Author Archive: My Kitchen Wand

Friends of mine were visiting from Nova Scotia last week, on a tour to promote their new cd. More on that in a bit. Robert had commented on a previous My Kitchen Wand post that he hoped he would get some of what I was posting about when he was back on the west coast […]

With warmer temperatures around the corner, I thought it was time for some outside food fun. Where I live there is even a long weekend starting to help the fun along and after the post earlier this week about flavoured sugars and zesting you need something to do with all that juice. I promised this […]

Yesterday I posted a cookie recipe that includes a dusting of sugar while the cookies are warm out of the oven. It got me thinking about flavoured (my Canadian is showing) sugars and that led on to a couple of additional points every magical pantry can benefit from. First off, let’s chat about zesting. The […]

Yesterday, I posted a picture of cookies made for a Mother’s Day get together. The plan was to collect up several of my friend’s mothers, who all knew each other, serve coffee and goodies and let them catch up on their “organ recitals”. All of them are in their mid eighties and livers, kidneys and […]

“May the Fourth be with you” is becoming something of an event around the world. I wonder how George Lucas feels about having created a global mythos or if he even thinks about it? If you would like something simple for tomorrow, this will fit the bill. No need for full costumes and light saber […]

Fairies is a broad category for a range of magical creatures. Hobgoblins and brownies are more connected to homes while sprites and pixies are happiest outside and trolls, under ground. They range from wrinkled old men, the height of ones thumb to enticing women who have relationships with Gods. Legends say that under The Tor […]

A brownie may be a sweet soft chocolate goodie but it is also a specific Scottish fairy has who emigrated with its chosen family out beyond the borders of Scotland, into the larger world. Tales are told of brownies who stayed with a family line for hundreds of years as long as they was treated […]

Fairies have a multi-branched family tree of elemental “spirits”, not always in the ethereal sense. One of the oldest mentions of fairylike creatures was 3,000 years ago in The Illiad by Homer. He wrote about the nymphs answering the call of Zeus for all Immortals to come. It can get confusing as within the legends […]

This spring when putting the idea for a fairy tea together I wanted to incorporate herbs into the elegant little sandwich bites, for taste, and also as a way for children to begin to learn about the world around them. Yesterday in the ideas for celebrating Earth Day post, I shared a picture from a […]

These little treats are full of things other than plain white flour. The added oatmeal and hazelnuts as well as the rhubarb and orange bring a much wider range of nutrients than the cakey options you typically see in store these days. I keep grated orange zest in sugar, handily sitting in the fridge but […]