And today we'll be discussing the bay leaf...

This harks back to last post, on the nature of belief. The humble bay leaf, staple of both the kitchen cupboard and the charcoal burners of living oracles, has much to tell us about the nature of wishes and magic. It is also nifty in a pot of tea, or a bolognaise.

 

The Bay Leaf

I always carry a bay leaf in my wallet, in the section where the cash money goes. This is a habit I picked up last year, when I was writing furiously and praying daily for the miracle of a book contract. At the time, London was heading into winter, and with no income I was barely making the rent, let alone putting money in the electricity box. At that point that I was wearing six layers of clothing at my desk and lighting several candles trying to convince myself I wasn't freezing to a slow, cold death. With my hands going stiff at the keyboard, it is unsurprising that I literally struck folklore gold when I read about some mystical methods of moolah-making.

One of these was a variation on the Christmas clove orange; it was a clove lemon, with the added detail of pressing cloves into the unpeeled lemon in the shape of a pound or dollar sign. Another was a miraculous wet incense made with nutmeg and apple cider, that I'll discuss at a later point. Another couple pertained to the bay leaf; one wealth-wishing method was to slip a bay leaf in your wallet, another was to write a wish on a bay leaf in a pencil and burn it over a candle in a dark room, murmuring your wish to the cosmos.

Desperate, freezing, with kitchen cupboard not yet empty of bay leaves, cloves, nutmeg or lemons (and running down the road for some cider), I tried out everything I found. I let the incense boil for days, kept the clove lemon on my desk until the skin shrivelled and I still have the (unburnt) bay leaf in my wallet. Within weeks, I had an advance from my book, a little TV writing job, and some royalty payments materialise in my account. The heating went on and I got through winter relatively unscathed.

Did this happen because:

a.) I summoned the forces of darkness to do my bidding?

b.) It was a complete coincidence?

c.) I used symbols to motivate myself towards certain actions that had an impact on my life?

There will be people who believe a.) and b.), and I can't help that. Personally, of course, I believe c.) - because I used the rituals of the leaf-burning and making the lemon and the incense to create memories that would remind me of the situation I was in, reinforcing the need for me to be organised and to work, work, work. The smells of the incense, the sight of the clove lemon and that bay leaf reminder in my wallet kept me focused - and they remind me even now - that I had no money to waste, no time to dither, and had to stay on task in order to get paid and survive.

The book The Secret has sold a bazillion copies on the basis of wish-fulfillment advice that boils down to: successful people know what they want, ask the universe for it, and get it. This is not because the universe is running a concierge service. It's because successful people keep their eyes on the prize and structure their actions around attaining it. Every time I open my wallet I see a bay leaf that reminds me how broke I have been in the past and therefore how much I do not need: a new lipstick, another jacket, a piece of cake larger than my head. Amazing the difference that simple reminder to restraint makes to the monthly bottom line. Of course, if you want to call that magic, then you may.

For the record, and for all aspiring writers out there: I did not get a book deal because I signed a mystical contract with the fairies. I got one because I was willing to live in a bedsit with no heating, eat only oatcakes, multivitamins and tea and write 17 hours a day until it was done. Glamorous career, this!

Which brings me back to the bay leaf.

It is the lovely bay leaf, also known as the bay laurel, that crowns the heads of victors when it's woven into laurel wreaths - the words "bachelor" and "baccalaureate" in the academic context actually pertain to the wearing of the bay laurel when the qualification is won. 

The laurel was very favoured by Apollo, god of the sun, being the mortal remains of a young woman called Daphne; Apollo had tried to rape her, and to escape him, Daphne turned herself into the bay tree. Read whatever weird Freudian juju you think is going on with Apollo into that one, but it crowns his head in a Mythic Tarot deck, and the bay remains a symbol of protection. It is planted in gardens to protect the household, hung around the house it is said to ward off insects (and poltergeists), and popular belief attests that bay trees never attract lightning. Incense made by burning bay leaves on charcoal disks is said to break curses and banish negativity.

Sweetly, it is said that lovers can forge a contract by breaking a sprig (not a leaf, it will crumble) of bay into halves, and that their love will continue as long as each person retains their half. It is a popular ingredient in love sachets, and putting a bay leaf under your pillow is said to attract pleasant dreams. It is psychically potent stuff - the Delphic Oracle used to munch on it in order to provoke visions, and unless you want to end up saying lots of equally incomprehensible nuttery, use the leaves VERY sparingly in cooking and DO NOT eat it directly.

As bay has reputed tonic properties, a good herbal tea for cold winter days is in the Green Witch Herbal: 

• Bay Leaf Tonic Tea: Put a single bay leaf in a teapot with some orange rind, pour boiling water over it. Cover and steep for 15 minutes. Drink with a teaspoon of honey, to taste.

And for the ultimate in family protection (maybe aka "where you have to get a meal if the bay leaf in your wallet can't deliver"):

• Van's Dad's Infamous Bay Laurel Bolognaise: Heat a little olive oil in a large saucepan over a medium heat, add 250g of mince beef and 250g of diced bacon (or whatever mixture adds up to 500g) and cook until browned. Add 1 chopped Spanish onion, 2 chopped carrots, 1 clove of crushed garlic and 2 chopped stalks of celery. Cook these in the pan these until they are soft, but not brown. Add 2 tins of chopped tomatoes, a small can of tomato puree and a carton of pure cream. You can add half a glass of red wine if you want to. Let the mixture boil, and then add 1 bay leaf and the chipped rind of 1 lemon. Bring the heat down to a simmer and cook, stirring frequently, until the vegetables are completely soft. Cook it as long as you like for rich flavour. You can remove the bay leaf and the lemon rind before eating, or you can follow the Badham family tradition and just pick them out as you go along. Serve over spaghetti prepared from the packet, that's buttered and salted before you pour the bolognaise over it. Mmmm...

A Treatise on Folklore, Belief and Lucky Socks

It constantly shocks me that this blog is being read. To my own mind, I wander around London buying mystical teabags and getting into arguments with myself about whether Southern Fried Chicken counts as seasonal eating (the answer is no), I work on the edit of Burnt Snow and even, occasionally, do a bit of writing. I hang out with the Boy Next Door, who always makes me toasted cinnamon and raisin bagels for breakfast (being awesome) and whose passion for discussing conceptual art may never wane.

But I've started getting odd calls from people... and they arrive like bolts into the ocean of unawareness that I write this thing. "I need a potion!" demanded a pal on the phone the other night. "You know potions, don't you?". Another pal emailed in a request for a curse-breaking concoction. And then I got an upsetting message from someone suggesting that I was messing with ancient elemental forces, and to be careful.

Eh? Oh, she said, remembering; I write a blog about folk traditions and magical belief systems, plum cordial and this interesting green stuff that I spray on my hair, made in my blender. Occasionally, I talk about writing and I think about food PLAINLY ALL THE TIME.

I did make the point in my earliest post that it amazes and inspires me that in the post-industrial 21st Century our reality is still one where hushed whispers reveal that aunts can locate missing objects through visions, children talk openly about past life experiences and a lot of people swear to make contact with dead people in dreams after funerals.

I like a world where this happens. I find it exciting, unpredictable and romantic. As a paid storyteller, you can imagine that testimonies to the paranormal are ripe source-material for my creative work. My book is a work of fiction about witches and witchcraft, true love and the awesome power of personal will. Burnt Snow has shapeshifters, storm-summoners, indelible curses and lovespells and, you can imagine, that makes it very, very fun to write. I love the paranormal genre of literary fiction, because it indulges a yearning for the mysterious, unexplained and supernatural that a day-to-day life of weather forecasts, scientific reports, balance-of-trade figures and death-tolls in Iraq has long squeezed from our conscious minds.

There was a time, not so long ago, that the majority of people living in what we call "The West" genuinely believed in hexes and curses and Evil Eyes and lover's knots and passion potions and nifty uses for shed snakeskin. A lot still do - not because any concrete science informs hanging a blue glass amulet shaped like an eye on your front door to ward off evil... but perhaps in spite of it.

Science may be interesting - but folklore, folk traditions and folk belief are *fun*. Noone forgets how much fun they had as a small child, when they believed there was a giant rabbit hiding chocolate in the house, a fat man delivering presents from the rooftop or a fairy who replaces lost teeth with cash money.  This is why these beliefs and traditions are handed down from parent to child - because when fun is not harmful, of COURSE you want to share it with the people you love.

Decorations, ceremonies, symbols and rituals are fun, too. If they weren't, there'd be no weddings, no birthday parties, no naming ceremonies, no Christmas trees or Passover feasts, no boat launches or theatre opening nights, just to list a few. There was a reason that the Puritan interregnum didn't last particularly long in Britain; from 1649-1660 Christmas puddings, Easter eggs, the theatre and just about everything else that was fun to do on the weekend was banned. The English replaced the Puritans with the debauched Charles II at least in part, one suspects, because he could throw a good party.

To believe that a ritual is evil just because it is a ritual is a bit Dark Ages and silly. That kind of mentality would get a cricketer who attributes match success to lucky socks executed in a witch trial. As with anything else, a judgment of good vs evil must must be in the context of a.) motivation and b.) effects. No-one gets hurt if you make a wish about your future while blowing out birthday candles, and doing so may help you focus your energy towards the realisation of an important goal. Alternatively, sacrificing your neighbour's dog on an altar made of cheese because you want them to get pimples before the Year 12 formal is harmful behaviour for all concerned, not least for the dog.

This blog is my direct response to a suggestion to do something with the immense amount of research that I've compiled for Burnt Snow. One of the things I wanted to do with the book was to harvest the rich lore of witchcraft, mythology and symbology to give the story a level of detail that already exists within our literary and folk history. I didn't want to reinvent the witch - I wanted to locate her within a thriving, living narrative tradition, use the supernatural as a metaphor for the teenage experience and see what the witch did next.

It's a rewarding choice. The most wonderful surprise about writing my book is that everything I wanted to make up - about magic circles and flying ointment and passion potions - is already there, existing in fabulous dusty almanacs, and New Age magazines, and glossy spellbooks with art photography, the miraculous internet and anecdotes from wizened old women. The surplus of information I accumulated, I expanded; I just find this stuff fascinating.

This isn't for any religious or spiritual reason, but because I am a storyteller in love with the human capacity to believe the fantastic.

Ooh, it's getting exciting with the book now. There's a rumour that I'm going to get an invitation to a real, grown-up writers' festival - now that is *magical*. Watch this space...

For My Birthday: Gimme a Witch God and a Pancake Supper

It’s curious how associations suggest themselves.

Yesterday was Pancake Day. Naturally, given my present obsessions with ritual and food, I celebrated the event with willingness. One of the great joys of pancakes is that you can buy the batter pre-made at Sainsbury’s for barely any money at all, and it only takes one egg, a little fat and some water per packet to whip up a batch.

(There are, of course, great vegan recipes on the internet: I like the one here best).

The Boy Next Door and I feasted on last night’s tradition with a filling of beef-and-ale stew, dollops of crème fraiche and red cabbage and haricot beans stewed in bacon. While cooking, I was reminded that the first pancake of a batch is usually “sacrificed to the pan” – the first absorbs most of the fat, cooks unevenly and is, as a result, a living nightmare to flip.

As I folded the misshapen first into absorbent paper and got on with the rest of the batch, the notion of the sacrificed pancake reminded me of something I’d read recently about sacrificial meals offered to Hecate, Greek goddess of the witches.

Hecate is a chthonic deity, a goddess “of the earth” whose worship pre-dates the Olympians. In Greek mythology, she is the only one of the old Titan gods whose province usurping Zeus left undisturbed. Along with Zeus, she is the only god given the power to grant wishes.

She is a goddess of the liminal, of intuition, a practitioner of mysteries and magic, a gatekeeper between the worlds of the living and the dead, and she is the goddess of the crossroads – most potently at the trivia (threeways – “Trivia” was the name of her Latin equivalent). In ancient times, shrines called hecataea were erected at crossroads so travellers could make offerings seeking her protection. She is particularly associated with the protection of women and children, and her assistants she selects from the ranks of the excluded, living and dead: homeless people, vagrants, witches and ghosts… And artists and writers (ahem!).

Hecate’s colour is black, her mysteries are performed at the dead of night (under moonlight, candlelight or torches), and she represents The Moon in a mythic Tarot deck. She has three heads – a maiden’s, mother’s and crone’s – and hence she is also a justice goddess, as nothing escapes her witness of it. Hecate is usually accompanied by dogs, and she’s associated with all the popular symbols of witchcraft: ravens, owls, crows, snakes, frogs and dragons, and keys, cauldrons, brooms and torches. The yew tree is sacred to her, as is the date palm, the black poplar and the willow, and she does a fine line in sacred poisons like hemlock and belladonna. Apparently, she’s also partial to dandelion tea, as it enhances psychic ability – one of her great assets.

Because of her role as a Crossroads Goddess, she is the deity to petition if you are seeking opportunity, clarity (of your path), creative unblocking or the removal of obstacles. Because she exists on the boundaries between worlds, she also hears appeals for justice or protection, the lifting of curses, recovery and healing - it is she who governs the process of admission from one world into another.

The advised way to petition Hecate is to make her a supper offering at a three-way intersection, under moonlight or candlelight. Although going alone and leaving behind any meal is a valid act of devotion, according to tradition Hecate likes a few party guests, as well as to eat eggs, fish roe, goat and sheep cheese, sprats, fish (red mullet, especially), garlic, mushrooms, cake, bread, almonds and honey.

The festive idea, then, is to prepare a picnic for the night before new moon; grab some candles, pack enough plates for yourself and your guests, plus one (Hecate) and at midnight head down to the nearest non-illuminated intersection to eat. While consuming your own portion, contemplate what help the goddess (or your own powers of intuition) can give you.

The Element Encyclopaedia of Witchcraft advises, most strongly, that even the plate you fill for Hecate must be left behind, you CANNOT go back for anything, and you must NOT look behind you as you leave. That the food may be eaten by dogs or taken by homeless people is the point; these are Hecate’s servants and they are delivering your offering to the goddess on your behalf.

Upcoming 2010 dates for a possible feast include: March 14, April 13, May 13, June 11, July 10, August 9, September 7, October 6, November 5 and December 4. It’s also acceptable to feast at midnight on the 30th of each month. Modern Wiccans also celebrate a harvest ritual for Hecate on August 13 (as a storm goddess, the appeal is made that she not destroy the crops), on November 16 (Hecate’s Night) and also November 30, which is the Day of Hecate at the Crossroads (and also my birthday – spooky).

If you’re up for chowing down with the Queen of the Witches – and you are, like her, a savoury pancake fan – this may be a suitable menu for a midnight picnic.

• Hecate’s Honey Garlic Fish Supper with Pancakes: Mix 1/2 cup honey, 3 tbs cider vinegar, 1/4 tsp ground black pepper, 1/4 cup soy sauce and 5 minced garlic cloves and set aside. Pre-heat an oven to 190C. In a baking dish lightly oiled with olive oil, add the fresh fish fillets of your choice (or red mullet, of Hecate’s choice). Bake for 10 mins, remove the fish and add the honey mixture to the tray, returning to the oven for a further 15 minutes. Once the fish is returned to the oven, make the pancakes. You may wish to dedicate the sacrificial first pancake to Hecate’s plate. Serve the fish on top of the pancakes, garnished with toasted almonds. Dandelion tea is a good accompaniment, as is a salad of chopped boiled eggs and mushrooms.  

Do enjoy the above - I have forsaken pancakes, and all other cakes, for Lent. Sigh.

Lupercalia: Strangers in Bloody Goatskins

Today I’ve spent doing the Witch Trail around Covent Garden. In addition to Neal’s Yard for herbs, Mysteries for magic rocks and Treadwell’s for esoteric literary treasures, I’ve visited the unmatchable Bou Tea. This is where I refresh on pots of Assam and slices of ginger cake for warmth inside and out. The Boy Next Door prefers the Bran Cake, but it’s our differences as much as our similarities that make us interesting, I suppose.

I’ve just bought Herbcraft: A Guide to the Shamanistic and Ritual Use of Herbs from the pagan beauties at Treadwell’s, and I’ve been reading it while sipping my golden tea. Bou Tea is not only run by lovely girls who refill your cup for free, but it’s simple and quiet, with fantastic crockery and they play Sufjan Stevens over the stereo (the pretty tunes from Illinois have me lulled into a beautifully melancholy mood as I write this). In this atmosphere, it’s been easy to doze off into the waking dream of reading a new book.

[Here is a sample of Bou Tea's fantastic crockery. Note the prowling tiger, whose feline energy the superstitious may assign to the carnelian bracelet I’ve been wearing around my wrist since the beginning of the Chinese New Year of the Tiger. More on carnelian later].

But today is the day of the Wolf, not the Tiger. February 15, is the anniversary of the ancient Roman festival of Lupercalia. Devoted to Lupercus, a god of shepherds who is often interchangeable with Faunus (the Latin equivalent of the horn-headed Greek god Pan) it’s the “Festival of the Wolf” - a whoo-yeah-winter’s-ending-let’s-get-busy kind of celebration associated with fertility.

In days of yore, two male goats and a dog used to be sacrificed in a cave in the Palatine hills where Romulus and Remus (founders of Rome) were originally suckled by the she-wolf, Lupa. On Lupercalia, priests would wear goatskins for the sacrifice, there was a bit of blood-smearing and everyone would have a good laugh before the sacrificial feast, which involved burning salt-cakes made by those party perennials, Vestal virgins.

It was actually after the feast that Lupercalia got really interesting: The officiating priests cut the skins from the sacrificed goats to dress themselves like Lupercus. Then they ran around the walls of the city, whipping people with thongs also made from the skins.

Then, Wikipedia tells me (and we all know Wikipedia never lies):

Girls and young women would line up on their route to receive lashes from these whips. This was supposed to ensure fertility, prevent sterility in women and ease the pains of childbirth.

Well, um, okay. I’m certainly up for a celebration of fertility - having had many friends who’ve put themselves through the ordeal of IVF I can certainly understand that getting whipped by the organs of sacrificed animals by strangers in bloody goatskin would come off favourably in comparison. This is my year of seasonal living, so if Lupercalia is on, Lupercalia I’m doing. Of course, I headed down to Sainsbury’s to find a strikingly negative quantity of goat, so I’ve been forced to improvise.

Dear Lupercus,
Happy Lupercalia! The Boy Next Door and I just wanted to check in to let you know we are honouring your coming-of-spring godliness with our own post-industrial take on the sacrificial feast. We couldn’t get goat, so we’ve baked a lamb roast. It’s full of rosemary and garlic and good cheer, and we’re serving it with red kidney beans, which we know are potent symbols of fertility and plenty in your culture. As the roast is just about to come out of the oven, we’ll raise a cup of red grape juice to you and wish you all the best.
Until next year!
Van Badham and the Boy Next Door.

Valentines, Palentines, Theatre and Chocolate

I've never actually celebrated a Valentine's Day before. When I was at high school, my arty-weirdo group of girls and gays would celebrate "Palentine's" with presents and cards devoted to friendship. In Year 12, walking home from the train station with a potted African violet, my bobbing purple flowers earned looks of hateful pity from the shiny-haired girls who colonised the rail-bus seating. They rubbed the blackened petals of cellophane-wrapped roses against their mucky lips and I remember thinking that their store-bought roses would be dead in a day, while my African violet would outlast all of them.

From Palentine's to the world of boyfriends, I still didn't manage to indulge the traditions of cards and hearts, declarations and pretty red things from year to year. I think one February 14 I went to the theatre with a beau while wearing a pair of heart-shaped earrings, but my most recent ex decried all Valentine's traditions. As a remnant of a resented singlehood, he and friends called Valentine's "The Battle of Cape St Vincent Day". While it's technically true, the traditions involved seemed little more than recounting the details of the battle to anyone fawning over their lover in his company and I got no chocolate. Sucks to that.

So now to 2010, and the Boy Next Door, bless him, thinks that it is a poor representation of any relationship to not give your partner a Valentine's token of attachment - if only to spare one the humiliation of having to say: "Oh, my boyfriend doesn't believe in Valentine's Day" to the girls at work. This morning he presented me with a breakfast of toasted cinnamon bagels and tea, a sweet card and a large Toblerone. From me he got a fridge magnet and a chocolate-bar shaped like a Swiss Army knife. Then he drove me to the King's Head Theatre in Islington to see my short play Hot Man. We went down to The Bull on Upper Street for a celebratory post-show Valentine's meal: roast chicken - and cheesecake to share.

This is the King's Head:

To commemorate my first real Valentine's Day (with chocolate), I offer you something chocolately and romantic with star anise. In Catherine Yronwode's Hoodoo Herb and Root Magic: A Materia Magica of African-American Conjure, the properties of this pretty herb include being useful in a conjure bag to ward off the Evil Eye and as bestowing visions of coming good luck in psychic dreams. For lovers, eating star anise (or burning it as incense) is said to foretell, through dreams, a lifetime of happiness together. For me, star anise in hot chocolate is a natty trick I learned from a Swede in Brussels...

• Hot Chocolate Magic Milk Marvellous for 2: Prepare two caffee latte glasses by adding one star anise pod to each of them. Drop 2 tbs of full cream milk into the bottom of a small saucepan and gently heat. While it warms, break up the squares of 200g of plain chocolate (milk, dark, white are all fine) and drop them in the milk, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. As the chocolate starts to melt into the milk, gradually add another 500mls of milk to the pan and keep stirring. When you think all the chocolate has melted, transfer the contents of the saucepan to a blender and give it a good blend (if you don't have a blender, just keep stirring). Return the blended mixture to the saucepan and reheat to hot, stirring constantly, but DO NOT boil. Pour into the two glasses, over the star anise. This is particularly good with buttery pastries, like croissants.

Valentine's and Wrists and Ribbons

Today has just been the start of Chinese New Year - and Year of the (Metal) Tiger, so I've been told.
To commemorate it in a witchy way, I've pursued a superstitious mission assigned by my friend Linda, the marvellous author of charmingly naughty books and Sinology Queen of the Antipodes.
Linda told me to wear something red around "wrist, ankle, neck or waist" for the duration of the Year of the Tiger ahead. This is to channel, I presume, the energy and ferociousness of tiger spirit into my endeavours. As this is the year that my first book comes out, you can imagine I'm happy to indulge in any folky practise if it keeps me symbolically focused and gives me something to do instead of panic wildly.
Consequently, I've been looking for some weeks for the right thing to tie around myself. Playing on the fabulous Etsy a couple of weeks ago, I came across this lovely item:

It's obviously very pretty, and quite to my girlie tastes. Those heart-shaped red rocks you see are red jaspers; The Crystal Bible states that, amongst the stone's many properties of nurturing and detoxifying, red jasper will help dream recall if its placed under the pillow, and also that it "stimulates the base chakra". Translated, this means it's the stone to wear for a passionate Valentine's Day.
I bought the bracelet - not because it's what I'm going to wear around myself for the whole year (it's too precious for that; I picked up a clasped red ribbon in a bead shop in the West End that's now tied around my ankle). I bought it because of this passage in my novel, Burnt Snow:

“What is it?” I asked.
“Open it,” he said. “I don’t mind if you look.”
I tumbled the contents from the bag into my hand. It was a small bracelet, made out of red strings wound together and threaded through red stones, with a slipknot instead of a clasp, beads at its end. Looking more closely, I saw that the three large stones on it were heart-shaped, and made of red jasper.
Red jasper, I knew, I was a nurturing stone. It encouraged the heart and – as soon as I remembered this, I blushed – the sexual organs. Whoever had made the bracelet knew that red jasper was a love stone, but I could sense no magical charge on it.
“It’s pretty!” I said, sliding it back into the bag.

Okay, so it's not the same bracelet, but they ARE the same stones. Tomorrow, I'll be wearing the bracelet on a date with the Boy Next Door.

I'll let you know how it goes (!)

Earthly Paradise in Covent Garden

Good morning, London! And aren't you absolutely freezing today? Now I remember why every British person I meet stares at me blankly whenever I mention I'm just back from Australia. But why? they ask. "Oh, you know," says Van "Boy Next Door, girls of the Chelsea Triad, Tate Modern, Royal Court, West End, Waterstone's, Eurostar..." And they look, and they tighten their scarves around their necks, and they shiver.
It's good to be home, but it needs to be said that I'm sitting at the computer wearing 6 layers of clothing, a dressing-gown and a blanket. Gladly, I am on such good terms with Fortune now that I have devoted myself to seasonal life that I am stocked up with enough tea to last until the end of the year.
And, did you know, that ginger tea actually warms you up from the inside?
My interest in all things herbal is now bordering on the obsessional. Since my last blog, I've consumed at least 8 more litres of mint tea, made my own hair conditioner, summoned a plum cordial, flavoured my moisturiser, bottled some massage oil and added a herbal stock to wild rice so delicious that I'm craving it as I write.
What has made this explosion of activity possible? Why, I made a little visit (in the chilling cold) to Neal's Yard in Covent Garden.
I mean, not only is there a vegetarian restaurant that does a take-away pizza-of-yum for £3.50... but there's a full-on, hands-down apothecary fantastique which sells, like, everything I could ever want, ever. Here is a picture of Neal's Yard.

So I ordered my pizza and wandered across the court into the apothecary and politely inquired if they had any orris root, so I could exploit a recipe in Titania's Love Potions for a bottle of hair-awesome.
My charming retail assistant, Julie - as fresh-faced and redhaired as only girls who work in apothecaries can be - looked at me with a polite smile. Of course they sell orris root.
"And... erm..." I thought hard for something I knew was difficult to get "... damiana?"
Another polite smile, plus a nod. "We're Neal's Yard," Julie said, "how much would you like?"
Orris root, herb fans, is the ground root of the iris flower. It smells like heaven and is used as a base note in lots of perfumes. You can eat it and it's often an ingredient in gin. Blended with various other goodies, it makes a fabulous body powder, and in folklore it's a common ingredient of love potions and spell-breaking powders. Damiana is a naughtier treat - it's a Mexican herb that's renowned for its, ahem, stimulation of the reproductive system as well as having a reputation for encouraging lucid dreaming if you make it as a tea. It is perfectly legal, of course - and often used as a flavouring in South American liqueurs and in triple sec. Of course, given its folkloric association with the male libido, it is another popular ingredient in passion elixirs (our Titania is most fond). Some people smoke it - but, of course, some people will smoke anything.
I walked out of Neal's Yard not only with packets of orris root and damiana (I couldn't help myself), but lavender buds, and cumin seeds, dried rosebuds and lemon verbena leaves. I also picked up a swag of essential oils: orange, cinnamon and geranium (for massage oil), peppermint and mandarin (for moisturiser). Turning the corner to Pages in Shaftesbury Avenue to buy all the jars and funnels I could ever need, I've since been mixing and blending up a storm.
And do these things work? Certainly, I met the Chelsea Triad last night for our regular girl-gang tea-party and was emphatically told that my hair - newly sprayed with awesome - looked shiny and pretty. The Boy Next Door has developed a real liking for plum-and-damiana cordial - oh, my!
To stir you in to soft dreams, you may wish to try the following: Ras el hanout is the name for any mixture of Arabic spices thought by the seller to be "the best in the shop"... and some of the mixtures are deliciously romantic.

• Ras el hanout Romance Juice (with thanks to Titania for guidance): Pour 500mls of red grape juice into a saucepan and heat gently. While the grape juice heats, get a dry frypan. In it, mix some saffron threads, 1/2 tsp of cumin seeds, a couple of pinches of ground ginger and 2 tbs of dried rosebuds. Heat this mixture on the hob, but only for a few seconds (it can burn very quickly, be vigilant). Turn off all the hobs, drop the herb mixture into the red grape juice and stir until the juice is at a pleasant temperature. Strain into a jug, drink from red wine glasses. Garnish with rosepetals, if some are available.

Sweet dreams...

I came, I saw, I ate virtually everything in sight...

I write this from one of my favourite places in the world; the little members’ room at the Tate Britain.
Yes, I have made it back to my beloved London – faded with jetlag, but otherwise intact and already feeling better for exposure to the brisk cold air and pale sky.
Since I last updated, I have been through three continents – Australia, of course, and Asia and now Europe. The Boy Next Door met me at Heathrow and his loving ministrations have ensured that my return home has been both immediate and seam-free. It is the tag-end of Winter now, and while it’s still dark in the morning and all too quickly in the afternoon, as well as very cold at night, it’s fantastic weather for cooking, reading and snuggling up at home with cushions and blankets, recipes and spells.
I celebrated Lammas/Lughnasa in Australia – the correct seasonal ritual for the Southern Hemisphere (it was Imbolc/Oimelc/Candlemas up here) by making a corn doll out of rosemary and sitting it on my desk. Wherever (and whenever) you celebrate it, Lammas is a ritual for the end of summerand a celebration of the harvest; I used rosemary for the doll because a.) I find the smell invigorating and b.) it grows and grows in the garden at my mother’s house – as small as that garden is – and was therefore in easy and plentiful supply. I learned today from the fabulous Element Encyclopaedia of 5000 Spells that rosemary is a herb traditionally sacred to women, and growing it in the kitchen garden ensures matriarchal control over the household attached. I must say that in the example of my mother and her rosemary bushes, this theory carries much, much weight.
A corn doll is just a construction of herb leaves and twigs fashioned into a humanoid shape – a loop in the twigs creates a head and legs, and a cross-bar of twigs makes arms. The idea of the doll is to display it to yourself at your place of work; at harvest-time, the doll-of-twigs is a reminder that the hard (agrarian) work of the year is rewarded with growth, harvest, prosperity. Also for Lammas, I dressed in green (is this a reminder of the summer’s last green gasp on the trees before deciduous leaves turn for autumn?) and ate a big meal of rice. In this last case, I think the idea is to start feasting on carbs to fatten yourself up for winter, so you can live off carb-lard while the plants wither and dwindle with the cold.
I wonder, of course, if all this jetting across the world is healthy at all – and whether a lot more goes screwy with the human body than just the obvious problems with jetlag that occur with disturbances in sleeping patterns. I actually had Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD, ha ha ha) the first time I came to Britain, and while I was soon cured of horrible, black-and-listless depression with oily fish, abstinence from alcohol and compulsory daylight walks, seasonal adjustment confusions are an interest I may yet revisit. Hmm.
To London, now, and my programme of eating seasonally. Serendipitously, as I unpacked my London life from the boxes and bags stored in the Boy Next Door’s apartment next door (I am not making this up), a forgotten, unread recipe book* (bought in a £1 sale at the Borders liquidation) fell on the floor and broke open with a STUPENDOUSLY CONVENIENT guide to seasonal British eating.
From this handy little volume, I have learned that these are the foods that are suitable for year-round consumption:

• FISH: brill, cod, cockles, crabs, dogfish, eels, halibut, herrings, lobster, periwinkles, plaice, rainbow trout, saithe, shrimp, sole, turbot and whelks. 

• FRUIT: Bramley apples and avocado pears [and, if imported: bananas, grapes, grapefruit, lemons, melons, oranges, peaches, pears and pineapples].

• MEAT: Scotch beef.

• POULTRY: capons, boiling/broiling chickens, ducks, ducklings, pigeons, rabbits, rooks and turkeys.

• VEGETABLES: artichoke, beetroot, cabbages, carrots, cauliflowers, cucumbers, leeks, lettuces, mushrooms, mustard, cress, parsley, potatoes, spinach, turnips and watercress [and, if imported: globe artichokes, asparagus, aubergines, chicory, courgettes, French beans (and dried pulses), haricot beans, Spanish onions, sweet peppers and tomatoes].

I learned also, from this wonderful book, what I should SPECIFICALLY be cooking in February alongside the above.
It told me:

• FISH: carp, catfish, chub, coalfish, cod’s roe, grayling, gurnard, haddock, John Dory, lemon sole, ling, mackerel, megrim, mullet (grey), mussels, oysters, perch, pike, roker, salmon, scallops, skate, smelts, sprats, whitebait, whiting and witch.

• FRUIT: Cox’s orange pippin apples, pears and rhubarb [and, if imported: apricots, peaches, plums, granadillas, grapes, grapefruit, lychees, mangoes, nectarines, ortaniques, prunes, Seville oranges, strawberries and uglis]

• POULTRY: Aylesbury duck, curlews, geese, goslings, hare, leverets, plover, quail, snipe, wild duck, wild geese, and woodcock,

• VEGETABLES: Jerusalem artichokes, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, celeriac, celery, curly kale, seakale, mint, parsnips, radishes, spring onions, spring greens and Swedes [and, if imported: endives, fennel, new potatoes and salsify].

Wow. What a list. I don’t know if I’m yet to eat saithe, capons, rooks (I take it these are not the chess-pieces, but are they actually crows?), chub, coalfish, grayling, gurnard, megrim, roker, smelts, witch (!), granadillas, ortaniques, uglis, curlew, leverets, plover, snipe, woodcock or salsify… but by the end of the month I’m going to give it a red-hot go (a visit to the Food Hall at Harrods may be in order – whoohoo!)
The Boy Next Door, who works hard and is often very tired, is more than happy, except when his pro-feminist sensibilities kick in, for me to play chef - and being an environmentally responsible person is supportive of my domestic seasonal-eating campaign. So for dinner (for two) I whipped up:

• Tasty haricot beans: Empty entire contents of 1 tin of haricot beans into saucepan. Add 1 whole piece of bacon. Cook on hob for 4-4.5 minutes. Season to taste. Serve.

• Brussel sprouts in cream sauce: Steam 500gs whole Brussels sprouts in a bamboo steamer. While sprouts steam, chop 1 Spanish onion and add to half a cup of sour cream and mix. Heat cream/onion in a saucepan on the hob until warmed through, season to taste and spoon over steamed Brussels sprouts on the plate.

• Hard boiled eggs: 1 egg per person. Cut into quarters, sprinkled with paprika.

• Brown bread was served on the side.

All of which was insanely easy, but ALSO – wonderfully – VERY cheap… because, obviously when these things are IN SEASON they are in plentiful supply, easily sourced and actually overflowing the shelves at the local supermarket.
All of this we washed down with:

• Moroccan mint tea: Put 4 stalks of mint into a teapot, with 1 tablespoon (or two teabags) of jasmine green tea. Pour 500mls boiling water into teapot. Steep for 10 mins. Stir 1 teaspoon of white sugar into teapot. Cool to taste. Pour into glasses garnished with fresh mint leaves to serve.

Those concerned about the red onion’s potential to douse the smoochability of one’s dining partner should take note that the Moroccan mint tea is marvellous on the breath.
I should point out that even if you had’ve asked me six months ago if I was chowing down on haricot beans and Brussels sprouts my response would have been a clear no. I hated them when I was a kid and I presumed into adulthood that I’d still hate them – but six months of crappy health and lack of energy has forcibly opened my mind. And guess what? My tastes have changed; I was actually bummed when the Boy Next Door helped himself to the last of the beans. I got the sprouts, but that’s not the point.
So the immediate effect of seasonal eating?

1. Kindness on my wallet
2. Ease of getting the ingredients (Sainsbury’s as a 1-stop shop)
3. I woke up in a really good mood for the first time in ages.

Hmm… I think our pagan cousins may be onto something…

* The wondrous cookbook that has done so much for my menu plan as well as my culinary vocabulary? Wait for it… The Len Deighton Action Cookbook. Yes, the guy who wrote The Ipcress File. No, I am not joking. Take knowledge where you find it. And it’s got George Lazenby on the cover getting felt up by a pretty girl.