Is anyone here a Kitchen Witch?

[Faery-Wings]

I am having trouble finding information on this area on the net. I have done several searches and mostly come up with catering companies!:eek: I have found a few sites that touch on the topic but just enough to whet my interest. I am hoping that someone has info on this, books, websites, anything! I am an aromatherapist already and can only imagine how much stronger my mixtures will be if I can incorporate ritual in them. And I love to cook and give many food gifts to family and friends, so this seems to be a good match.

Thanks for any advice and info.
BB

Chris
:sunny:

[MystyPines]

Hello!

Although I do not consider myself solely a kitchen witch, a kitchen witch is one who does most of their spellwork in the kitchen using magick in the cooking, baking, working with herbs, potting their plants and also making up healing potions. The traditional kitchen witch may even forego the fancy tools and use a kitchen knife as an athame and also for cutting their magical ingredients. Maybe a wooden spoon in place of the wand, and maybe a broom in place of the staff. There is a book called "A Kitchen Witch's Cookbook by Patricia Telesco. In the kitchen, I also make all my herbal hand crafted candles and blend my essential oils but usually consecrate and charge them in a ritual circle in my livingroom.

BB!!! :D

[Earth Walker]

:D I'll web the surf and see what I can find. :)


One Can Never have Too Many Cats! :bigredgri

[MystyPines]

MM Chryssi!,

I forgot there is another book with regard to magical cooking: The Magic in Food: Legends, Lore and Spellwork by Scott Cunningham. I am not sure if this book is still available. It may be out of print.
BB!
:D

[Hestia]

MM Chris!

I pretty much think of myself as a kitchen witch or a hearth witch. Although I am far from a gourmet cook I have special dishes I like to prepare into which I will incorporate various rituals depending on the need. They're as simple as lighting a candle charged for harmony near my stove while cooking a pasta dish and adding fresh basil for love from my kitchen herb garden. Scott Cunningham and David Harrington have a book called The Magical Household and there is a good section specifically on kitchen witchery. Janet Thompson also has a book called The Magical Hearth, Home for the Modern Pagan. These are my two favorite hearth amd home books. Much luck to you :sunny:

[Earth Walker]

A Good Book for every Kitchen Witch/Goddess. :)

Cooking Like A Goddess by Cait Johnson :D


I am not a bitch. I am just giftedly outspoken.:bad:

[*ULA*]

...i just aspire to be a kitchen witch. :)


i do tend to make a few pretty mystical explosions though.. does that count? ;)

[idusty88]

Here are a couple webrings:
Sisterhood of the Hearth (http://nav.webring.yahoo.com/hub?ring=hearthring&id=11&List)
The Kitchen Witch (http://fly.to/thekitchenwitch)


And a website:
Sacred Circle/Pagan Database/Kitchen Witch (http://www.sacredspiral.com/Database/kitchen/index.html)

And A funny one:
Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Casserole (http://www.catcreations.com/chatte/library/lbrotc.htm)

[Earth Walker]

Totally rad & :cool: Thanks muchly! :)


Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.:crazy:
---Isaac Asimov - Foundation

[cydira]

I remember my mother saying something about how a kitchen witch practices her (for convention sake :) ) magic in everyday life. She taught me that a kitchen witch doesn't have a separate set of tools that are kept outside of her daily use. She'd use her broom as a staff when needed for a ritual and her athame would be the same cutting kinfe she used during cooking.

Aside from that, Mom doesn't really discuss magic that much with me. When she does, it's in little snippetts like that. It kinda leads me to think that my mother's a kitchen witch. <scratches her head> By that logic, I guess you'd say that I'm a cross between a kitchen witch and a "regualr" witch. <lol> (As if *that* made sense!! hehehe) I have no qualms about using my cooking knife as an athame or using a wooden spoon as a wand. And that culdron *was and is a cooking pot! I think all witches have their roots as kitchen witches, if anything think about some of the things that are central to it all? A culdron, a chalice, a knife.... coincidence??? I think not. ;)

But that's just my own theory. :D

[Earth Walker]

That's right on. :) My father taught me that kitchen
items can be used for rituals/spells, etc---because
that was where women originally created magic, in
the kitchen/hearth/fire. :cool:


Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.:crazy:
---Isaac Asimov - Foundation

[idusty88]

One thing I often think of is that the witch's BOS is just a different name for a scientist's journal. In my view witches were the first scientists. They hypothesized, experimented, keep records, compared results and used their knowledge to heal and improve the human condition.

[idusty88]

One example of a treatment known to witches, but now credited as an original discovery of 'modern man' is aspirin.
I remember in a biology class textbook reading about Edmund Stone, an 18th-century Anglican clergyman, being credited with discovering that willow bark contained properties for treating headache and fever. The text had some excerpt from a journal which told how he was walking through a field by a wood and having a headache cut off some willow bark and (I think) chewing on it. The except also mentioned that he knew to do this because an aunt or grandmother had told him about it (women knowing about it didn't count I suppose).
Anyway, I went searching the web, hoping this info might be out there so I could share it with you based on more than just my hearsay info. What I discovered is that another story is being promoted as the official aspirin story. Bayer seems to be fully responsible for this wonder drug. According to Encarta and http://www.sciam.com/1999/0599issue/0599working.html ( Scientific American "aspirin was invented in the late 1890s by German chemist Felix Hoffmann, who was seeking to ease his father's arthritis pain".
[I do realise that one is the naturally occuring source and the other is the chemical derivation thereof, my problem is with the simplified presentation, whereby the 'discovery' comes as a full blown AH-HA! to the modern explorer and no historical antecedents are given credit. In this case it appears to even extend to Stone, perhaps because he has no corporate affiliations.]
One article online, A History of Aspirin (http://www.mjm.mcgill.ca/issues/v02n02/aspirin.html) , does address some of the descrepancies.
Other tidbits from the web:
In the 5th century BC, Hippocrates used a bitter powder from the bark of the willow tree to treat aches and pains.
It is made from salicylic acid, found in the bark of the willow tree, which was used by the ancient Greeks and Native Americans, among others, to counter fever and pain.

[Rima]

Hello from a hedgewitch, which I have heard is a similar thing... try that on your searches...
I like the homely, unpretentious magic of this path and it very much involves weaving your witchery into every day life, as well as taking time out for rituals etc... Though as a beginner, I am no authority on the matter... so merry meet and blessings on your searches... will keep an eye out!

[Faery-Wings]

You all gave me so much information. I was able to buy Green Witchcraft and have been poking around in that. Lots of info on herbs. I am going to start checking out the webrings and sites too. I found a ritual on blessing of chocolate, which was very funny.

industy88- interesting info you found! Thanks for sharing it all. Figures that all the glory goes to same man :rolleyes: And Rima, I will search on "hedgewitch" too and see if that helps.


I am finding I really like the practical, down to earth use of magical and ritual. It seems very "me"

Thanks again and BB

Chris