Just about every Wiccan I know has had the Book of Shadows dilemma. Having a private book of rituals and formulas, as well as a magical diary, is a provocative idea that appeals to the creative spirit in all of us--but how to go about it? Should I keep a separate diary and BoS? Should I compile it online, on Word, on paper? If on paper, should it be a bound book, a binder with dividers? A printout with elaborate fonts? Handwritten is more mystical, but is my handwriting legible by candlelight? What if I want to change something or move pages around? But a binder is so...ordinary!
Of course, now that I've been on the path for fifteen years I no longer really need a Book of Shadows. Like a great many longtime Pagans I've learned to improvise, to go with my spirit and instinct when it comes to personal ritual. I've used my favorite herbs for so long that I'm well versed in their magical properties, so I can't remember the last time I turned to my BoS (version 8.0 or so). Mostly I just keep the one I have because it's pretty. I handwrote it, illustrated and illuminated it, and it's a work of art, but I don't need it day to day.
One of these days I'd like to be the kind of cook who doesn't need a recipe book. Today is not that day.
I find myself in the same quandary when it comes to collecting recipes. On the one hand, recipes I use often I don't want to have to hunt down in their original books--and a great many of my favorites came from websites anyway--so having them all compiled in one place makes life a lot easier. On the other, I have yet to settle on a way to keep my recipes that's convenient, organized, and pretty enough for my art snob tastes.
Over the years I've had a card file, a binder of cards, a binder of clippings, a handwritten book, and a small binder of computer-printed recipes I saved in Microsoft Publisher. The latter is what I've been using lately--I found a beautiful binder at Borders designed specifically for recipes, with a bowl of eggplants on the cover and dividers inside. The only problem is that when you're a veggiesaurus, a regular recipe binder isn't designed for your needs. Over half the dividers are useless to me--meat, fish, egg dishes--so I'm left with Starters, Vegetables, Baking, and Desserts. Personally I need at least three or four more dividers. That means making my own, which I'm planning to do out of cardstock.
The binder also came with a vinyl page cover to lay over whatever recipe you're using, so it'll stay un-splattered longer; eventually, though, the pages are going to get messy, which is why I stopped using a bound book that I'd handwritten in. One accident with a bowl of frosting and that page was a smeary mess. This binder also has a couple of pockets in back for recipes you've clipped from magazines, and I inserted a few of the card holders that I used to use in my recipe card folder so I could keep a few of my old nonvegan recipes around until I figured out ways to veganize them.
(Of course, since I got my new kitten Owen, the binder now has tooth marks in the cover from his insatiable need to gnaw on things, but I still love it.)
As I was paging through my recipe book looking for something to post today, I realized that I wanted to talk about the care and feeding of one's recipe book itself, and how it's a golden opportunity to bring the sacred into the kitchen. What could be more evocative when looking up a recipe than to open a Kitchen Witch's Book of Shadows, finding pages of pressed dried herbs among the pages, the scents of spices infused into the paper itself.
Imagine when someone asks, "Can I have a copy of your pumpkin muffin recipe?" and you say, "Yes...it's in The Book." They open the book and are amazed at the drawings, the photos, the natural objects tucked in among the prized recipes of your own mystical cooking tradition. Imagine having a page of all those little cooking tips your grandmother used to give you--or her picture alongside her award-winning cheesecake recipe, which on the opposite page you've veganized so that her cooking tradition can live on even as it evolves.
A cookbook can be like any other ritual tool--it is the lorebook of your kitchen rituals, the way you nourish those in your care, whether that's just you, or you and a mate, or a full family, an extended family, or a houseful of chosen kin. Your personal recipes become your Cookbook of Shadows, your tradition to deepen and pass on to those who learn at your side before the stove or with their arms deep in a bowl of bread dough.
That's what I want my recipe book to be. It's my next project--a sort of concrete symbolism of my reclaiming my hold over my eating habits, over my ethical stand, and over my own power to nourish myself and thrive. I'm going to start with this binder. Each recipe that is given its own page will be one that is tried and trusted in my kitchen, one that I'm willing to experiment with and transform slowly until it becomes my own creation, or at least the perfect version of it's creator, envisioned for my kitchen. It's hard to know at what point a recipe stops being someone elses' and becomes so different from the original that it's yours to call your own.
At any rate, my plan is to have my binder of My Recipes that I use regularly, and also a binder of magazine and newspaper clippings of recipes I want to try, glued onto cardstock. I also have a list of the recipes in my favorite cookbooks that I want to try, kept in the clipping binder. When a recipe passes my rigorous exam schedule to earn its right to a page in the binder, it becomes part of my cooking repertoire.
But aside from straight up recipes, I want my recipe book to have other things--herbal recipes, prayers and invocations, quotes and poetry that illustrate the kind of peaceful, nonviolent world that vegan eating helps create. I want it to be my Kitchen Book of Shadows, or perhaps, my Book of Feasts.
Here's a recipe to use to start your own Book of Feasts--a recipe for pumpkin bread or muffins that is quite possibly the most delicious thing I make. I started with a recipe from the Joy of Cooking, but changed so much of it that I'm quite comfortable calling it my own recipe. Take it, bake it, share it, and let me know if you love it as much as I do. I'll be at my craft table finding the right materials for my new recipe dividers.
Sylvan's Pudunkadunk Muffins
(preheat oven to 350)
What You Need:
A:
1 1/2 c flour
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp clove
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
6 tablespoons margarine
B:
1/3 c vanilla soymilk
1 tsp vanilla
C:
1 1/3 c sugar
2 tblsp molasses
1/2 cup soy yogurt
1 can pumpkin
Let's Get it On:
1 ~ Whisk (A). Use heaping measurements on spices.
2 ~ Combine (B) in a measuring cup.
3 ~ Beat margarine in a large bowl until creamy. Add (C), beat for about 3 minutes.
4 ~ Beat in yogurt, then pumpkin.
5 ~ Alternate adding A-B-A-B-A to bowl, beating well after each addition.
6 ~ Spoon into muffin cups until 3/4 full. These don't rise much, so don't be afraid. Bake for 22-25 minutes (mine took 23 to get to what I consider the perfect stage; if you want yours well done go to 25 and test with a toothpick). Allow to cool in the tin, because if you dump them out or handle them they'll get all deformed like mine did. Mine have a grid design on them because I was a dummy and turned them out onto a wire cookie rack. Don't do that. Flat surfaces are your friend for pretty muffins.
Now, because these are so moisty they won't last long before they mold. I assume you could freeze them if they were wrapped extremely well. Mine aren't going to last that long, so I may never know how they freeze.
I love this idea. I have a plain binder. The recipes in the binder have done time proving themselves before being allowed to be filed. Reading through the book is like meeting up wit old friends.
Posted by: heather | October 21, 2008 at 01:10 AM
Hi
Just to let you know that I am really glad that you are back on track and are on the path to peace and healing. I am really enjoying your new blog.
Please take care and Blessings
Emma
Posted by: Emma | October 21, 2008 at 08:15 AM