Building a Dilettante

My approach to magic can at best be politely be called eccentric but there are a lot of sources that helped me get to where I am as a third wave riot girl hearth witch. Should you ever be curious about how I got here.

Reading List for the Dilettante Hearth Witch

Our Bodies, Ourselves - I'm not going to lie, it still appalls me how many women don't know their birth control options or how their bodies work or anything.

WomenSpirit Rising - Just blew my tiny brain open about religion and started me thinking about how to be a riot girl in religion.

The Gospel of Mary of Magdala: Jesus and the First Woman Apostle - This is When Shit Got Real for me as a Women's Studies major.

The Spiral Dance 20th Anniversary - Because you always remember your first, because she still updates it with new info and changes in philosophy. Also I'm mad at Z. and she knows why.

A Subscription to Real Simple - It's the perfect hearth witch mag imo - realistic recipes, how to clean just about anything, financial planning, realistic planners, gardening and essays about various real world stupid motherfucking problems. The real world guide to being a motherfucking adult.

Old Style Conjure Podcast - Oh man do I love me some Momma Starr, she just is the cat's pajamas. I'm going to butch this horribly but when someone essentially says on a hoodoo podcast, "But you don't just want him back, you want his money. So you're going to Bend Him Over in Jesus' name!" I'm going to love you forever.

White Wolf Mage: The Ascension Role Playing Game Books: Dreamspeakers, Cult of Ecstasy and Spirit Ways - As long as you understand that they are *fiction* for a *pretend role playing game*, they're helpful as they're well researched.

Animal Speak - a great primer on some basic Native American Shamanic concepts

Hoodoo Herb and Root Magic: A Materia Magica of African-American Conjure - Super helpful hoodoo reference book.

Compendium of Herbal Magick - Really helpful Euro magical herb compendium

Rules of the Game - teaches basic NLP techniques and I find it helpful in my glamoury work

Eat, Pray, Love - it really encapsulated my post divorce spiritual journey and helped me focus on what I'm trying to accomplish.

Evolutionary Witchcraft - This book really helped me come to terms with being a Reclaimist. The Iron Pentacle meditation has changed every group I've led it for, it's that amazing.

Rune Soup - Because magically speaking, Gordon really is my better half.

Let's talk about you.

So right now with a lot of real life junk going on for me as well as trying to actually stop fucking around and start on my hearth witchery book, I'm a bit stumped for blog posts. So, let's do an Ask the Readers entry. Have any magical quandaries that you'd like my questionable input on? Looking for a particular recipe that I may know? Have an etiquette question? A prying personal question? Ask away here! Or if you'd like to be anonymous, shoot me an email at: corvaxgirl [at] gmail [dot] [com].

Retro Recipe Monday: Blackberry Tongue

After an Easter with too much food and wine, I can't even fully think about finding a recipe of mine to use which brings us back to Retro Recipes. Today finds us with a new to the blog book "Thoughts for Buffets" from 1958 which starts with the charming "Dear Hostess" and explains about the changing gastronomic world. Also apparently fyi, Woodstock was a common enough dish to make an appearance in this book as well. But today oh today we will be learning all about . . .

Blackberry Tongue

5 pounds whole boiled tongue, fresh, smoked or pickled
1/2 cup raisins
1 cup water
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1 cup blackberry jelly

Remove root end and skin of tongue; place in a greased baking pan. Simmer raisins in water for ten minutes; drain, blend with lemon juice and jelly and pour over tongue. Bake uncovered in a 325 oven for 45 minutes. Delicious hot or cold.

To boil tongue: Fresh
1 4- or 5-pound tongue
2 bay leaves
1 tablespoon mixed spices
1 1/2 teaspoons salt

Boil the tongue in salted seasoned water to cover, about 3 1/2 hours or until very tender. Simmer slowly.

Smoked
Cover tongue with cold water. If very salty, pour off the boiling water and re-cover with fresh. Boil about 3 1/2 hours or until tender.

Pickled
Pickled tongue is usually well seasoned. Do not pour off any water. If desired, a clove of garlic and 1 tablespoon mixed spices may be added. Boil about 3 1/2 hours or until very tender.

New Article Up on WitchVox

Popping Pills and Magical Practice

Solutions for Workplace Gossip

As I mentioned before, a reader wrote in to ask me what to do in a situation where there was work place gossip about her due to a personal problem with a coworker that was beginning to affect the opinions of her superiors in addition to affecting the opinions of her coworkers. She had enjoyed working in her work place before all this started and wants to do her best to safeguard her job security.

Here is what I suggested.

1. Invite the woman out to lunch. Don't bother trying to address the issue because it's on a "hinky" level verses a concrete level that you could specifically address. During lunch, just be as *charm*ing as you can be if you know what I mean (think old movie charming heroines like Audrey Hepburn, etc.) and project an energy of likeableness. Be as fun and outgoing as you can be, she may then think more kindly towards you because of that energy/you both like the real housewives of NJ or whatever.

2. Literally break bread with these people. Bake a loaf of quick bread using this recipe. The honey is important because it will sweeten their dispositions towards you, also add cinnamon to the recipe because that brings good fortune in business and money matters. As you are baking the bread, focus on putting your intent into it - that these people will like you and be favorably inclined towards you in business matters. Offer the bread to everyone who is giving you a problem - coworkers and your superiors.

3. When possible, offer to do the crap jobs that no one wants to do, whatever that is in your office. For me it was dealing with other departments, filing, etc.

4. Make a honeypot. Get a small jar of honey. Empty about two tablespoons of it into a small bowl. Put it on your altar as an offering and if you can, dispose of it by putting it by your work place door (outside). If you can't do that, just put it out on a crossroad somewhere. Get a small piece of brown paper bag that will fit in the jar and write the names of everyone causing you problems 3 times. While you are writing, do not let your pen leave the paper, neatness doesn't count here, continuity does. Put on top of the paper three cloves (to stop gossip), 3 cardamon seeds (to attact good luck), and 3 chamomile flowers (you can get them from a tea bag if need be) (to protect and keep money). Roll the paper towards you while praying for job security and for the gossip to stop and for these people to feel "sweet" towards you (the purpose of the honey). Put it in the honey jar. Screw the lid back on the honey jar tightly. Put the honey jar in your sink or cauldron (some place where it will be safe as we are about to get fire involved here). Now get a small green taper candle and carve a symbol or words for what you want into it and be sure to pray over it as well. Light it off your stove if it's gas, use a match in the kitchen if it's not. Let a little wax melt onto the lid of the jar and anchor the candle on top of the jar. Let the candle burn all the way out (I recommend getting a small taper for this). Put the honey pot on your altar. Be sure to continue burning candles on top of the honey jar with symbols and prayers once a week to keep the mojo going.

Recipe Monday: Bread Machine Honey Wheat Bread

So, I've been trying to eat as many whole foods without preservatives/hinky ingredients or corn syrup as possible. I figure the "no preservatives" is about close to a faux french diet as I'm getting in NJ and the corn syrup isn't about any real political agenda on my part per se, I don't like the aftertaste of it I find and I find it shows up in the weirdest places like kielbasa. I'm okay with it being in canned food as I've cut down on that and it does serve a purpose there in terms of not having the food taste like tin. So part of this quest has also entailed that I've started baking bread . . .in a bread machine. Which to real bakers counts about as much as making a cake from a cake mix and people claim once you make it the "real" way you'll never go back. Here's the thing: if I make it the "real" way and am solely dependent on that for my bread intake, I'm never eating bread again. I just don't have the time and energy to make it from scratch but making it in a machine I get to control what ingredients go in it and it's v. low hassle. At this point, I've got it down pat and don't even need the recipe anymore. And Jow is really good at cutting the bread which is good because my knife skills are "rustic" at best.

1 1/4 cup hot water (as hot as it gets from your tap)
3 counts of honey (like counting a shot), 3 times (approx 3 tablespoons?)
1 1/2 cup bread flour
1 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 capfuls of olive oil
1 1/2 teaspoon Hodgson Mill Active Dry Yeast

Add ingredients to your bread machine in order as they are listed here. Set your bread machine to the smallest loaf, regular whole wheat setting and lightest crust. As your bread machine is mixing, check to make sure the bread is mixing correctly (is it too sticky? Too dry? Add more bread flour or water as needed).

On Doors, Magic, Success and Failure

Of course that I have now smugly tweeted about going to the the Motherfucking Post Office Like an Adult, I need to do what I can to sabotage that effort for myself.

So, let's talk about doors. This particular door started opening when I started having conversation with Gordon because I don't think we're really happy in our platonic inter-continental marriage unless we're blowing each other's minds. I wanted to show him my kitchen witch book outline and as I was summoning the courage to do so, the old computer died. Like dropped dead, no hope. I thought I had backed it up but no, I had instead three versions of the outline forcing me to make a whole new one using the old ones and then adding in stuff as I saw fit. After all that work, I hastily forced myself to push "send". Gordon was completely awesome about it as per usual and had a lot of great advice about that and my crafting business which my fear of success has me currently too afraid to fully absorb so I owe him an email.

Prior to this, every Tarot card reading I've done for the last few months have basically warned me that if I get successful, I have to be careful to not let it be my undoing a la Lady MacBeth which is always lurking around my subconscious.

Additionally, I got my first request on how to deal with a magical situation from a stranger.

On Monday, Jow and I went to New Hope which is a alterna friendly/pagan friendly town and it's always had a special place in my heart. As my friend Sarah once said, It was named right. New. Hope. We went to a winery and drank all sorts of wine with cute boys playing Fiona Apple on the stereo and then to a local store where I bought a new drop spindle and they invited me to their "Spin in"s. Then it was onto the town itself where we had one of the best meals we've ever eaten, period at Havana's with bacon wrapped dates, thick heavy yummy risotto, chicken roti and plaintains mole with Dead Guy ale. We were feeling pretty good about things and food drunk when we stumbled into Mystikal Tymes, the first witch shop I've ever been too. I could tell as soon as we got in that the woman (who I didn't recognize) working there wanted to see my eyes so I took off my sunglasses. We bustled about getting sage, charcoal and candles and then got to the counter and asked for John the Conqueror and lodestones. The woman showed me how the stones worked (I had never seen them in person) and then sort of eyed me and finally said, I don't know why I'm being told to tell you this but if anyone is giving you a problem, do the following thing. It works. (silent understood: this is not strictly "positive" magic). I was floored because it was the beginning of tourist season (though we were alone in the shop) and getting that kind of information is typically a strictly after hours sort of business generally. I replied, thanking her and saying carefully that I appreciated the information and I *always* thought *very* carefully before using this sort of magic. She nodded, satisfied.

We got into the car and I was sort of reeling when I shuffled my iPod for some radiomancy and Fiona Apple's "The Child is Gone" came on:
Honey help me out of this mess
I'm a stranger to myself
But don't reach for me, I'm too far away
I don't wanna talk ''cause there's nothing left to say
So my
Darling, give me your absence tonight
Take all of your sympathy and leave it outside
'cause there's no kind of loving that can make this all right
I'm trying to find a place I belong
And I suddenly feel like a different person
From the roots of my soul come a gentle coercion
And I ran my hand over a strange inversion
As the darkness turns into the dawn
The child is gone
The child is gone


At that point, I felt . . .look, my general ability to sense magic is roughly on par with a sack of potatoes so any kind of "sixth sense" stuff going on without intent is sort of startling but I felt a door inside me open which was really freaky. I feel like I'm being pushed (if by pushed we mean given a good hard shove) towards something dealing with my magic stuff and my writing and it's an even harder shove than when I did SalonCon which is pretty terrifying honestly. I feel like I'm going to be coming into my own and that's difficult to digest because frankly I went from seeking my magickal DESTINY!!!11111!!! to just sort of well . . .ignoring it. I say sort of because I became v. comfortable with who I am and what I can do and I wasn't looking to do more than that anymore. I've also toned a lot of aspects of myself down a lot post divorce because I didn't really care for how broken those aspects left me - ambition, drive, the spotlight, they're all v. cruel mistresses that can come at a big price. I lost my marriage (oh for a ton of other reasons too believe you me, but it was a factor, wasband didn't exactly care for "holding my purse" so to speak), I lost a lot of money and I was never comfortable with occasionally being recognized on the street. And now I see that door opening back up, this time with even more possibilities and more wisdom and . . .I'm frozen like a deer in a headlight. I am way more afraid of success at this point than failure. Failure is easy, you get knocked down and you get up again. Success comes with murky problems that are difficult to navigate.

So I stand here, poised. We'll see what happens.

Recipe Monday: Pasta Primavera

Teacats requested a Pasta Primavera recipe and as we all know I live to serve! My recipe isn't really based on any "real" recipe per se, but what I thought seem yummy and fresh. Oh and I learned in doing this that asparagus is not a vegetable meant for long roasting, the more you know!

1 carton large portabella mushroom caps, sliced
1 handful sliced sundried tomatoes
3 pieces of pancetta, diced
1 small bunch carrots, sliced into planks
2 large zucchinis, sliced into planks
1 handful fresh basil sliced into ribbons
1 handful fresh parsley, chopped
1/4 shredded Parmesan cheese
1 cup 2% milk
1/2 stick reduced fat cream cheese
1 tablespoon butter
3 capfuls of olive oil
1 box conchiglie pasta shells
salt and pepper to taste

Set your oven to 300 degrees. Toss zucchini, carrots, pancetta and mushrooms with olive oil and salt and pepper. Spread over a baking sheet and slow roast for about two hours. During the last twenty minutes, cook pasta according to the directions on the box. Put milk, butter, cream cheese, Parmesan cheese, basil, parsley, sundried tomatoes and salt and pepper to taste in a pot. Put on low heat, cook for about 20 minutes.

Voila!

Recipe Monday: Mushroom Ragout

My recipe today is based off of the recipe that Sarah posted on her blog, Pink of Perfection which is a lovely blog and really honestly everything I aspire to in the French Experiment, she's even recognized by Miss Martha's High Council which is high praise indeed!

2 cartons of baby bella mushrooms, sliced big
1 small onion, diced
1/4 pound oyster mushrooms, sliced
1/4 pound shiitake mushroom, sliced in half and de-stemmed
1/2 cup dry white wine (we like Crane Hill Pinot Grigio, it's inexpensive at $4 but def drinkable)
1/2 cupped shredded swiss cheese
3 tablespoons butter
4 slices of bread cut into cubes
1 tablespoon fresh thyme
1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped
3 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Mix the bread, parsley, oil and salt and pepper to taste. Toast in the oven for about 10 minutes. Heat a pan on medium and melt the butter. When the butter starts to foam, add the onion. Cook for 4 or 5 minutes. Add the mushrooms, cook for about 10 minutes, stirring often. Salt and pepper to taste. Add the flour while stirring. Add the white wine and the thyme and parsley, cook for another five minutes. Pour over the bread cubes and top with Swiss. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes.

Done!

Recipe Monday: Mushroom Ragout

My recipe today is based off of the recipe that Sarah posted on her blog, Pink of Perfection which is a lovely blog and really honestly everything I aspire to in the French Experiment, she's even recognized by Miss Martha's High Council which is high praise indeed!

2 cartons of baby bella mushrooms, sliced big
1 small onion, diced
1/4 pound oyster mushrooms, sliced
1/4 pound shiitake mushroom, sliced in half and de-stemmed
1/2 cup dry white wine (we like Crane Hill Pinot Grigio, it's inexpensive at $4 but def drinkable)
1/2 cupped shredded swiss cheese
3 tablespoons butter
4 slices of bread cut into cubes
1 tablespoon fresh thyme
1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped
3 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Mix the bread, parsley, oil and salt and pepper to taste. Toast in the oven for about 10 minutes. Heat a pan on medium and melt the butter. When the butter starts to foam, add the onion. Cook for 4 or 5 minutes. Add the mushrooms, cook for about 10 minutes, stirring often. Salt and pepper to taste. Add the flour while stirring. Add the white wine and the thyme and parsley, cook for another five minutes. Pour over the bread cubes and top with Swiss. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes.

Done!