Retro Recipe Monday: A Day Late, a Dollar Short!

For those of you who are not Mad Men geeks, our Retro Recipe Monday heroine is Betty Draper Francis, played by January Jones.


So while I was not on a Sacred Sexuality panel with D/s mistresses and yoga aficionados and did not develop a nervous habit of cussin' on a panel in the middle of the afternoon like Some People, I was allegedly responsible for being a Track Head at Arisia for Steampunk. Something about running the first Neo-Victorian/Steampunk con, I s'pose. Fear not though, my hearth witchery skills were still put to the test as I led a panel discussion on manners, worked "front of the house" in the green room, led a workshop on Tussy Mussies and hostessed a Cream Tea.

So, I'm tired. We just got back last night and I slept like the dead for like fifteen hours, thrilled that my cat would not be insistent about having a loud discussion about Star Trek in front of my door during sleeping hours (whatever teenage girl that was, I will hunt you down and find you next year so watch your back, sister).

Which is why we get moar Cooking for Company, hooray! Again, my offer stands, anyone who makes anything posted on a Recipe Monday will get a guest Recipe Monday spot with a plug for your blog.

Buttered Shrimp and Pineapple
Unusual food combination makes this pretty main dish a conversation piece

4 tblsp. butter or margarine
1 large green pepper, seeded and cut crosswise into 1/4" thick rings
1 1/2 lbs. large uncooked shrimp (fresh shrimp or frozen, thawed), shelled and deveined
1 (1 lb. 4oz.) can pineapple slices, drained or 8 slices fresh pineapple
3/4 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. pepper
2 tsp. chili powder
Lime or lemon wedges

* Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add green pepper, shrimp and pineapple; season with salt and pepper and generously with chili powder.
* Saute, turning gently, just until shrimp turn pink and green pepper is tender-crisp - about 10 minutes. Serve immediately with lime or lemon wedges and steamed rice. Makes 4 servings.

Recipe Monday: Pasta with Parsley and Dill

This week has been crazy and it's only Tuesday. I'm late on Recipe Monday because we got our cat Bella fixed who decided to declare war on our cat Max for her surgical croning. We finally separated the two with Bella temporarily residing at chez James but it's been a harrowing week with not a lot of sleep since last Monday as they've been pissing and shitting all over and yowling and trying to kill each other in earnest complete with turf wars at all hours of the day and night. Also, we leave for Arisia on Friday and I'm heading a track there so there's been last minute org things there and did I mention I've been sick? Yeah.

Okay, enough crying. Jow and I have been pretending to eat more like French people partly out of curiosity and partly because we want to eat healthier. I've been baking all our breads myself (with help from the bread machine) and making soup from scratch. Next on my list will be to stop using box mixes for things like quick bread, but I'm not quite there yet. The French don't do a lot of elaborate cooking on the day to day, they just use a lot of whole foods. Both Jow and I being Italian, we loves the pasta so along the way, I figured this recipe out.

Parsley is good for protection and love and dill is good for money and hex breaking so you can cover all your magical bases with the two herbs used and can enchant as you see fit (over dinner at a dinner with GoG we agreed that there are the big four magical bases - love, money, protection and hexing). This recipe is quick and economical as well!

Pasta Avec Parsley and Dill

1 box pasta (we like rotini or elbows)
4 tablespoons butter
Palm full of grated Parmesan cheese
1 hand full of fresh chopped parsley
1 hand full of fresh chopped dill
salt and pepper to taste

Cook pasta according to the directions. Drain. Add the rest of the ingredients. Et Voila! Dinner est served!

Thanks to Jason Miller/Self Improvement May Lead to Sleeplessness

Firstly, I want to thank Jason for writing Sorcerer's Secrets, because it is thanks to him I'm sleeping again. Now that sounds like some kind of backhanded bitchy compliment, but it's not. It's v. v. sincere. His book lays out theory and tech in an orderly manner that makes me feel like I can accomplish what he suggests to do, that even a half ass dilettante like myself is capable of not just complicated workings, but using his ideas and funneling them into Deb-Speak and making them my own and making a frightening towering cake of a working covered in pink glittering sparkles and layers upon layers of magical fondant. So I can read a chapter, feel good about my place in the world and my capability and just. go. to. sleep. Herbal compendiums are good for this too.

Of course, up until like three days ago, I wasn't doing this. I was reading life improvement books before bed. They are really, really good and really well written and really useful and will help me build my hello kitty themed empire. But it just makes me all crazy-like and unable to sleep when reading them before bed. I finished Rules of the Game and Entre-Vous. I tried 4HWW but that just made me angry versus feeling inadequate. I’m reading Linchpin currently and will be reading Crush It after. But it makes it so I have trouble sleeping because I worry I will never live my life properly and/or better.

It’s moments like those when you are staring at the ceiling thinking about how hard you’re failing in life because you haven’t done anything particularly awesome as yet and haven’t written a book outline yet even though you were supposed to asap during your unemployment, haven't written a damn thing really yet though you've hardcore re-org'ed your house and yes I'm projecting all over you and you'll just have to deal here, and often have doubts and difficulties even saying hello to strangers let alone cold reading them and then charming them and still have doubts about your wardrobe and your body because this time of year every commercial on television wants to remind you what a naughty terrible unforgivable slag you’ve been so you need to start their diet/exercise program/liposuction immediately and your house isn’t full of charming objects from antique shops and is more cluttered than artfully disheveled and maybe you’re not sure you even have what it takes to be an artist or linchpin or special ponyprincessfirefighterfarmer and maybe you’re just going to be a cog forever.

A cog who never will open a conversation and then hook and seed it, a cog who hasn’t listened to NPR in over a month but who has never missed an episode of Toddlers and Tiaras, a cog who sometimes just likes to be told what to do at work and collect a paycheck and go about her business, a cog who will need to go to the gym eventually even though its tedious and not enjoyable because there’s no Metro to dash to in heels and she’s not v. good in them anyway, a cog who blathers about her life to all comers on the internet and gossips incessantly, a cog who has yet to put together her spinning wheel or start churning out artisan crafts, a cog whose desk is still in the CRV in pieces so she hasn’t written a damn thing yet since starting her month sabbatical, a cog who may still be terminally shy around strangers at Arisia this year, despite running a whole track for it.

All of these doubts plague me before bed, making it so even my elephant tranq level of evening pills I take to smooth out doubts and fibromyalgia that used to, when I had a day job, made it so I drifted effortlessly to sleep every night but now they barely make a dent so that I’m starting to dread going to bed again like I used to pre-medication because I know what will happen, me and all my doubts staring at the ceiling, thinking about all the things I haven’t done.

And when it hits its peak, when you feel completely awful and powerless and useless, take a breath and remember all the people in your life who love you. Right now. As is. Craziness and all. Even if you’re a cog who never starts a conversation with a stranger or gets the hang of buying two good sweaters instead of ten that you’ll toss in a year and you never become an artiste and just collect a pay check and you never lose any weight and keep watching crappy tv, you are still loved and worthy of love. Right now, as is, and never *ever* let anyone tell you otherwise.

Recipe Monday: Jow's Sekrit Beef Stew Recipe

Jow's Beef Stew
1/2 bag frozen peas
2 cans of Italian Stewed Tomatoes (with juice)
2 large carrots, diced
2 large stalks of celery, diced
1 large onion, diced
1 carton sliced mushrooms
1 heaping handful of barley
1 carton beef stock
1 pound stew meat
4 counts red wine
4 counts garlic powder
4 counts salt
1/2 tablespoon pepper
1 teaspoon red pepper
1 bay leaf
flour for dredging
1 capful olive oil

You will need a large stock pot to make this as it's about 12 servings. Heat oil in the stock pot Dredge the stew meat in the flour and brown the meat with the onion, mushrooms, carrots, and celery. Then add the rest of the ingredients except for the barley. Let simmer at medium heat for 1 hour. Then add barley and cook for another 45 minutes to an hour, stirring occasionally to keep barley from sticking to the bottom of the pan. Serve with bread. Delish the day of, even better the following day!

Honey Badger as Your Emergency Totem: A Kiss With a Fist is Better Than None

So, my friend DonCoyote suggested that all of his circle of friends take up the Honey Badger as their new totems (he's sort of shamany by way of White Wolf). My first thought was, a badger? WTF is a badger going to do? Chew on things? In my head, badgers were in the same vague category as a beaver. Oh no no no no, bear as a small child I once knew would say. Watch the video. For real. I'll wait.



Honey badgers are straight up frightening. Their bravery shoots way past stupidity and right into terrifying. ARE YOU TRYING TO START SOMETHING WITH ME, LION? HUH? HUH? I WILL END YOU! SNAKE, JUST BECAUSE YOU'RE VENOMOUS DOESN'T MEAN SHIT, BRO! I'MA BITE YOUR HEAD OFF, PASS OUT FOR A LITTLE WHILE AND THEN WAKE UP FRESH AS A DAISY TO FINISH EATING YOUR CORPSE!

Naturally, I entertained the idea of soliciting the honey badger into my coterie o' spirits after learning this . . .for like a second. And then I thought about what a person who follows honey badger would act like. More cunning than Lady MacBeth, braver than Beatrice and crazier than Ophelia. In other words, Georgina Sparks (played by the awesome Michelle Trachtenberg) from GossipGirl who makes Blair Waldorf look like an innocent babe in the woods. Now, don't get me wrong. I loves me some Georgie. . .on the telly. I would never want to emulate her because while her crazy is awesome, it's also terrifying and hella chaotic.

Now. Our friend Jason Miller has managed to permeate the permanent fog in my brain usually taken up by reality television and gossip to drill into it the mantra for every magic user worth her salt, "Emergency magic is bad magic." This has managed to stick with me along with other important mantras such as, Guests of guests do not bring guests! and Time is not money, time is your life!

And he's right. When you're desperate, you're not thinking clearly, you're not planning properly and your casting is likely going to be somewhat chaotic. If you are often in need of money, you need to be constantly working on your income streams and doing magic to ensure everything keeps working right. If you're often love lorn, make sure you're trying different methods of dating, grooming and keeping up a steady stream of magic.

But. I also know that sometimes we all have the problem outlined in a song from Repo: The Genetic Opera, and none of us are free from this horror/ for many years ago, we all fell in debt . . .where our backs are up against a wall and either we hadn't been doing everything we could be possibly doing to prevent it or whatever we were doing simply wasn't enough. And we're in trouble.

This is where I would suggest using the Honey Badger as a *very* desperate *very* last ditch attempt to get your shit together. With the *very* strong caveat that he may change up your internal landscape permanently, he may change your life permanently and there's a chance you may pick up some mental illness along the way. Of course, there's also the chance that he may help you to become faster, braver, stronger and more cunning and bring abundance (honey badgers don't generally starve, even on the Savannah). Those are some hardcore dice to be rolling however, my friend so think *very* carefully before rolling them. If you do though - blog or it never happened!

Retro Recipe Monday: Moar Cooking with Company

The next morning, I'm late as usual
Karen's there fresh as a daisy
She says with a smile, "You look like hell
And where you last night?"

The holidaze has been full of visiting with all of my family and a near constant food/champagne food coma. So much so, that Jow and I decided to start our own experiment on changing our life habits. So far, it's a pain in the ass. It's not magical per se, though whenever exerting one's will over the universe/inertia is really, so I will be more tumblr'ing and tweeting about that and other things like my terrible tv habits and learning to use my spinning wheel.

BTW, in case you were wondering, the cats like our new popcorn popper about as much as they like the vacuum. But . . .they're also super high on holiday catnip, so . . .paranoid trade off.

Onto the recipe!

Rosy Ham Ring
Letters from women, praising this pretty loaf, prompt us to reprint the recipe from our Freezing & Canning Cookbook.

3 lbs. ground smoked ham
1 lb. ground pork
2 eggs
1 3/4 c. graham cracker crumbs
1 1/2 c. milk
1/2 tsp. ground allspice
Tomato Basting Sauce


* Combine all ingredients except sauce; mix well. In a 16x11" baking pan, shape with hands to make a ring (or loaf) about 10' across. Pour over half of sauce.

* Bake in moderate oven (350 degrees) minutes; pour remaining sauce and bake 45 minutes longer, basting several times with sauce. Makes 12 to 14 servings.

Tomato Basting Sauce: Combine 1 can condensed tomato soup, 1/2 c. vinegar, 1/2 c. brown sugar and 1 1/2 tsp. prepared mustard.

Note: You can mix this loaf a few days early and freeze it. Allow a little longer cooking time. At serving time fill the center of the ring with buttered peas, corn or succotash.

Model UN and Solstice

Me: Filthy Reclaimist accustomed to improv and compromise in a rit, more of a group practitioner than private practitioner, roots in less book oriented spirituality such as Dianic Wicca, Shamanism, Hoodoo and Kitchen Witchery.

Jow: Ceremonial Magician, accustomed to working alone in a structured setting, roots in things that require a lot of reading like Hermeticism and other ceremonial traditions, raised as an only child (his older sisters were grown).

Now do a ritual together!

The planning always ends with me simultaneously wanting to strangle Jow and bang my own head against a desk until I stop moving. The *easy* and *obvious* answer is to stop working together but that seems like a cop out to me, since we live together and both do magic. And while yes, as per the blogosphere, the Solstice/Full Moon/Eclipse has many convoluted meanings and ramifications to it, I was excited to do magic on a day where these things haven't happened simultaneously in over four hundred years. Also, I am currently unemployed and can stay up til 3:30a so I wanted to take that while I could get it.

Picture it! We're in our living room, we've just devoured tasty tacos and are feeling pretty good. We cleaned ALL THINGS (at least all closets, pantries and fridge) and things are looking good.

Then we start talking litergy.

Me: I'd like to raise energy together to focus together on our work.

Him: Okay.

Me: Keen! Okay, maybe a song or a chant?

Him: Sounds good.

Me: (Suggests like NINTY BILLION songs and chants coming from various pagan traditions as well as modern songs and potentially playing music and just rocking out)

Him: (Rejects everything)

Me: (Asks him to suggest something)

Him: (suggests something unpronounceable)

Me: (Explains the point of raising energy as I was taught was to get focused, in an egregor, etc which means everyone needs to pronounce it and the meaning of the words are important but . . .pronunciation is more important)

Him: (Rejects further ideas)

Me: (Gets aggravated)

Him: (FINALLY suggests to use the chant from the movie The Craft)

Me: AFTER AN HOUR OF RESEARCH AND SUGGESTION, THIS IS WHAT YOU WANT TO USE? SOMETHING FROM A MOVIE!

Him: Yes.

Me: But you said -- Rrrrrrrrrrrgh.

Him: You like the chant though.

Me (sulkily): Yes.

Him: So let's use it.

Me: Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiine.

Forget even getting into the conversation about purification. Eventually, he said, I just need things to be explained as to why you would want to use them. I said, um, telling me that would have been muy helpful. Him: Oh . . .right.


We then discussed if working together magically was going to be possible. Mind you, neither of us were used to being up super late anymore so we were both feeling cranky. After a cup of tea, we had decided to try to do work in Cornish witchcraft we were both enamoured of from a video.

Why this will (probably) work:

1. We already bought stuff for a Wiccan altar and would like to use it.

2. Jow expressed interest in learning trad witchcraft.

3. I expressed interest in learning more formalized witchcraft.

4. We like the British lady from the video, she uses a neat . . . like boomarang on a string to draw her space.

5. I would like to learn more formalized practice and have more of a personal at home practice with rituals.

6. Jow wants to learn more about "Gen Ed" paganism and how to work in a group with others.

7. We would only need to buy a couple books.


But, this is for the future. Despite crankiness and difficulty, we managed to put together a lovely, simple ritual that resonated with both of us. We started by ringing a bell and then smudging with sage. Jow invoked to Ganesha as gatekeeper, I invoked the moon. We did our chant (which did work wonderfully for us, sulkiness aside, he hit the nail right on the head there) and had two of our fanciest glasses and a bottle of St. Germaine (which is currently the fanciest and most coveted booze we own right now) and we each took turns invoking our personal god/desses and making our petitions. It flowed really well and naturally and it had a quiet kind of power to it. We had two candles lit and our little rosemary christmas tree in the center of our table with our grapevine star. We both were v. eloquent if I do say so myself and poured libations. We then went outside to admire the eclipse and the moon (so crystal clear and gorgeous) and to offer our libations.

We weren't going to do a divination as to how our spellwork went and that turned out to be a correct instinct. Because at ADF GoG when we do so, it's "So gods! How'd you like the party?" And they're either like, it was awesome! Good things are coming!/Let me warn you about some things . . .Or occasionally, outcome unclear. (Generally when the invited guests were unsure as to how to behave at the party. Like, being invited into a cultural party where you don't have any idea of what's going on and you're like, the food was weird but okay? I couldn't understand the people? But it was nice of them to invite me?) Once in a v. great while, something that borders on, Boooo! Did not like!

Our cards both came out v. "Good things could happen from this! Or bad! I don't know!" Which I think was more of the result of us asking for a whole lot of things and not yet having done any real work towards it. It was asking a lot to get a solid yay or nay this early in, it felt v. much like the wheel was still spinning.

But all in all, the rit was v. solid and felt like it went well. I'm glad we did it!