminded me. (Thanks, man!) I was planning to share a recipe for stuffed peppers, but it will have to wait.
Well, the year is round, and Kitchen Witchcraft had made a full circle some time ago. The Autumnal Equinox marks the descent towards darkness, the waning time. But fret not – light will come back again, as it always has. Personally I find much solace in that certainty, as I’m sure I’ve written more than once already. The Autumnal Equinox (on this side of the world, of course. Yes, I know about the existence of Australia) is the time to thank the Earth for all she has given, and let her take her well-earned rest. The gifts of Autumn are bountiful and valuable, but we must use them wisely to let them last for the winter. This is the time to make wine, fruit and vegetable preserves, to dry mushrooms and pickle cucumbers and do all these things that humans invented so that the gifts of the Earth are not wasted.
I was never all that good at making jams, but my Mother is, and she already has. Myself I am probably going to celebrate by preparing an alcoholic tincture of some kind (I’ve just found out that our nalewka is a word used for them abroad as well, and currently awaiting trademark registration) if I have the patience. If not, I’ll pickle some peppers or french beans for the winter. It’s really not all that hard, and I like to think of it as a kitchen ritual that is exemplary of the Kitchen Witchcraft practice – with a spiritual as well as practical meaning.
All You need is a jar big enough to hold the portion You want, water, salt and citric acid. Clean the beans and boil them for a short time (3 minutes are enough). The jars have to be absolutely clean and the lids must fit perfectly. For best results, boil the jars in a big pot just before use. Boil the water with salt and acid, put the hot beans into the jars and pour the brine over them. Screw the lids on tight and put the full jar back into the pot. Boil them for about an hour, then take them out. After 48 hours boil them again for about 40 minutes, and now You have jars of french beans ready for winter.
And traditionally, Kitchen Witchcraft provides You with music for this special day. Have fun, I’m off to celebrate!
The typical Bieszczady landscape, once you climb them.
Well, I’m back. It wasn’t all that long a trip, but this particular part of the world has an amazing detachment quality – no matter how much time You spend there, it feels strange to come back to the (more) civilized world. The weather was bad, rain either drizzled continuously or poured in inconvenient mo- ments, my boots were soaking wet for six days straight, and at some point we had to wade a considerable distance through water-soaked clay and mud. And yet it was great, and I will definitely do it again.
I had hoped to find a few herbs that only grow in that particular part of the country, but was unsuccessful. I might have found something else, though, but it’s too early to tell. Whatever the consequences, I’m back, and feeling strangely restless – no mountains to climb, no mud stains to clean… Fortunately, I only have enough time to wash up, dry up my tent and pack for the fantasy convention. Oh, and give my readers a sign that I wasn’t eaten by bears or wolves, both of which can be found there.
You don't see that kind of trees around. In children's' books, sure, but not in reality... Usually.
KW will probably only pick up its regular tempo (ha, ha) after 22 August, when I’m back for good, but I must tell You all, my good readers, that this trip did me a world of good. I actually feel like picking my book up again – the actual book I am supposed to work on all this time.
A group of elves dressed in gray and green would be perfectly natural here. More than tourists in trek boots, actually...
So I’m off to do more strange things in strange woods, but You will definitely be the first to know when I finally cook something nice. In the meantime, the customary blessings!
Just a quick note to let You know, KW will probably go on a month-long hiatus as of today. I know it wasn’t exactly bustling lately, but I’ve had a bit of a hard time, what with trying to make ends meet in self-employment, getting this damn shell of a heart of mine into something resembling working order and dealing with death in the family.
I will be going into the mountains as of tomorrow night, and a very special kind of mountains, too. You can read about them here. I hope to be back in a week, but after that I’m going into another kind of wilderness for a fantasy convention I attend every year. So chances for actually achieving something here will pop up around mid-August.
In the meantime, take care, help Yourselves to the recipes (or the book) and live with my blessings.
I actually did it. I self-published a novella on amazon.com in kindle format. It is not the one I’ve been working on for the last year, though, it’s something else. A lovecraftian bit of haunted house horror I had written on account of being quite a Lovecraft fan.
I’m not expecting huge sales and making a million dollars on it. It’s more of an attempt at determining whether anyone would actually want to read my prose. I’m treating it experimentally, although of course a million dollars would be nice. If you’re interested in the book, it has a website here and can be bought for kindle e-reading devices here. I made the cover design myself, too. It was fun.
It’s a story that aims to maintain some of H.P.L’s original flavour, but refresh some of the more…. lacking areas of his writing. If any of You are familiar with him, You’ll know what I mean.
I would be most grateful for any help in promoting this little folly of mine, but by no means feel obliged to anything. It’s already a big thing that You actually read this blog.
Well, it’s exactly one month since I posted something like this here. But it turned out Mother was right – there’s no possible way to redecorate in less than a month. Between all that’s going on in my apartment, a couple urgent jobs and some personal chaos (surprised, anyone?) I’ve been neglecting my readers. Yes, I know, and I am sorry. Please be assured that Kitchen Witchcraft will be back, and hopefully soon.
In the meantime, apologies for the tedium, and blessings.
Just sharing this nicely done and very helpful poster, found on Charming Italy. It’s a clear, very comprehensible, visual guide to all the different kinds of pasta a lover of Italian cuisine might bump into.
All hell just broke lose in my apartment in the form of a partial renovation, so I probably won’t have much time to cook and post about witchcraft, seeing as my kitchen is full of cardboard boxes stuffed with stuff and everything else is… somewhere. I think. So just be blessed and profit of the nice weather.
