Things That Make This Urban Witch Smile

Mark Bittman:

We’re not just buying, we’re growing | Urban agriculture is on the rise. If you’re smirking, let me remind you that in 1943, 20 million households (three-fifths of the population at that point) grew more than 40 percent of all the vegetables we ate. City governments are catching on, changing zoning codes and policies to make them more ag-friendly, and even planting edible landscaping on city hall properties. Detroit, where the world’s largest urban farm is under development, has warmly and enthusiastically embraced urban agriculture. Other cities, including Pittsburgh, Philadelphia (more on Philly in a week or two), New York, Toronto, Seattle, Syracuse, Milwaukee and many more, have begun efforts to cultivate urban farming movements. And if local food, grown ethically, can become more popular and widespread, and can help in the greening of cities — well, what’s wrong with that?

More, including a great Wendell Berry quote, here.

It occurs to me that Beltane would be a great time for Witches and other Pagans to do blessings for local, community, and urban gardens and farmers' markets. (Although performing the Great Rite at the farmers' market could be dicey. ;) )

Picture found here.

Red Curried Lentils with Apples

When I have time, nothing says "Sunday" to me as clearly as the chance to do some cooking for the coming week. I work a lot of hours, so coming home to something that's already made and easy to heat up is one way that I work on my physical presence in the world, as the alternative is too often a meal out or "cheese/crackers/martini."

Today I roasted a chicken, sliced the meat for sandwiches, and made chicken soup. I also tried this recipe from Washington Green Grocer, albeit w/ a bit of tweaking.

Olive oil
4 carrots, peeled and finely chopped
3 ribs celery, finely chopped
1 medium onion, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons curry powder
7 cups water
1 pound dried lentils, rinsed and picked over
1 cup tomato puree or 1 (14.5-ounce) can crushed tomatoes
2 cups of chopped greens of your choice...I used [kale, which was the freshest green at Whole Foods this morning]. You can skip the greens too, but this is a great way to get them into your diet!
Salt and coarsely ground black pepper to taste

Drizzle a few tablespoons of olive oil into a dutch oven or stockpot and heat over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot, add chopped carrots, celery, and onion. Saute until the vegetables are just beginning to get tender. Add garlic and curry powder. Continue to saute, stirring, for another 2 to 3 minutes.

Add one cup of water to the pot, scraping up the browned bits at the bottom. Then stir in the remaining water, the lentils. Bring to a boil. Once the stew comes to a boil, stir, reduce heat, and simmer for about thirty minutes, stirring occasionally.

Check the lentils for tenderness at about 30 minutes. When they are fairly tender, stir in the tomato puree and the greens . Let simmer until the lentils are tender but not mushy.Taste for seasoning and adjust salt and pepper as necessary.

When you are ready to eat them, poach a couple of eggs, and lay them on top of the hot lentils. Dollop some plain yogurt on top and enjoy! You can serve it as is or with toast or tortillas, or pappadums...whatever you like.
Makes enough lentils for 8 servings.

I used red lentils and substituted a chopped (bit past lunchbox prime) apple for two of the carrots. Added a teaspoon and a half of Tumeric, which has demonstrated anti-cancer properties and which you won't even taste under the curry powder. I skipped the poached (my favorite) eggs, which, although they would add protein would also up the cholesterol content. This stuff smells so good cooking you can hardly stand it. It makes a lot; I ate a bowl; froze a lot, and put some in the fridge for the coming week.

Tangerine & Roasted Thyme

Here's a lovely dinner for a Wintery Friday night.

What are you feeding your Inner Child these days?

Picture found at the link.

Food to Die For

While I'll admit to being a bit of a foodie, I grew up in the South and my mom was from even deeper in the South and I do love good Southern cooking, even if it's not as fashionable as some other forms of cuisine.

A few years ago, a friend gave me Food to Die For: A Book of Funeral Food, Tips, and Tales,. Now, down here, South of that line drawn by Mr. Mason and Mr. Dixon, when someone dies, we start to cook. It's almost as if we believe that you can stave off any more deaths if you just prepare enough food. Food almost immediately gets taken over to the family of the deceased and more food (usually, lots more food) is prepared for after the funeral when family and friends gather together for comfort. So I've come to love this book not only for its hint of Goth mixed with Southern Lady, and for its historical discussions of funeral customs, but also for its recipes, which I use for many occasions other than funerals.

I pulled it out a few days ago looking for appetizer ("pick-up food," according to the book) recipes that I could use for Thanksgiving. Cucumber Sandwiches, Cheese Straws, Ham Biscuits, Deviled Eggs, five different recipes for Pimento Cheese (I adore this stuff; do they even make it outside the South?), Hot Tomato Bouillon. As the book explains:

The greater the extent offerings for a bereaved household or funeral reception can be prepared before presenting, the better. Completely ready food is an act of great thoughtfulness appreciated by those staffing unfamiliar kitchens crowded with people and all sorts and conditions of food. . . . It could be said that the more a funeral repast resembles a cocktail party -- with or without the alcohol -- the better.

And the Goddess knows that if my own after-party does not resemble a rather nice cocktail party (avec the alcohol), my unquiet ghost is going to show up and want to know the reason why. My circle knows where the really good bottle of champagne is stowed.

I think I'm going to make ham biscuits, one of the simplest (make buttermilk biscuits, split them and butter the inside, fill with thinly-sliced Smithfield ham, serve with hot pepper jelly, if desired) and most delicious foods of the South, deviled eggs from a friend's recipe, and my own crab dip that, while not found in this recipe book is, indeed, to die for.

Picture (and another review of the book) found here.

Carrots

Sunday Poetry Blogging

By what miracle
does this cracker
made from Kansas wheat,
this cheese ripened in French caves, this fig, grown and dried near Ephesus,
turn into Me?
My eyes,
My hands,
My cells, organs, juices, thoughts?

Am I not then Kansas wheat
and French cheese
and Smyrna figs?
Figs, no doubt,
the ancient Prophets ate?

~Judith Morley in Earth Prayers from Around the World: 365 Prayers, Poems, and Invocations for Honoring the Earth, ed. by Elizabeth Roberts & Elias Amidon

Picture found here.

You Gonna Eat That?

Continuing our discussion concerning mindful eating,* I recently came across this quote from Alisha Little Tree, who occupied a redwood tree to prevent logging:

I stopped being a vegetarian after that tree sit because I connected with that tree so intensely . . . it has really changed my whole reality. Now I'm thinking of beings not as conscious creatures, but as life-force. There's a really strong life-force in all of us, and in this forest in these trees. Connecting to the tree [is like just being,] it's not like you talk to the tree, because it can't hear, but there's this feeling. I don't know how to describe it, [it is], like a deep rootedness, very powerful, not superior to us, but certainly not inferior to us and more primitive or less evolved than us.

~quoted in Dark Green Religion: Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future by Bron Taylor.

Taylor asked Alisha Little Tree about how the experience impacted her eating habits and she replied:

Because I just started to appreciate the incredible life-force in plants . . . and the line between animal and plants blurred. It's all just different forms of life-force.

Id.

For Lierre Keith, the change in her habits appears to have been related to becoming aware of various scientific studies that highlighted the consciousness of plants (although she discusses the desire that this information created within her for a direct experience with plants) while, for Alisha Little Tree, the change came about as a result of a direct experience, in nature, of the consciousness of plants. In both cases, the women were willing to accept new information (however received) about the interconnection of everything and to change their behavior based upon the new information. What would you do differently if you were even more vibrantly aware of this interconnection?

I'll suggest that practicing mindfulness and gratitude when purchasing, preparing, eating, and disposing of food can be a transformational spiritual practice. Stopping for a moment to be aware of the sacrifices/gifts involved in the food you are about to consume is a good place to start. What would it mean for you to eat as a sacred act, to eat as a Priestess/Priest? Does any part of your practice involve offering food to the Goddesses, Gods, ancestors?

*I'll repeat that I'm not making any judgments about how or what people eat, nor am I advising any eating regimen. I don't think it's my business to tell other people what to eat. People make choices about food based on a wide variety of personal likes and dislikes, health reasons, ethical decisions, and other factors. I am suggesting that we include more mindfulness and gratitude in our daily eating practices.

Picture found here.

Eat, Pray, Love -- But, Then, I Repeat Myself

Aquila ka Hecate explains, much better than I could, what I was trying to say in the post below about how our eating relates to our religion:

I'm not even stretching the truth to make a point when I say that the weed by the roadside, the crumb of granite rolling on the pavement, the motes of illuminated air dancing in the evening streetlights, the very quarks themselves - all partake of this consciousness which builds and destroys, eats and is eaten. I'm part of the process. My body is, and will be, food. It is food right now for milliard mites and bacteria. Any woman who has born a child (and most who have not) are in no doubt that they are food, too.

When I die, I expect to be food for insects and worms and single-celled organisms. I eat animals as well as plants because I do not distinguish between their levels of consciousness - indeed, I feel that distinguishing in such a way may be only what we humans tend to do.

I'll propose two very basic ways to change your own relationship with eating: (1) Stop criticizing others for how they eat/don't eat, what they eat/don't eat, how much they eat/don't eat, etc. When you find yourself about to give voice to judgment (even internally) on this point, take a breath, ground, center, see if you can just be present for a moment with that unnoticed part of yourself that makes you care what someone else puts in their mouth. (2) Begin to practice mindfullness concerning your own food. Simply stopping for a few seconds and sending gratitude to the plant or animal that you are about to consume -- and to the people who harvested, slaughtered, prepared it -- can become a very powerful spiritual practice.

And, of course, there are poems:

Oh my brothers of the wilderness,
My little brothers,
For my necessities
I am about to kill you!
May the Master of Life who made you
In the form of the quarry
That the children may be fed,
Speedily provide you
Another house,
So there may be peace
Between me and thy spirit.

~Mary Austin, in Earth Prayers from Around the World: 365 Prayers, Poems & Invocations for Honoring the Earth, edited by Elizabeth Roberts & Elias Amidon

Picture found here.

Kitchen Witchery

Cooking w/ marigolds. I may try the cucumber dressing for this month's Full Moon.

Marigolds are often considered sacred to the Beloved Dead.

Picture found here.

Elements: Earth

As my v creative friend, K, recently pointed out in comments, visiting the farmers' market is a good way, especially for urban Pagans, to stay in touch with the seasons. There are several quite good farmers' markets near where I live and work; the Falls Church Farmers' Market is one of my favorites. I was there early this morning, sampling peaches and cherries, catching up on civic gossip, and buying tomatoes and mozzarella (Blue Ridge Dairy Company; if you live around here, you'll thank me!).

Sometimes, simple is best.

I slice the tomatoes, drizzle some balsamic vinegar and olive oil, add Genovese basil from the herb bed, crack some pepper, and sprinkle some marigold petals.

Photos by the author. If you copy, please link back.

Rosewater

I love, love, love these long, sun-kissed days just around Litha, when I wake up bathed in golden light and fall asleep while it's still barely dusk. For this year's celebration, I'm making Aprhodite's Cakes, which use just a hint of rosewater (now available at Whole Foods so don't give me that "where the fuck would I buy that?" stuff) from a recipe that I pulled, years ago, out of Sage Woman. Surfing the web, I was delighted to find a post by the original author.

Remembering that all acts of love and pleasure (including, especially, eating) are rituals of the Goddess, you should go read the whole thing.

Here's a tiny taste:

[Rosewater] is particularly effective when combined with its kin, the bramblefruits: raspberries and blackberries. Because they are cousins to roses, these fruits really shine when they are kissed with the essence of the Queen of Flowers. Rosewater is subtle with these fruits, sliding into the flavor mix like a nymph sinking into water, until she is but a shimmer beneath the surface: you know it is there, but you cannot tell what it is. It is only a flowery scent, a flicker of something familiar that is just maddening to the senses, but that cannot be grasped: the nymph dances laughingly beyond the satyr’s reach.

Last year, my friends, the very friendly and very healthy hippie organic farmers at the farmer’s market, had a banner crop of blackberries, so they were selling these plump, shining beauties for next to nothing. These berries were so soft, so yielding and so full of sugar, that you could barely pick them up without bruising them and being stained with roseate juice. Just driving home with them filled my car with a miasma of sweetness, and when I brought them into the house, my kitchen smelled like the very tumescent essence of summer Herself.

I ate some by themselves, but I also decided to create a fitting frame for these lovely wonders. I baked a batch of sweet cream scones, a very rich and short pastry that is still moist, due to the addition of cream. They are not overly sweet however, because they did not need to be: the berries were dripping with fructose by themselves. I took some of the berries, the prettiest, and left them whole. The others, I macerated with just a touch of sugar to get them to release their juices, a squeezing of lemon juice to balance the sweetness with a note of acid, a goodly dollop of Chambord to add richness, and a few crystalline drops of rosewater to deepen the flavors.

I split the scones while they were barely warm, and spooned macerated berries over the first layer, then laid a spoonful of softly whipped, barely sweetened cream over it. I capped it with the top of the scone, added another spoonful of berries and juice, then the cream, and topped it all with three whole, perfect berries.

The recipe for Aphrodite's Cakes is available at the link above. The one bit of advice that I'll give is to use about half as much rosewater as you think you should use. There's a very, very, very fine line between an orgasmic sense that you're consuming the essence of a water nymph dancing just outside the grasp of saytr and a "need to go get a drink" sense of having consumed perfume. But, seriously, how can you not make them when you read this:

Chef Rainer, who is also from Bavaria, took a bite, and had a bit of a swoon. He finished it, opened his eyes, and said, in his accented baritone “It is like going to Church. It is better than communion. What do you call it?” I said, “Aphrodite’s Cakes.” And he smiled, and said, “Which would you rather eat, Christ, or Aphrodite?” I don't know about you, but even as a very straight woman, I know the answer to that.


How are you going to celebrate the longest day?

Picture found here.

What Says Litha To You?

And, right on schedule, the daylilies, my Litha flower are budding like mad.

Maybe I'll serve this to my Litha gathering:

DAYLILIES STUFFED WITH ORIENTAL
CRAB SALAD
1 cup fresh bean sprouts
2 medium cucumbers, peeled, seeded and
sliced into matchstick-sized pieces
1/2 pound crab meat or crab substitute*
1 tablespoon sesame oil
2 tablespoon light soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon sugar

* Blanche the bean sprouts by dropping them in
boiling water for about a minute. Then cool nder cold running water. They should still
have a crunch.

* Combine all ingredients thoroughly and
refrigerate. You can even make the crab salad a
day in advance.

*When you are ready to serve,
spoon several tablespoons of the salad into the
center of each daylily flower. You may also top
each filled daylily with a scattering of toasted
sesame seeds or finely chopped scallions for a
more colorful presentation.

* Smaller daylily flowers require less crab
salad, so this recipe makes enough to stuff two
dozen large daylily flowers or 30 smaller
flowers.

Recipe found here.

Photo by the author; if you copy, please link back.

Witchy Work

I've been thinking a lot about this post, in which an African Witch blogs about preparing for Winter:

As I weed and rake leaves, I spend some time recalling my animal companions who gifted me with their presence so briefly and from whom I have learned so much. It is a time of the year when seeds are sown in darkness, a time of dying and gestation. In preparation for the coming winter, I store firewood and sacks of charcoal, make sure that the guttering is not choked with leaves, lay down mulch on beds of pak choi seedlings. garlic chives and broccoli. Since this is a winter rainfall region, steps need to be taken to ward off damp or mildew, the loft checked for leaks, electrical connections kept dry and insulated. Some of this may not sound very witchy, but it is practical magic, burrowing down for the dark months ahead. Out here the wind blows from the north strongly enough to uproot unstaked trees and I have some young olives and pecan nut trees as well as a pomegranate that need extra protection. And I keep a watchful eye out for birds who may have chosen to over-winter here rather than flying south.

My first reaction, upon reading it, was, of course making sure that the rain gutters are clear of leaves is the work of a Witch. Of course mulching vegetable beds and staking trees is witchy. Of course feeding birds is a ritual of the Goddess. Maybe we tend to see the work of Spring -- planting seeds, enjoying flowers, watering plants -- as more witchy. But only if we're fluffy bunny witches and, well, we're not.

I was thinking about it this morning, as I pulled out of the fridge all of the veggies that my CSA has delivered and concocted a stir-fry with them. I don't pretend that belonging to my CSA is the same in terms of, for example, carbon footprint, as growing my own food. But it's closer to local and, IMHO, better than the grocery store. Not the least because my CSA knows from where they've gotten the food. Thus, this week, when there was a recall of some tainted lettuce in the US, my CSA was able to tell us: Please be assured that none of the Romaine lettuce that you would have received from us is affected in any way by the recall. All of our Romaine was sourced from one farm.

But it is work belonging to the CSA. I sometimes work some long hours, have to eat out with clients, etc. And, somehow, I have to cook and either eat, freeze, or give away what the CSA delivers. It's different from the standard American method of meal planning: "Let's see, I'd like to have grilled tilapia, asparagus, and a pear tart so I'll go buy ingredients for those things." Instead, it's: "CSA delivered carrots and fennel and oranges this week; I'll go on line and look for a recipe for fennel and orange salad to which I can add grated carrots." Or, "If I make tuna salad for my bag lunch tomorrow, I can use up the celery from the CSA, add some grated carrots and leeks, throw in some brocco sprouts." That's, to my mind, the work of a Witch. You can do it while working at being fully present and in relationship with the food that you're preparing. You can spend time sending blessings to the people who grew it, picked it, delivered it. You can do it with intent, imbuing each meal with health, vitality, strength. And, then, there's the waste. You can't chop up a bunch of vegetables without making a lot of compost. My compost bin is one of the most serious magical sites on my property and Goddess knows there's scraps of paper, poppets, egg shells, and other things in there that I've magicked with stuff that I want to go away, stop being harmful, be transformed. And, after a marathon peeling and chopping session, I'm left with a delicious stir-fry and a paper bag full of peels, ends, etc. I take a minute, imbue them with something that I want to see transformed, and into the Sacred Compost Bin of Transformation they go.

Is it the work of a Witch? it must be. I'm a Witch and it's my work.

Pantheism And Food

You have to watch the odious S. Quinn, but, still the message comes through, despite her self-satisfied, obscene need to feed off of others' connetions to the divine.

CSA Cookery.

This week, the CSA delivered an abundance of broccoli, along with some carrots. I added ginger, garlic, onions, and tofu. Stir-fried up in tasty peanut oil (there's now an organic brand that can handle high heat) and flavored w a bit of Balducci's ginger plum sauce. Enough for lunch today and some to pack for lunches this week.

Oh, Yeah, It's Ours And You Can't Have Any. You Going To Finish That?

Tomorrow is National Pie Day

In 1644 Oliver Cromwell banned eating pie, saying it was a Pagan pleasure and it wasn't [un]banned until 16 years later.


I'll have the bourbon pecan, please.

Picture found here.

It Was A Good Day For Soup

Misty and grey all afternoon. I pulled some of this soup out of the freezer and had it with bread topped with goat cheese and scallions. Perfect.

Ginger Shrimp

I got this recipe from the divine Vicki at Eschaton.

Ginger Shrimp

1# shrimp, deveined, with tails intact

Marinade:

1 T chopped, fresh ginger (1 t ground ginger works, too)

1/4 t red pepper flakes

2 T finely chopped parsley (2 t dried parsley is okay)

1 bay leaf

1/4 teason thyme

2 T olive oil

Juice of half a lemon

salt and pepper, to taste

Combine the marinade ingredients and mix well. Marinate the shrimp at room temperature for a half an hour.

Meanwhile, melt:

6 T butter, combined with one crushed clove of garlic.

Broil, saute, or grill the shrimp for a minute or two. Turn them over, and
cook for 2 - 3 additional minutes.


For the last two months of her pregnancy, my brilliant DiL was on bed rest. On Saturdays, I'd cook up storm: a pot of vegetable pistou or of chicken, sweet potato, and wild rice soup, a roast chicken, collards, corn bread, tapioca pudding, spanikopita, stuffed peppers, walnut bars, berry salad with sugared ricotta dressing, blood oranges, grapefruit, pomegranate, and kiwi in honey, whatever I could cook up so that she'd stay off her feet. Someone, her doctor or childbirth coach or doula -- I forget who -- advised DiL to eat as much protein as possible, and so I made this shrimp recipe several times; Son and DiL both like shrimp and it's pretty much protein.

So, tomorrow is G/Son's third B/Day party. DiL has about 30 people, most of them three years of age or younger, coming over to her lovely, warm, inviting home. I cooked up four pounds of ginger shrimp, remembering those cold, scary months when we all worked every kind of magic that we could work to get G/Son safely here. And, I did that v odd magic that I've been doing for almost 20 years, I sent magic back to my scared self in 2006, standing at the counter chopping ginger and garlic, squeezing lemons, melting butter. I tell myself: It will turn out better than you can imagine. You can do this. Hang in there. It will be ok. And, back in 2006, I use and depend upon that magic.

Obama Restaurant Watch

Here's a v young Barack Obama extolling the virtues of Dixie Kitchen and Bait Shop. He's a fan of johnny cakes and peach cobbler. Nothing wrong with that. And, BTW, it's National Pancake Week. G/Son is a huge fan of pancakes, esp. w strawberries. This coming weekend, I'm going to take him and his 'rents out for brunch and I know that he'll order pancakes. Ever see a three-year-old put away an adult order of pancakes? The good thing is that the carbs send him straight into Nap Heaven.

Obama Restaurant Watch

Dear Mr. Obama,

Maybe this weekend, you can take Michelle and your two lovely daughters to Kramer's Books & Afterwords. It's a DC institution. You can buy some books and, then, have Obama Family Chili for just $12. At Kramer's, they make it from Café ground beef shoulder, onion, pepper & red beans, cumin, oregano, turmeric, basil, chili powder, and tomato; topped w/cheddar, red onion, scallion, sweet peppers & sour cream. Kramer's serves it with seasonal green salad w/apple, onion & walnuts.

I was there today for lunch and had the Narragansett Baked ½ Lobster w/ crabmeat, brushed w/sweet butter & fired under the broiler, w/Café mac & cheese, corn & lima bean succotash; grilled fresh asparagus. You can walk next door to Marvelous Market for v good brownies for dessert.

Come on. You live here. Take the girls out to eat and buy books here.

More on the Obamas' trips to various restaurants in DC here.

Picture found here.