Author Archive: My Kitchen Wand

With this year’s early and overly hot summer, it is a saddening experience to drive around my community and see all the plant and tree damage. I have just finished adding a sloppy manure and earth mixture under 100 feet of cedar hedges to help with nutrients and moisture and hopefully keep them strong enough […]

Before the days of Kool-Aid, moms made this recipe to jazz up all that summer water. It goes at least as far back as my grandmother and probably at generation further. Glasses would be marked with nail polish initials on the bottom and when someone wanted a long cool drink with something extra, out would […]

May 25th is Brown Bag It Day and something easy to cut and package seemed like a tasty treat for your workplace. Working from home? May yourself a cuppa and enjoy. Walnuts are actually a drupe. The nut is the “stone” inside the shell and will release when it is fully ripe. It takes between […]

It has been suggested that finding a clump of rhubarb in a witches garden was a common occurrence as using a stock to “stir the pot” was said to amplify the energies of what was being prepared. This week when I finished making Rhubarb Lemon Syrup, I remembered a sheet of puff pastry in the […]

On the west coast of British Columbia, I wait for the first rhubarb of the year. It is usually here by Beltane and I am so happy to be able to make anything with rhubarb. This year has been colder than normal and things are a little bit behind. I was thrilled when the local […]

May Baskets are a tradition that has gone through many changes. For the last 200 hundred years, much of the focus has been on children or sweethearts. In some places the custom was to knock on the door, yell “May basket!,” and then run. If the giver was caught by the recipient, he or she […]

Onions soup! You will need: 1 1/2 pounds onions, peeled, sliced, and cut into quarter-moons 2 Tbsp. fat (more below) salt black pepper, freshly ground if possible to taste 1 – 1/2 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar 5 cups beef broth 1 -1 1/2 Tbsp. sherry or brandy, optional but recommended croutons to cover each bowl or […]

This lovely loaf comes with the delicious flavour of marzipan but without actual marzipan. I think it is a perfect Beltane offering as sweets and cake are sacred foods for Beltane and will also work well for Mother’s Day. Ellen Evert Hopman in A Druid’s Herbal writes that almonds and roses, the essential flavours in […]

Around 1912, my grandfather was a preteen part-time helper with the local bakery in Heacham. England. He left to come to Canada in 1914, so I say around. One of his jobs was assistance with the making of pound cake. The bakery made plain and almond varieties. As he told the story,  the only difference […]

Potato, leek & chicken mean spring and Irish to me, so if you are looking for something for dinner this Ostara season or any time really, this works in our house, especially when there is leftover mashed potatoes and cooked chicken in the kitchen. Leeks are first mentioned in Egypt as a method of barter […]