Kitchen magic 101

by Sky Gazzard

Kitchen magic: Mix recipes with a pinch of hearth magic to focus energy. From blue fairy cupcakes to passion-filled strawberry daiquiris, explore the magickal possibilities...

Kitchen Witchcraft or Hearth magic

The kitchen is well-known as the spiritual centre of the house, and where all the best parties end up in. Food sustains us. Food can give us warmth, happiness and a even a pinch of magic too. Although superficially mundane, the kitchen is a place for preparation, gathering and celebration - it's as sacred a place in the home as any shrine or DIY temple.

Kitchen magic: Match your intent to the food

As with all magic, when approaching kitchen magic you must have a clear goal in mind.

Match your intent to a food. A healing spell would work well with a broth. Cupcakes could be used for luck. Your instincts as a kitchen witch will tell you what is a good match.

Kitchen magic needs symbolic recipe ingredients

Next find a recipe - or if you're an adept cook, make your own. The more of your personal energy that goes into the dish's creation, the better.

Think about substitutions here (for example, if you're following a recipe but you substitute honey for sugar to sweeten porridge). Is the substitution more or less suitable for your purpose? Consider this with optional ingredients. Do they match your intent?

At this stage food colouring can be used. Colours have their own strong associations and in kitchen magic, a pink cupcake may have a very different meaning to you than a yellow or green cupcake. Perfect! As long as you don't mind eating blue muffins.

You can search online (or even - heavens above! - go to a library) to find lists of correspondences for herbs, spices, fruits and indeed almost anything. However, the interpretation of these magical ingredients can vary from source to source. Always trust your instincts when doing your kitchen magic research and you won't go far wrong. Here are a few kitchen magic ingredients to get you started:

A basic list of kitchen magic ingredients

• Peppermint - aids sleep
• Sage - wisdom
• Paprika - overcome obstacles
• Garlic - protection
• Rosemary - love
• Apple - love
• Lavender - relaxation
• Banana - fertility
• Cinnamon - success

And now... To cook up a magical recipe

As you're cooking, keep your goal in the back of your mind. The better you can do this, the more infused your cooking will be with the magic.

Always stir clockwise or deosil as this is good luck.

Never stir with a knife this is considered very bad luck.

You might want to make up a short incantation to recite as you stir.

Make magical recipes look pretty to add more personal energy

The presentation stage is the easiest time to add personal touches. Add fresh herbs to garnish a soup, a ribbon to decorate a cake and icing sugar can be used to draw symbols. Cookie-cutters come in so many shapes with cresent moons being both mystical-looking and easy to track down. Aphrodite-lovers, you can't go wrong with cookie-cutter hearts. And while we're not necessarily advocating eating your own voodoo doll, who knows what a home-made gingerbread man might represent? You can go as far as you like. A plate with a daisy pattern could be used when looking for friendship, for example. If you're cooking a magical meal for two, you might want to think about coloured candles to inspire the mood. Food to inspire self-confidence might have lots of lovely orange, red and yellow, or be flavoured with chili peppers - you could even arrange the toppings to resemble the Sun to harness its courageous power.

So you see - witchcraft doesn't have to be solemn, and cooking doesn't have to be so mundane. Let your saucepan be your cauldron. Swap your wand for a cooking spoon or kitchen knife and have fun getting crafty.

Strawberry daquiris for seduction, perhaps?

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