Enchanted Kitchen: Connect to Spirit with Recipes & Rituals through the Year

By Gail Bussi

A Delicious Month-By-Month Tour Through the Year

Turn your kitchen into the true heart of your home with inspiring rituals, meditations, spells, crafts, and foods specific to each month. From the author of Enchanted Herbal, this book provides more than seventy-five seasonal recipes, several with vegan or vegetarian adaptations, such as:

• Sunshine Lemon Pickles
• Rhubarb and Rosemary Preserve
• Four Thieves Vinegar
• Faerie Truffles
• Spicy Apple Chutney
• Cinderella Soup
• Moon and Stars Cookies

Part guidebook, part recipe book, and part inspirational journey, Enchanted Kitchen is ripe with the simple magic, healing, and joy found in the ordinary, everyday things we sometimes take for granted. Whether you prefer to follow its pages chronologically or jump into a specific month, this book provides a magical kitchen experience for any occasion.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide
• Release date: Jun 8, 2022
• ISBN: 9780738770659

Gail Bussi

Gail Bussi is a writer, artist, kitchen witch, and professional cook. After running a catering company and writing a cookbook, she returned to her long-held interest in herbs and green magic. Gail has studied holistic herbalism, natural healing, and mindfulness.

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Gail Bussi

first discovered green magic as a little girl in her mother’s flower garden. After some years spent writing, designing, and working as a professional cook, she decided to return to her first love and obtained qualifications in holistic herbalism, flower therapies, and mindfulness coaching. Today she lives in a small log cabin on the beautiful Eastern Cape coast of South Africa, where she continues to write, teach, and create natural enchantment every day.

title page

Llewellyn Publications

Woodbury, Minnesota

Copyright Information

Enchanted Kitchen: Connect to Spirit with Recipes & Rituals Through the Year © 2022 by Gail Bussi.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Llewellyn Publications, except in the form of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

As the purchaser of this e-book, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. The text may not be otherwise reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, or recorded on any other storage device in any form or by any means.

Any unauthorized usage of the text without express written permission of the publisher is a violation of the author’s copyright and is illegal and punishable by law.

First e-book edition © 2022

E-book ISBN: 9780738770659

Book design by Rebecca Zins

Cover design by Shira Atakpu

Llewellyn Publications is an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

Library of Congress Cataloging-In-Publication Data

Names: Bussi, Gail, author.

Title: Enchanted kitchen : connect to spirit with recipes & rituals through

the year / Gail Bussi.

Description: First edition. | Woodbury, Minnesota : Llewellyn Publications,

[2022] | Includes bibliographical references. | Summary: "Part

guidebook, part recipe book, and part inspirational journey, Enchanted

Kitchen is about the stories, magic, food, and traditions specific to

each month and the nourishment for the body, heart, and soul that begins

in our kitchens"—Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2022006471 (print) | LCCN 2022006472 (ebook) | ISBN

9780738770604 (paperback) | ISBN 9780738770659 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Seasonal cooking. | Magic. | LCGFT: Cookbooks.

Classification: LCC TX714 .B883 2022 (print) | LCC TX714 (ebook) | DDC

641.5/64—dc23/eng/20220214

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022006471

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022006472

Llewellyn Publications does not participate in, endorse, or have any authority or responsibility concerning private business arrangements between our authors and the public.

Any Internet references contained in this work are current at publication time, but the publisher cannot guarantee that a specific reference will continue or be maintained. Please refer to the publisher’s website for links to current author websites.

Llewellyn Publications

Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

2143 Wooddale Drive

Woodbury, MN 55125

www.llewellyn.com

Manufactured in the United States of America

Contents

decoration

Introduction

January

Nourish and Nurture

February

Sharing Love and Heart

March

Flowering and Fresh

April

Festivals and Bright Energy

May

Passion and Joy

June

Celebrating All That Is Green and Blooming

July

Abundance and Color

August

Changes and Shifting Patterns

September

Gifts of the Harvest

October

Magic, Memory, and Spirits

November

Gratitude, Sharing, and Ceremony

December

Celebration, Rest, and Peace

Conclusion

Appendix

Recommended Reading

This book is

lovingly dedicated

to all of those who have

shared my kitchen journey,

both past and present. We have

laughed, shared, and cooked together in these precious moments. And it’s especially dedicated to my mother, Catharine. I know we will cook

together again one day

in the lands of

light and joy.

Food is

just something you

grow and recipes are just

words written in notebooks. They are nothing until the right person comes along. And

that’s when the real magic happens.

Sarah Addison Allen

cinnamon stix

introduction

What is kitchen magic? What does it mean to be a kitchen witch? For starters, it’s a powerful source of enchantment that is available to everybody, no matter who we are, where we live, and what our personal circumstances may be. I’ve known people living in extremely difficult circumstances who still made their kitchens, however small and humble, places of joy and welcome for all who came there.

What is the difference between a kitchen and a hearth witch (for the term is often used interchangeably)? In many ways they are the same, since the term hearth originally denoted the kitchen and center of the home; in simple terms, a kitchen witch is someone, male or female, who uses the simple everyday kitchen activities of cooking and baking as a way of seeing and creating the magic that is inherent in even the most basic of our everyday actions. We see kitchens as a place of active involvement in the creation of joy, healing, and enchantment, both for ourselves and those we hold dear—family, friends, pets, and the greater community around us.

Green or hedge witches follow similar paths but are often also more actively engaged in the garden aspects of magic and in herbalism in general. For the purpose of this book, I am going to use the term kitchen witch—one who generally follows the simple magic path in both kitchen and home.

If we consider it, the regular preparation and consumption of food is pretty much essential to maintaining life and health. As it forms a significant part of the structure of our daily lives, why not make it a joyful and spiritual thing on a deeper level instead of just heating up canned soup or making toast? I know that sometimes we can see our daily tasks in the kitchen as being a necessary evil at best or totally boring at worst, but I hope this book will help us all see our kitchen in a new and more magical light as a place we actually enjoy and cherish every day.

A while ago, after starting to follow my own green and intuitive path (which resulted in my studies of herbalism and other natural therapies, as well as the writing of my first book, Enchanted Herbal), I found myself being drawn back into the kitchen on a different and deeper level. I had been an avid cook and baker for much of my life and had worked professionally for a while in this field, but I had let that go for a while as a result of some fairly major shifts and changes in my life over a few years that I needed to work through on many levels.

Obviously I was already aware of the power and possibilities inherent in herbs, flowers, and other plants because of my studies and writing, but strangely it took me a little while longer to cotton on to the fact that my everyday cooking (in a fairly small and unremarkable kitchen) was also imbued with wonderful magical properties to bless heart, body, and soul.

After all, everything we eat is part of the earth—it grows on it, walks on it, or swims in the waters that cover so much of our planet—and if it’s not part of the earth, we probably shouldn’t be eating it! We are not separate from the food we eat, which is something ancient traditions and cultures knew so well. They respected the food they grew or gathered, and considered all foods to have their own particular magic, power, and meaning. Even something as simple as salt, which we all pretty much take for granted these days, has been used for centuries across different cultures and beliefs for its powerful protective and healing qualities.

And, of course, the wheel of our year, with the turning and changing seasons, is also a vital part of our lives, one in which we can and should celebrate the sacred and ordinary joys that each season brings. I created this book to be part guidebook, part recipe book, and part inspirational journey for each of us who wants to see and experience our kitchens and cooking—whether we do it for ourselves, our loved ones, or the greater community around us—as a spiritual and personal practice that nourishes not only bodies but also hearts and souls.

And I hope the book is fun too—with ideas for rituals, self-care, health practices, meditations, and more!

I am aware that for some people, particularly women, the kitchen can seem to be a place of drudgery, a place of have to rather than want to; my mother was the classic example of this. I remember her being a very creative cook when I was young, always planning special meals and entertaining. It was only much later, toward the end of her life, that she confessed to me she often hated being in the kitchen and having to prepare meals, but she felt that, as a wife and mother, she had no choice. I found this sad but understandable. And if this feeling resonates with you, I hope this book will help change your mind and shift your ideas about kitchens from places of boring routine and duty to places of enchantment and joy.

I love this quote by Roald Dahl: A little magic can take you a long way—it seems to me to sum up the very essence of this book by reminding us all that there is simple magic, healing, and joy to be found in the ordinary, everyday things we may sometimes take for granted—and never more so than in the food we prepare, eat, and share.

Kitchen enchantment is all about choice—and it starts with seeing our kitchens in a new light and turning them into a truly nourishing and nurturing heart of the home. Being a kitchen witch (and by using that term I certainly do not exclude men from this delicious role) is something we can all do and be—starting today. Enjoy your year of kitchen witchery. Celebrate each month and moment of this precious and enchanted life!

Excellence does not require perfection.

Henry James

A Few Notes About This Book

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It was written for North American readers, with relevant measurements, food terms, and more; however, lists of food equivalents, kitchen measurements, and some ingredient names are given in the Appendix for readers from other parts of the world.

If a particular ingredient is unavailable or unsuitable (because of allergies, personal taste, etc.), just leave it out. Where possible I give alternatives in recipes; for example, for those who prefer not to cook with alcohol. In general I use fairly simple and easily obtainable ingredients; the same applies to the herbs and spices used in recipes, as I am presupposing that readers of this book will have a basic selection of fresh and dried herbs or spices at their disposal. Please always ensure that the herbs, spices, and flowers you use in your recipes are not chemically treated in any way and use organic when possible. Use herbs fresh or dried; if fresh, make sure they are finely chopped, and if dried, use one-third the amount of fresh (so 1 tablespoon fresh = 1 teaspoon dried).

This is not a vegetarian cookbook, and some of the recipes do include meat, chicken, and fish. However, in many instances, it is possible to adapt the recipe for vegetarian and vegan people. Ideas for this are given in the recipes.

Hopefully we are all becoming more aware in our food choices—buying green, buying local, and choosing ethically raised meat or poultry and sustainable fish. If you honor life in all its forms, please make a point of buying only meat that has been raised in an organic and totally humane way! Magic in the kitchen starts with earth-conscious choices on every level. It’s even more magical if you can grow at least some of your food yourself.

This book is divided into the twelve months of the year, with stories, recipes, and traditions particular to each month; however, you can dip into it as and where you choose and simply enjoy a magical kitchen journey wherever in the year we happen to be. Kitchen witchery should be both flexible and fun!

There is a special section in each month devoted to the magic pantry—this is a very important part of kitchen enchantment as far as I am concerned, as any kitchen witch worth their salt (pardon the pun!) should have a pantry or even just a shelf devoted to magical potions, condiments, preserves, and more. This is such a delightful part of the whole kitchen witch tradition, but to me it’s more than that: it’s a way of honoring the cycles of the earth and her bounty. When we harvest, bottle, store, and preserve the gifts we receive from Mother Earth, we connect in a deeper and more meaningful way to this enchanted cycle of life—far more so than simply going to the store and buying a bottle of flavored salt or tomato ketchup.

I am going to suggest keeping a kitchen journal if you don’t already do so. It can simply be a record of recipes, meal ideas, and so on, but it can also be so much more. I love that there are kitchen journals available now that include space for personal thoughts, memories, and so on, but of course you can simply use blank notebooks of your choice and make your kitchen journal entirely personal and unique. It’s a lot of fun!

Although this particular book follows the traditional Celtic wheel of the year in general, I must emphasize that this is not prescriptive in any way! There are so many different ways of celebrating and following the natural and magical path of kitchen witchery. I encourage you to make this book your own by simply using it as a stepping-stone to your own individual enchanted journey, both in the kitchen and beyond.

[contents]

top

Tell me, what is it

you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

Mary Oliver

bottomcinnamon stix

January

Nourish and Nurture

This quote from Mary Oliver seems particularly appropriate at the beginning of a new year, a fresh start with new horizons, challenges, and moments of magic. Our lives are indeed both wild and precious, and never more so than in what would sometimes otherwise be considered the ordinary moments and rituals of our everyday lives.

In January we stand on the very threshold of the year, with all its as-yet-unknown blessings, challenges, and opportunities. The celebrations of the holidays are behind us, and we look forward with hope and (sometimes) a little trepidation to the future. It’s cold, too, if we live in the northern hemisphere, and often we are depleted physically by winter ailments like colds, coughs, and flu. Many of us, myself included, find January a difficult month in many ways, and that’s why it’s particularly important to focus on both nourishment and nurture for body and soul at this time.

Outside it may be chilly, with freezing winds and darkness falling quickly and early, but inside the January kitchen we should find a haven of comfort, warmth, and nourishment, as people have been doing for centuries and through all traditions and beliefs—a place where we can rest and dream and give ourselves space to become both peaceful and fully ourselves while outside icy winds blow. This is