I Hope They Have Pudding

Yuletide Greetings!

2011-12-21T15:03:00.000-08:00

As hearty and true as ever can be
These Christmas Wishes to you from me!

With every good wish for
Christmas Happiness
and the best in the coming year.

Most sincerely
your friend,
Cellar Door

Early to Two Beds, Early to Rise, Makes a Witch Happy, Healthy, and Wise!

2011-11-11T16:28:00.000-08:00

It has forever been a dream of mine to each night sleep in a bunk bed of my "making". (For at an age early to me, I crossed my heart and hoped to kiss a warty dragon

with skin not unlike this,
only stench~green and not a gourd,

endlessly to Momsy, beggingly pledging that I would indeed make clean sheets of both beds daily, if I could pretty, pretty please exchange my Jenny Lind spindle for a set, if altogether bunkies I could call my very own, would be mine!)

Alas, it was not meant to be. I was (Still am.) an only child and Momsy was (Still is.) Practical. With a capital "P".

My own devices, those of which I was left to, and I (above) would become close, ~~make do~~ creative companions for forever and a ~~day~~ night.

That is until today, when a down~the~street tag sale granted me a lifelong wish come true! Merriest congratulations to me, O Momsy, as I soon will catch a bus to Linens R Us, or some other such specialty shop! Then, have a guess, please do, as to where I will be with an enormous bowl of popping corn and a stack of "Must Reads" just as tall (and mayhaps a butterknife to go with a dessert plate with a Bartlett middling it!)? Here's a hint from words I have quietly recited, over and again, beginning way ago:

"If you have bunk beds,
you might as well sleep on top!"

Image Credt: Mountained-bed politely borrowed from French Vogue.

A Ghoul-den Oldie

2011-11-10T02:00:00.000-08:00

Whether the night be raw or no, gather yourself up cozy~nested in one of the overstuffeds fronting the warming hearth, and right up close to it, now, because I have the urge in me to spout a Tale Worthy of a Tell, as my Great Aunt Driven always tags them, so, likely, you're going to need a little bit, if not more, of anything that will deflect The Shivers!

White as the Driven Snow

FIRSTLY: Curious? That is, about my great~auntie's nickname, "Driven"? Long ago and maybe even before that, my aunt acquired a new label when her hair suddenly, but for incredibly good reason, whitened at an age typically when it would be least expected!(?) That indeed is another Tale Worthy of a Tell, do tell!

But I shan't. Can't. And I apologize if I have just put you on the edge of your cushion on a count of the "Great~Aunt Driven's Hair as White as the Driven Snow" story untold, as it will have to keep, for I have another yarn I'm anxious to unravel! *caving out of necessity to inform, steals a bit from the Tick~Tock in order give a history that is brief* This much about her I will spew, though: Dear Auntie Driven is answerable when it comes to the whosit, whysit, and howsit of me greatly being interested in the first place in what I'm about to share with you. Read on, then, before you read on!

Whereas some people delight in their ongoing accumulation of salt and peppers (As in shakers, that is. My other great aunt, Tu, rather finds this a "jolly good sport!"); "books of major significance" *low~tones voice* ~~but then again, mostly NOT, a~hem. (That would be you, Gemmama!); or "decades and decades of spent saliva," as my philatelist Great Uncle Ned refers to his agglomeration of stamps and assorted posted envelopes from around the globe, I, on the other hand, collect ghost stories (and other assorted frightful narratives) ~~a knack, if you will, that I "inherited" from dear Driven, who is likewise a fancier of the same and has treasured me with a many taken from her personal anthology. (Please know that I am till~my~dying~day everso appreciative, Auntie Driven!)

Still comfy? Being sitty before fireplace crackles hasn't become too hot for you? (Please, smooth your upper furrows, because not to worry: stray cinders rarely escape Our Fires, that I promise you.) *sets fun~fussy chin~wags aside* Ready~steady~go, then, for a "bump in the night" taken from my Ghoul~den Oldies file (my collection of ghost and scary stories that always bear repeating) and one certain to give you that goblins~blowing~cold~breath~on~you feel?! This Tale Worthy of a Tell begins:

Way ago back, there was a man
who went out hunting in the woods.

Just as suddenly as night fell, he found himself lost in the forest. It was when more aimless walking and even more aimless walking proved to be circles that did not take him home, that he happened upon a small clearing

where an old, ramshackle cabin stood with its door ajar. Poking his tired and weary head inside and about, he could see a bed with nobody in it, and a fire burning in the fireplace with nobody tending it. As big big yawns did spill from that same head, he shrugged and flung himself on the bed for the night, having decided to explain himself, come morning, if the owner came back.

But before sleep fully took him, he looked around and was surprised to see the walls were largely hung with paintings. By all appearances, they were family portraits, all framed and painted in remarkable detail. They seemed very life~like and, without exception, each subject was uglier than the next. The hideous faces in the paintings made him strangely uneasy. The artist's technique made it seem as if the eyes were staring directly at him! It was quite unnerving. So much so that the exhausted man had to pull the blanket over his head in order to drift off to sleep.

In the morning, the hunter woke up to find the cabin bathed in sunlight. When he looked up, he discovered there were no family portraits on the walls of the cabin,

ONLY WINDOWS.

. . . . . . .

*cups ear and leans in for a listen*

Just as I thought!
No worries.
I never tell this tale without
baking ahead a remedy:

Rubies and Racēmi Nut~Maple Pie
A wonderfully~different delicious cranberry and raisin baked~plate with a woodland filling mixture, whose receipt I shall share with you just as soon as I locate the presently "hidden" card it's written on. (Oh, do I love the absentminded Magic that is me! Lol!) Do look for it listed in my Comment section, hopefully later this day.

Might I interest you in a lovely slice of pie to help settle those rattled bones of yours?

Witches Tea Party Under a Halloween Moon 2011

2011-10-30T15:15:00.000-07:00

[PRELUDE: This All Hallows weekend, Miss Anna,
who hangs her

pointy hat
at Frosted Petunias, is hosting a gathering of witches for a a tea party under a Halloween moon to celebrate and to remember!

"I invite you (The Witches Tea Party Under a Halloween Moon is open to all active bloggers, because the more the merrier the make merry!) to create a tea party to express and honor the witch in all of you. Whether you are an artful witch, a whimsical witch or a magickal witch (and yes you can be all). Your tea party can be fun and playful, sacred and soulful, hauntingly spooky or simply beautiful," she joyfully offered. Without a moment's hesitation, I accepted!]

It was a dark and stormy night...

But first and nextly comes right out from me a teensy tinsy gust of outloud merriment, because a thrill that starts at my topnot travels to the toe~tippies of

Can you be anything but happy when you're wearing striped socks?
my striped sockinged feet,
then back again and twice more,
as I remember

a dear Funny Papers friend
typewriting on his rooftop

and me realizing his passion for launching yet another of many novels with this, canonical phrase "borrowed" from Victorian purple proser, Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, opening his story in such an intriguing way. Eversincely, I have entertained the thought of some day making temporary use of Snoopy's eternal opener to unfold a tale of my own. Today be that dream come true!

It was a dark and stormy night... sort of.

*nervously struggling with a Truth~Be~Told on the verge of being confessed out of avoidability (as I will not sleep ever again if I do not spill!)*

Gemmama says, "To cut bread in an uneven manner is a sign that you have have been telling a lie." At this moment I am glad my grandmother is not present to hand me the serrated knife. For it is true: a fib I cannot tell (and get away with it). White deceits do not become me, and dark BIG lies neither do I wear well. They, inparticular, are oversize garments on me, whose disacorded darts are liked to misguided "shoots" of firework.

Thus, the Truth~Be~Told: even though this story's unfurl found its beginning late, late yesterday, it happened beneath showy, twinkling stars that brightly down~watched overly and throughout. Expressly, then, it was NOWISE a dark and stormy night...

Because it being Hallowe'en, I took advantage of the situation merely to be able to finally put this opening to my special good use, is all. Having that said, I am feeling better already! On with the party? LET'S SHALL!

At the stroke of midnight, sounded by Gemmama's parlored Great Clock, a very early brewed and very black cup of party tea was poured into a middlish~size bowl, where raisins, sultanas (golden rasisins), currants, and lemon peelings~made~candied would sleep~soak until plumped. Sametimely, Sun's up would interrupt their spelt~upon slumber, and I then did collander the entire lot, because there is an All~Hallows~Even tradition, Barmbrack, an edible~y divining tool that next I would bake from a special formula, that of ~~witch~~ which I merrily share~ily! (Later this day, featured in the blog section tagged "Comments," below, I promise you my family's holiday receipt!)

Forever to our clan known as

Speckle Bread
(The word "brack" comes from the Irish "breac," meaning "speckled.")

because it is, quite frankly, "spotty" to the eye. Speckle Bread speaks of itself perfectly, and Celtically called Báirín Breac, this Irish fruited tea bread, that is nearly cake, is best served toasted with a smear of Witch's Frosting (softened butter) and washed with a cup of Irish Tea, typically on the day that is Halloween!

Most front forwardly, though, and of what I did make hints at priorly, Barmbrack is a delicious

fortune telling game, whose baker hidingly dough~deeps destiny trinkets and charms symbolic in their slice for those breaking this sweet treat on Samhain, and thus divines their future!

Once upon a time and waaay way back in the day, secretly planted bakery bits of silver and gold would customarily include a coin (wealth), a matchstick (to beat your spouse with --?!), a rag (poverty), a thimble (spinsterhood), a button (bachelorhood), a gold ring (marriage), and a pea or bean (once again with the poverty).

But whiles and whiles ago, Gemmama and her flock decided these antiquaited, if not downright nasty, predictors had to go. Replacing them would be a fun~wonderful slew of new charms with exceptional meanings:

[PLEASE NOTE: Pictured replicas only. Precisely posted images would adversely change the positive charge belonging to them.]

Peanut Charm
Forecast: You will join the circus!

Best be having a Litter Box Charm handy if this be your find, as this silvery morsel is really a bell: it actually tinkles!
Cat Charm
Forecast: Furry or t'otherwise, you will make a new friend.

The Coffin Charm
stands for a Wealth of Health: "If this trinket be in your slice, keep it hidden more than twice." (Meaning, if the the charm is hidden all year long, then there is no coffin. Or in other words, "No coughin'," which is to say, "Good Health!")

Fancy Spectacles Charm
Forecast: You shall find something or someone that you thought you'd lost.

The Pickle or Craving Charm
Forecast: Someone very close to you--Mayhaps even you!--will become round with child.

Satchels be packed!
Because, not unlike an Eensy Weensy up the water spout, ye, too, shall travel.

The Love Beannie Charm
Gemmama added the Nesmith cap to the mix the year then tweenager Momsie longed to be on the arm of a particular Monkee. These days, it signifies a new or a renewed romance is just around the corner.

Purse Charm
Forecast: The money tree growing in your backyard will finally sprout "leave$e$"!

Enchanted Slipper Charm
Forecast: Come Black Friday, all of your tracks will be fast, taking you to the head of the cash register line each and every time!

. . . . . . .

Now, then, care to join me in

a spot and a cut of the spotty?
Please and thank~you to tell me of the charm you made discovery of, encrusted in your slathered slice!

A Forget~Me~Not Reminder:

Mud be thy name if you do not find yourself finding

Mini Teacup Ring / LittlePinkBox
an especially special way
to keep this day's memories!

Credit where credit is do:
Snoopy / Charles M. Schulz
Charms: Amanda Jo.com
Tea set / Hannah Stockham
Forget~Me~Nots / Glitter Your World
Mini Teacup Ring / LittlePinkBox

All Dressed Up and Someplace to Go!

2011-10-22T14:31:00.000-07:00

(replication of the original)

"Tah-ruly one of Betsy's mother's finest!" declared Gemmama, shiny with a proudness that spoke as if indeed she closely knew the McCall family (perhaps was even invited to Thanksgiving dinner at their house on occasion, because, "Is that so very hard to believe?!?") to her then little girl, who would next grow up to someday be my Momsie♥, gently hand~cradling before her the sewing pattern envelope, whose delicate inner tissues would soon hurry to be received by a specially~selected and magically flowy black fabric, ~~afterwitch~~ afterwhich and in short order (My grandmother's stitches have always been quick and light of motion!) it would become the "Mommy and Me" matching outfit (a look that always found time to tug at Gemmama's heartstrings) that she and her daughter would together share-wear, come a Tricks or Treats evening, decades ago, AND whose scrumptuously artworked packaging had instantly turned Momsie's eyes into platters! (BY•the•BY: Happy Almost Halloween greetings to you, Gemmama, if indeed I have caught you ~~sneak peeking~~ "taking in the sights," even though over and again you insist that something you would never in a million black cats' years busy yourself with is the reading of a blog, the reason for choosing not to mostly being: "The word 'blog' is a silly sound!")

"Push the worry from your stomach," I confidented my littlest witchy~pal, Natalie, who much rathers "Natty," and is my cookie Thomas' sweet niece, days ago when she "I spied" the annual All~Hallows~Even

holiday party invite, joyfully issued to all by Vanessa, who hangs her pointy hat at A Fanciful Twist. Reminding her of my No Witch Left Behind Policy, because the more the merrier indeed, I then did boost the invitation: "In concert you and I shall enter 'through the secret keyhole' (Please to "click" and you shall come, too!) to celebrate this day of days!

From out of my grandmother's second attic, farback~and~to~the~right~and~left~of~Great~Uncle~Ned's~boxed~wishbone~collection trunk, amore~sprinkled, look~alikey witch garb in sizes BIG (Gemmama's!) and small (Momsie's!) have been borrowed and freshened! But lo and behold a bold fashion statement change, though, for beneath out pointies, Natty and I will lovingly plop old~fashioned, tribute bonnets up top our topnots, only to again plop, this time, ourselves in

(Most sincerely, its flavor is that of pumpkin orange
--and gold-threaded to boot!)

the parlor's favorite overstuffed. There we will herald in this festival day's frolic with a cozy reading of delicately penned in her own hand and likewise dotted with her soft~colored and charming teeny tiny drawings

National Treasure Tasha Tudor's
very first published story:

Pumpkin Moonshine!

Its breviary tells: Pumpkin Moonshine is a short little tale of Tudor's niece Sylvie Ann as she goes out to select a big pumpkin for Halloween. Sylvie Ann and her little dog, Wiggy, climb a hill to the cornfield where the pumpkins are growing.

They find a big one and start to roll it home as if it were a big snow-ball. As they head back down the hill the pumpkin gets away from them and speeds into the farmyard scaring some goats, chickens, and geese and finally, bumps into the hired hand causing him to spill a bucket of whitewash. Finally, Sylvie Ann's grandfather, who you can tell by his style of dress is a New England gentleman farmer, helps her carve the pumpkin into

a "Pumpkin Moonshine",
otherwise known as a Jack-o-Lantern.

They put a candle inside and enjoy the grinning face. Sylvie Ann saves the seeds and plants them in the cornfield in the spring. --LibraryThing.com

Orangely primed,
we will most certainly then

be ready for our own
Pumpkin Moonshining!

Shame on forgetful me, because I did not make a mention of the wand~making, did I? Three cheers! because the treating continues, when Natty and I create

fabulous Hallowe'en wands!

Then, no doubt and quite honestly, because I can never avoid not to, we will "bake"

a pie!

And, yes, yes, a thousand times yes, there will be presents!-- Oh! Oh! OH! I MUST SCAMPER! Suddenly and follwing a knock~knock~knockity~knocking at my door, little footsteps are coming up to me! Natalie has arrrived! And if she does over~my~shoulder read this, much too soon she will get wind of the surprises: a paint box whose chips are chock full of Tasha Tudor~y inspired

watercolors,

Natty has yet to have put to parchment, waits wrapped for her in pumpkin print paper, as does, too, a bewitching perfumer of Miss Taylor Swift's

Wonderstruck,
a charming gourmand named after the lyrics her song titled, "Enchanted"!

GOLY~GOSH!
I'd best be closing!

A Happy Halloween Party to all,
and to all,

A Pumpkin Moonshiny Night!

A Most Important Postscript: Dear Miss Vanessa, I send to you this from~the~bottom~of~my~heartly thank you!

Lady Luck's Color: Orange!

2011-10-08T01:16:00.000-07:00

It is wise not to burn a sweet Gurley orange such as this, because watching that would make me very sad!

And so begins day twenty~five, leading up to the biggest 31st of the year: All~Hallows~Even! Yes, amazed I am, as, likely, you are too, at how extraordinarily Hallowe'en~magickal the clock's tick~tocks now do make their sounds!

Going mere days back, the door on The Whimsical Cottage opened and from its threshold Miss Danni made pre~holiday mentions: "Time we got out our broomsticks and candlesticks and tell each other spooky stories around the fire. And, because so many of you played along and I had so much fun last year, I'm throwing another Countdown to Hallowe'en blog party this year! If you missed it last year, here's what you need to know to play along:

Do something Autumny or Halloweeny every day throughout the month of October, ending with the big event on the 31st. It need not be anything difficult or eleborate, just a little something to get you in the spirit. Share what you've been up to on your blogs either daily, every few days, weekly... whenever you're able! All I ask is you have a maniacally good time!"

You'll join us then? Please say you will? (If your schedule nods in approval, give "click" to the Halloween countdown invitation, pictured, above.) Grand! I'm simply delighted, and I am certain that is what Miss Danni will be, too, soonly after you favorably RSVP!

My 8 October Countdown contribution
and "prepare~ahead":

To make luck come bountifully into your life (Or, mayhapsly, it be all about replenishing your suddenly dwindling stash? Because, "How did I let it get away on me?" you're asking yourself.), take a freshly owned orange~colored candle that has yet to have a glowing match put to it, and anoint it thricely with three driplets of cinnamon oil, three driplets of clove oil, and three driplets of lotus oil, because it is rumored that belonging to each of these integrals are vibrations of the luck~attracting kind.

Dancing Bear is one of Momsy's favorite people!

Whilst Grandfather busies himself with counting out loud to twelve, thus turning the world into midnight, three times impart the following incantation:

BRIMSTONE, MOON, AND WITCH'S FIRE
CANDLELIGHT'S BRIGHT SPELL
GOOD LUCK SHALL I NOW AQUIRE,
WORK THY MAGICK WELL.
MIDNIGHT TWELVE, THE WITCHING HOUR,
BRING THE LUCK I SEEK.
BY WAX AND WICK NOW WORK THY POWER
AS THESE WORDS I SPEAK.
HARMING NONE, THIS SPELL IS DONE.
BY LAW OF THREE, SO MOTE IT BE!

Gaze into the flame of the candle, same~timing with thinks and thoughts good lucky. Give pulse to a lucky feel that is real, as if indeed it was you who had just won a prize!

As mind~pictures paint a Wheel of Fortune especially spinning for you, remember, too, this reminder: To achieve an outcome that is at its best, cup~runneth~overly magnify this newly conjured euphoria. But, oh, I do ask begs of thee: BE WATCHFUL! NEVER, ever (and dotted with a plentiful sprinkling of whatsoever) doubt the power of the spell! Even the smallest crumb of skeptical will recklessly upside down its effectiveness.

And for certain and most importantly, do NOT stop the candle's "burn~brightly," until 1 November becomes the day, because as Grandfather's speaks of Wee Morning, so shall the spell be fixed. (Take heed, please, witches in need of beauty sleep: a bathtub safely holds a lit taper all night long unattended.) And, if Sunrise finds the candle NOT "out," put to use a moistened two~finger wick~pinch, as it is the only acceptible snuff. Because NEVER LET HUMAN BREATH CEASE THE FLAME OR ALL OF YOUR GOOD LUCK WILL BLOW AWAY.

And if a past~annointed orange candle be at your fingertips, enjoy prediction:

To peer into the future (or visit Realms Unknown), before a mirror at the stroke of Halloween midnight, middle yourself betwix a midnight~complected candle placed leftmost and the spelled orange candle on your right. "Match" each hand to light the candles at a moment that is the same to both of them, whilst you give a gaze to your own eyes in the mirror. Concentrate upon that which you desire to know, until an often times misty vision looks back at you from the glass. Within this vision your answer will be found!

Whichy Witchy Woman are You?

2011-10-01T08:27:00.000-07:00

From Across the Pond a postcard that is Halloween~fancy, Postal Carrier Thomas (and my cookie still!) this morning did deliver! Gemmama, whose house I keep a home while she is making Far Aways to visit her dearest friend

Luella living a Welsh life,
sent this timely to me:

Tenth Month Greetings, Sweet E.!

When this message finds you, we will be gathering barely here-and-there Scabious (a teasel known to remedy Itchies, and that also answers to Devil's-bit because, as one "relic," an ancient crone whose name escapes me, once clued me,'The greater part of the root seemeth to be bitten away; old fantastick charmers report that the divel did bite it for envie, because it is an herbe that hath so many good vertues and it is so beneficial to mankinde.') and Red Dead Nettle (good to remove a jinx --or add to floor wash, afterwhich expect a mighty fine shine to look back at you. Go figure?! Tee-hee!) And when it's not about that, blackberries fill out buckets! Then we will bring home nice long necklaces of bright scarlet (Another tee-hee! truly is in order as this particular month inspires me to spell it "scare"let!) berries of the Black Bryony to herald in Autumn's crisp and the spookiful days and nights of October!

Eary BOO! to you!
Love, G. and L.

P.S. Yellow-Hammers are feeding in the stubble!

Quickly, I be putting postal note aside
and then immediately, and

naturally, I did bake a pie!

"Hello, October, full of merry glee!" I out loudly spoke to the sky outside my window, where it watched me watch it unfold into a brand new Season of the Witch! With the pie~point I'd forked from my blackberried slice held highly, I continued to give hail: "O Yellow Month, from the fading of the leaf,The wall calendar today announces that you finally belong to the world. Aah! This day, your first, is generous with warm and bright! Truly, you be the frosting on the cake we call "Today"!

And so begins the thirty days that lead up to the biggest thirty~oneth of the year: All~Hallows~Even! Yes, Hallowe'en approaches! How extraordinarily magickical the clock's tick~tocks are now sounding!

*offers warm~still piece of blackberry pie (and don't forget to first make a wish on its point before you make eats of it!)*
Have some bites and chews whilst Miss Danni
from The Whimsical Cottage extends this invitation:

"Time we got out our broomsticks and candlesticks and tell each other spooky stories around the fire. And, because so many of you played along and I had so much fun last year, I'm throwing another Countdown to Hallowe'en blog party this year! If you missed it last year, here's what you need to know to play along:

Do something Autumny or Halloweeny every day throughout the month of October, ending with the big event on the 31st. It need not be anything difficult or eleborate, just a little something to get you in the spirit. Share what you've been up to on your blogs either daily, every few days, weekly... whenever you're able! All I ask is you have a maniacally good time!"

You'll join us then, please say you will? Grand! I'm simply delighted, and I am certain that is what Miss Danni will be, soonly after you favorably RSVP!

My 1 October Countdown contribution is sort of kooky~spooky,

Dr.Jekyll and Mr. Hyde~y
looksee, which is to say it is merely a fun~meme and lightly are the bumps in the night that are sprinkled upon it:

Scientists, be they mad or no, assert that within each and and every one of us our opposite side lurks! (Our personal antonyms may cheat while we remain faithful, spends the night dancing while we are home choring, curses at annoyers while we smile and hold our tongue, etcetera.)

On this day that starts October, then liberate, perhaps? About yourself give filler to the blanks in sentences below. (Feel free to add new descriptives as they occur to you.) Then complete the same statements in their opposite way, because you'd be surprised!

And please do, too, remember that "Evil Twin" need not be naughty words. Plenty are the times our opposite self (alter ego) isn't always worse in some way than we are. The "bad witch" is generally accomplished at the very things we think we are failures at. (If you are shy, she is a grandiose flirt. If you oversleep, she is Sunrise's alarm clock. If you are afraid--heaven forbid--of flying, she invented the broom, and so on.)

October's First Day asks:

Bangles by Jessica Kagan CushmanImage credit: Squidoo
Are you a Good Witch or a Bad Witch?

1. I am a (choose one:) night/morning owl. Hoo! Hoo!

2. I am as as happy as a little bird with a french fry when my life is (chose one:) settled/swirling.

3. My favorite kind of music is ____________.

4. I would describe my style of clothes as ____________ .

5. My idea of a perfect evening is ____________ .

6. My idea of a perfect job is ____________ .

7. If I found a wounded sparrow, I would ____________ .

8. The best place in the world to live is ____________ .

9. If I found a wallet with money in it, I would ____________ .

10. My relationship with my parents is/was ____________ .

(You're welcome to tell all how you turned out in my comment section. Thank you ahead! I soonly will do likewise.)

Ring, Ring, Ring Those Lime in the Coconut Bells!

2011-09-24T15:38:00.000-07:00

O Merry, Merry
Practical Magic Blog Party Day!

*middling it in the bright of a taper's top~light, this Cellar Door begins the burning of a cat whisker found somewhere, and whispers a wish to the smoke rising like magicked petals ride night's breath*

Cat's Wand wish and truth be married,
To rooftop hence shall I be carried!

"HUZZAH!" to a wish~ful spell accomplished, as I noggin~nod, "Indeed, yes, that be a witchy me uphighly and belonging to the left, second!" Please to take comecloselies at the Owens' Victorian, above, because this seeing is believing: 'Tis me!,

(From~my~heart's-desired perch, I give gaze~back!)
sending my smiles
to oohing and aahing merry~makers below!
Practical Magic's ending does truly make for a wonderful today's beginning! I humbly lo to thee, O Practical Magic! With nary a hestitaion--not even one nearby lurking in rose bushes over Angelov--I proclaim your

ever so enchanting ingredients
spell the perfect receipt!

And when the now is entirely about your potions, notions, brews and lotions, spells and conjures, assorted commingles or commotions, what be your "signature"? Your essential enchanter? Your enhancing integral? Straight~uply: What is your favorite ingredient?

Mine be a thrice~tie:

A bird~size bundleworth
of white bread hiccups

(Quirky as it goes,
one bite from one slice is for me a never fail, speedy delivery!);

fresh~queased jingles
from two silver bells;

and, most certainly and time after timely (because Quite Possiblies do contantly urge me to admit it is my true druther!),

Found Pussycat's Vibrissae!
(The rose by any other name: cat whiskers),
which behave quite nicely until called upon in

(Plentiful thank~yous go out to Miss J.Lo!)
a phial spent of fragrance, yet linger parfume does on each itty wand. Scented rememberings--heart notes, if you will--in shades of spicey violet, redcurrant and peony, intoxicating each kitty stalk which easily takes its turn coming out of a bottle this way necked. (Once more, I thank you, Miss Lopez!)

What say you, then?
What component
be your caldron's best friend?
. . . . . . .

A LIKE NO OTHER, MOST IMPORTANT POSTSCRIPT: Our "pipes" and this melody next meld flawlessly in a pleasant way together, thanking and congratulating dearest champion Miss Anna, who hails from Frosted Petunias, for making certain this day she gifted us with would be red-lettered! Now on with a joyous warble:

For she's a jolly good fellow, for she's a jolly good fellow
For she's a jolly good fellow (pause), and so say all of us
And so say all of us, and so say all of us
For she's a jolly good fellow, for she's a jolly good fellow
For she's a jolly good fellow (pause), and so say all of us!

UNNCOMMONLY~TREATS~BE~PROMISED SPECIAL, UTTERLY TASTEY, NEVER BETTER POST POSTCRIPT: Milk~top your goblets, sweet dearies!

At your service:

Gemmama's
"Have Broom, Will Travel" receipt!

It's Practically Practical Magic!

2011-09-10T06:12:00.000-07:00

MY WISH:

To garnish with the quicklies the count of days in front of this bloggyland's social event of the season
(one better, THE YEAR!):

Excitement be my
constant companion!

And for those who yet haven't,
ticking tocks say it's not too late for you
to be part of the make merry.

Come, join

Merely do follows of these specifics:
Eat plentifuls of

chocolate cake for breakfast,
then broomstick~hurry up yourself over to the treater who couldn't be sweeter,

to RSVP to a cornucopia over~brimming with Midnight Margarita madcapping!
(Clicking on the aloft Practical Magic Blog Party
invite will take you from here to a there!)

POSTSCCRIPT: Quite actually, the pre~"Say 'yes' to attendance" cake~eating is my interject, but it couldn't hurt, now, could it?! Lol!)

Lumos!

2011-08-21T16:05:00.000-07:00

If You Catch a Firefly
By Lilian Moore (1909–2004)

If you catch a firefly
and keep it in a jar
You may find that
you have lost
A tiny star.

If you let it go then,
back into the night,
You may see it
once again
Star bright.

Lilian Moore, “If You Catch a Firefly” from I Feel the Same Way (New York: Atheneum, 1967). Copyright © 1967 by Lilian Moore. All Rights Renewed and Reserved. Used by permission of Marian Reiner.

Mere moments ago, (If that be, because I couldn't wait to herald!), my pocketbook all by itself opened to my favorite online emporium, Victorian Trading Co., because who could conjure up resistance to

this delightful,
light~full find?!

I've made buys of several! So far, one to go to the Pink Room and one to side~by~side night~light me as I doss in my own nest! The rest (a dozen's half in tally), I still make thinks about what places will be their very own.) What stunners ideed, truly you agree? [About this MustMakeMine says VTC: "We've chanced upon a clever souvenir of those magical evenings spent under a canopy of stars, gleefully in seeking those evasive, blinking yellow 'Lightning Bugs'."]

Also have I claimed

a Wintergarden!
It is Victorian Trading Company's crystal ring, who tells this tale: "Ivy-covered Austrian crystal spans two fingers like a neglected Victorian garden."

Any better do descriptives ever be?!
Such snaggable poetry caught me
hook, line and shiny dropball!

Daisy, Daisy Give Me Your Answer Do

2011-08-09T04:55:00.000-07:00

And now they bow, “With all our heart,
We’ll love each other till us part.”

My co~pilot is my most times alarm clock, too. In so many ~~words~~ meows, Puddle did shortly ago remind me “Morning has come early!” Again might I add, yet I do laugh because she is so sweet! It is the handful of kitty bites in Puddle’s bowl next to my bed I put that she has become accustomed to, a stifle~action I akin to “hitting the Snooze button.” Once more I do a giggle with the “thinks” of a sleepy me making my pre~dawn delivery!

On a day like today and those resembling it as well,

my eyes are unusual platters and I make waits to play “‘Daisy,’ Tell Me Do.” If a pussykitty be your waker, you can play, too:

In your cat’s dish place a small palm of cat treats. Soon after a full feline~belly has been achieved, tally the number of morsels left in your familiar’s bowl. To be read with each treat~measure, recite one line of the following poem that now belongs to the powers of the “petals”:

[first treat] He loves me.
[second treat] He loves me not.
[third treat] He’ll want me.
[fourth treat] He won’t.
[fifth treat] If he could he would.
[sixth treat] But he can’t.

The line harmonizing with the last nibblet awards you your answer. I believe if treats numbered two, four, or six end your story, have at it like you’re putting shampoo to its use: rinse (the bowl, not the kit-kat! lol) and repeat, because Happily Ever Afters be good human treats!

2011-07-31T01:57:00.000-07:00

(An Ed Okun illustration that inspires my knitting fingers, because you do ‘smell” a lovely beret just itching to be hatched from yarn needles, don’t you?! So do I think so, too!)

From top to bottom, then out my striped toes, I am excited ! A table whose whole self is not unlike the lookback a BIGly, red-dotted toadstool sees when its busy-ness is all about mirror-gazing, arrived by delivery wheels yesterday! The plan: to put it to special~seance good use on the day that falls on my birthday, come this October! Along side me please be delighted? Ahead be such enchanting fun and magical ghostly frolic! (About it will be more future words, this is my pledge.)

For You, One of My ButtonsnBows: A Magickal Shape~Up!

2011-02-28T09:52:00.000-08:00

Pie Crust Button

Might I share one of my ButtonsnBows with you? I was hoping you'd say yes! Here goes --Oh! But before I forget, ButtonsnBows are my "ways" to Manifestation (<~~the "bow"), all of which typically incorporate pie-ing (<~~the "button" part). Now on with the show I then be:

When letter by letter in doubt, this is a nice spell for "clearing" (to make what is veiled, or otherwise not evident to the eye or the understanding, reveal itself): As you pie~form a crust, visualize your desires also taking shape. When you put the filling in, bless it, allowing what you have worked with your hands and through visualization to be full upped with positive vim!

Someone's in the Kitchen with Cellar!

2011-02-22T08:32:00.000-08:00

An aphorism of one of Palmer Cox’s Brownies, Brownies Through the Union, 1894

On the wall of yesterday’s library visit I did spy a lovely and delightful Brownie~shipping~ahoy illustration and its poem, framed and hanging, and from which after making a read of it, I and cat Puddle were so inspired as to make it a today’s bake! First, the lovely ryhme I took jots of to share with you, followed by a receipt that is melting moments saying, “More!” and is as easy as... as... PIE to make!

Winter Twig: Walnut

The Brownie Boat

In a dipping mushroom schooner,
With a hey and a heigh and a ho,
Skipper Brownie’s cleared the dock,
For the Bay of I~Don’t~Know.

For the mast he sets a twiglet
For a sail a spidery thread:
With his leaves he gaily paddles,
While all elfland sleeps in bed.

Aunt Driven's Brownie Pie
2 eggs
1 cup sweets (sugar)
½ cup Witches' Frosting (butter, made soft)
½ cup Bakers’ Dust (flour)
3 to 4 hilled spoons of cocoa (Tablespoons)
1 teaspoon of Vanilla
Mite of salt (pinch)
½ cup of Walnuts, chopped

Place eggs, sweets, Frosting, Dust, cocoa, Vanilla and salt in a middle bowl, not a large. Beat until you’re mixing spoon is almost tired (four minutes). Stir in nuts and pour into a greased round. Bake at 350* thirty minutes or until done. Pie will settle like a meringue when it is cool. Slice and offer with white ice cream often.

I'm Sitting Pretty!

2011-02-15T09:20:00.000-08:00

Designer seating arrangement by Jimmie Martin Ltd

Still awaiting a reply (having already torn two pages from my daily calendar), I this morning decided to give the “situation” a gentle nudge, anxious that I was for an affirmative. Leaving the door open to my Gemmama’s attic, where I made sits to catch up with paperwork amidst the fabric scraps and old clothes racks that I call My Office (Even Professional Dog Walkers must fuss with tedious forms, reports, and other such commotion.), because luck boils down to a positive energy flow that attracts similar energy-- and meanwhilst inspiring myself with many sips a Good~Morning~Be~Yours Honeysuckle Serendipity (<~~Yes, I happily share the receipt with you at this writing’s caboose!), I called my kittycat Puddle to come up The Creeky [<~~sky parlor stairs] and took particular notice of which paw she did place first into the room. For you see, if it is the right mitty, the answer is “yes,” but if the Puddle steps with the left, it is a “no.”

YES!

Simultaneously and immediately and sprinkled with magic to be sure, the telephone called out its tune to me! Indeed, the answer I had been hanging on to my hat for but a short while, yet at the time seemed longer, came to me over the line! Jubilation from the rooftops and higher, because it was the one I had been aching to hear: “YES!”

A simply lovely woman, who lives plenty less than a far cry from me, has decided that it is most agreeable to her (and my new charge!) that I forever~on~my~schedule stroll her little sausage dog,

Elf,

who this isn’t a picture of him at all, since I truly must respect the sweet pup’s privacy (Thank you for your understanding.), still you are given a bit of an idea of this little scamp’s cuddlesome nature because of this visual aid! lol!

Shall we toast in celebration?
Let’s do!

LoniceraPericlymenum ~ Common Woodbine

Good~Morning~Be~Yours
Honeysuckle Serendipity

Necessary Components:
4 cups Honeysuckle Blossoms (I keep a no~need~to~thaw frozen batch at the ready. PLEASE TO NOTE: Although their color may be affected by the “induced cold weather,” their lucky properties are not diminished because of it.)
6 cups of Sweet (sugar)
½ packet wine yeast
1 gallon of water (Full Moon Water is best!)
2 succulent oranges, sliced and juiced

Go~Aheads:
After placing the blossoms in a large crock, warm one half the water to just beneath a boil, then pour over petals. Allow to rest until flowers are near~seethrough. Sieve and rewarm to slightly; add orange juice and its pieces, and yeast. Place into a glass fermentation vessel with a lock until the liquid turns to “clear.” Bottle and keep in the cool and dark.

Magickal Relations: Luck, best fortune, and good health.

I've Got a Crush on You,

2011-02-14T09:51:00.000-08:00

Sweetie Pie!

May love
and best Valentine's Day wishes-come-true

be yours,

Cellar Door

I Do Believe in Fairies! I Do! I Do!

2011-02-12T22:16:00.000-08:00

The Lost~and~Finders

At this summer’s end, before Gemmama flew off for Across the Pond to pay visits to her dearest and oldest friend, Luella, she asked me (out loud and with eyes that I do love how they smile!), “Could you, oh, would you? Please say you will be my house’s custodian while I am far, faraway --and caretaker of my

Spit~Spotty, too?”

Without pause, I shouted, “Yes, a thousand times!“ because magical describes best what my grandmother’s “Home, Sweet Home” is --and her little kitty~catty, too!
My grandmama, the most cheering person in the land (and I imagine yours is, too, on the grounds that aren’t they all?! Lol!) and delightful Missy L do adventure so well together, and in that the time has been a plentiful much since they have played, my expects tell me it will be many, many days until Gemmama’s distant~elsewhere fun and frolic will cross the finish line! Clearly, then, I needn’t tell you all the various everythings and importants I did have to remember to bring with me for my lengthy stay at my new diggings. Except perhaps one, by reason of February Fairies, namely: my foil bin!

Because I tend to be a Misplacer, I have collected colorful tin foil ever since... ever since... Quite honestly, I can not recall an instance when I didn’t, it’s been that “forever”! There, there. Before the Confusion Bug can take yet another nibble of you, I shall kindly explain myself and this Tried~and~True that I look to on a regular basis.
Whenever I lose something, and no amount of searching and retracing of steps will turn it up, I call upon the fairies. Although I make cut fine lost~article announcement in my greetings to them, fairies always know ahead what has become invisible to human eyes. But unless they are assured that the “loser,” for lack of a better word (Undoubtedly, there is one, however, it escapes me now.) is a sincere person, and that they will receive something in return for retrieving a missing item, and

because they are reluctant to not be bashful, they will look the other way. Being that fairies are partial to sparkly, an offer of sparkly as the reward, makes for the ultimate enticement.

Put something shiny, like a bit of tin foil, crumpled (I prefer colorful sorts.), under a glass near where fairies would be. (At Gemmama’s, it is in the wax begonia “forest” growing in the big planting box on top of legs with the shelf at the bottom, where naps are taken by Spot, who keeps a cozy bed there. Fairies like flora and fauna!) Then, tapping into that part of your heart labeled “Humble,” ask the fairies to bring back the lost object in exchange for the all~that~glitters.

It may take a few days, sometimes seven, before LO AND BEHOLD! Your missing treasure will show itself in a place you’ve already looked for it umpteen times, or it will be deliberately placed somewhere absurdly silly! (As you know it, fairies are not opposed to fun and funny!) Next on your agenda: un~glass the foil ball to reward fairies as promised. Soon, and not unlike your once lost “something,” the crumpled shiny will disappear!

In closing, might I toss you a pearl of wisdom?
(Thank~you in advance!)
Catch!

Once upon a Yuletide , I misplaced the book of postage stamps necessary to send my written holiday cards on their Merry Christmas way. Caught without even the tiniest morsel of foil to encourage fairy helpers, I substituted a silver Santa bell under the glass. The very next day, the stamps surprised me from under

the puff~puff

in my dusting powder round! But for three nights that were in a row, I was [Jingle! Jingle!] wide awake!

. . . . .

Thank you ever so much, Miss Danni for this wonderful opportunity to share in your February Fairies jubilee! To my Readers: To make yours a truly magical Faeful February, please accept this invitation to read other participating guest bloggers’ entries. Simply click The Whimsical Cottage button, above.

May a joyful heart be yours!
Cellar Door

Moments of Passion

2011-02-01T00:00:00.000-08:00

"Love Birds" is an original hand-drawn illustration
by Nikki Catalano, and is available for purchase ~~> Click!

Happy Passion Fruit Day!
(complete with an exclamation point as golden as the delicious treat 1 February celebrates, and, hopefully, you do, too!)

This fragrant aureate “banquet” for the tongue buds has love powers in this amour~y month! (<~~That of which also devotes its day fourteen to romance!) If you kiss a passion fruit today, most certainly a meant just for you dreamboat will sail in your direction, and a love fantasy promises to be true!

Muah, passion fruit,
MUAH!

POSTSCRIPT: How to make a good passion fruit selection? It must be squeezable. That is to say, if you cannot press your finger into it, it is not the one you’ll enjoy.

Good Things Happen in Threes!

2011-01-30T09:34:00.000-08:00

"Magic is desire made real." --Diana Bishop, after both her desire and magical prowess exceed her expectations. (Borrowed from A Discovery of Witches: A Novel by Deborah Harkness)

Cloud Number Nine
is where you'll find me,
and here be why:

Inside the special double-issue of Entertainment Weekly that Thomas did deliver Friday morning ~~turning those particular minutes into the brightest and shiniest part of my day, not to make mentions of the plenty of glitter that continues to fall from my sky ever since, because, yes! My postman and I will date again, come Thursday’s evening!~~ was printed this joyful noise:

(My words~~>) To be released 08 February of this very year,
a fiction by writer Deborah Harkness titled:

Reviewd by Karen Valby (Her words, courtesy of my forever bible, Entertainment Weekly):

“Does this sound familiar? A woman falls in love with a moody, chiseled vampire with a great wardrobe and a quick temper. Of course it does, and comparisons between Twilight and Deborah Harkness' extraordinarily fun debut — the first in a planned trilogy — are unavoidable. But A Discovery of Witches, a thoroughly grown-up novel packed with gorgeous historical detail, has a gutsy, brainy heroine to match: Diana Bishop, a renowned scholar of 17th-century chemistry and a descendant of accomplished witches. Diana has spent most of her life resisting the magic within her. The power she's long denied swirls to the forefront, however, when she opens a bewitched manuscript in Oxford's famous Bodleian Library. Suddenly every vampire, witch, and daemon — yes, they walk among us; we humans are just oblivious to their presence — is up in her grill, hungry for the secrets she's unknowingly unlocked. It's 1,500-year-old vampire Matthew who makes the biggest impression. Diana falls madly for him, breaking every rule about interspecies dating. They're a formidable team, which is lucky because Diana's roiling power has unleashed all kinds of crazy.

Harkness writes with thrilling gusto about the magical world. Whether she's describing a yoga class for witches, daemons, and vampires or Diana's benignly haunted house, it's a treat to suspend disbelief. Alas, there's a bit of bloat to the book. In a particularly saggy patch, Diana and Matthew loll around a French castle, checking e-mail and tracing each other's collarbones. But just when I began to wonder whether A Discovery of Witches was nerdy-cute rather than truly magical, the plot accelerated. As the mysteries started to unravel, the pages turned faster, almost as if on their own. By the most satisfying end, Harkness had made me a believer!”

Did your ears catch that?!
It’s a planned trilogy!

. . . . .

Postscript of great importance:

Might I interest you in some

boysenberry
for the go?

Side by side with good news,
it’s a wonderful start to any day!

Reflection Connection

2011-01-26T09:28:00.000-08:00

Here and there, when happenings fall under the same header as such occasions as waiting in line to be cash~registered at the market; biding your time while the column leading to the cinema box shortens until the next ticket purchaser becomes you; beguiling tick~tocks whilst seated in the doctor’s salle d'attente, where outdated periodicals can not possibly cut mustard and

you don’t knit;

or

under the hood
is where an appointment has you,

I will play a secret game called “Spitting”! Only one rule belongs to this amusement, and it is the same as its aim: find faces that resemble (<~~aka spitting images) movie stars, celebrities, pets, or inanimate objects and the like! Near~mirrors are good, but

spot-ons
make for best!

Its fun is but a harmless devil’s way to fritter minutes! So, if you have no choice but to be doing just that, why not do just that?! And, as part of yesterday did unwrap itself, I discovered during our popcorning to Lady and the Tramp for the umpteenth with dear friend Soose (After all these years, that love story still takes us both away!), the game can sometimes be a put~a~smile~on~your~heart happenstance, as well:

The proof is in this pudding:

Here is a picture of

Luna Lovegood,
a very favorite witch
(whose “another” picture I proudly wear as my avatar),

and

VOILA!

a Spitting
that unexpectedly crossed our path
Tuesday afternoon!

Any Way You Slice It, Pie is Good!

2011-01-23T12:03:00.000-08:00

From The Nursery Rhymes of England collected by James Orchard Halliwell, 5th Edition (1886), Halliwell wrote, "The following is used by schoolboys, when two are starting to run a race:

‘One to make ready
And two to prepare;
Good luck to the rider,
And away goes the mare!'“

Please and thank~you ahead for allowing me to retell the above enthusiastic, little witty~ditty, employing Cellar Door-speak:

Ready,

steady,

GO!

Merry are the bells and merry do they ring,
as we join their tintinnabulation in celebration of

National Pie Day!
(Sunday, January 23, 2011)

HUZZAH and sweet hallelujah! The National Pie Council's calendar-wish is, today, finally realized! Replacing a typical Sunday with one dedicated to the forward bringing of words promoting the body and soul goodness of pie, in return, the Calendar Fairy asks only that the cold snaps of January be warmed by a coming together that urges "random acts of pieness" in celebration: Eat Pie! Share pie! Tell tales of pie memories! Eat more pie (In kind, a making of more pie memories yet)! Do raise a fork of plumps-for, rejoicing this glorious dessert staple!

Heartened by my “friends” at

(In particular, Olive Snook in

“Pigeon,” Episode 4, Season 1,

who, unbeknownst to The Pie Maker, understands the deliciousness of pear and gruyère, brightly suggests to Chuck, busy experimenting with a receipt concocted expressly for the lifting up of spirits : “You know what’d be delicious? Pear with gruyère crust! Bet that’d be real good!”),

Cheese-lace the integument of my

When I was wee, my father’s brother, Putnam, would come to call on some Sunday mornings with his Granpawpo’s best-loved “novel,” Aesop’s Fables, in one hand and, of his own making in the other, a fresh pear pie in the other. After he read aloud a tale or two, or three or six, he and I would, on the floor’s round rug, crayon drawings to match chosen favorites from the book, taking BIG bites of our pear pie pieces between each of our colorful sketches!

Uncle Putty’s "Pearable" Pie,
I then did,
and that of which I have baked
for this most auspicious “feast” day!

Just say the secret words

“Found my mittens!”,

and you shall have some pie!

Now was that so very hard?

I think not!
Enjoy!

Image sources: “The Rocking-Horse-Fly” ~ This wood-engraving by William Dalziel is an
illustration to the third chapter of Through the Looking Glass by John Tenniel, who wrote of this creature: “It's made entirely of wood, and gets about by swinging itself from branch to branch. . . [it lives on] sap and sawdust.”; steady and ready fork; original vintage magazine print ad for Crisco featuring recipes for Chocolate Sundae Pie, Coronation Butterscotch Pie, Harvest Home Grape Pie, and Garden of Eden Pie along with the master recipe for Crisco Pastry was first featured at AtticPaper.com: and Aesop book page.

In the Offing: A Pearfectly Delicious Celebration!

2011-01-13T17:46:00.000-08:00

My Sweet Inspiration: Pushing Daisies!

Yes, and yes, again, I do! ~~> Many a plenty merry make~readies, presently baking in the noggin~oven that I shoulder, is what I have! And yourself? What say you? Or have you forgotten the preparedness that should be in the fire, if you are as committed as I in keeping the auspicious holiday that a red circle has found its way to (via catty~cornering left and down from the smack~dab middle of the first page of the New Year’s calendar), rounding the day numbered 23? Ahhh! I am simply vigorred with the thought of its "nearly~here": National Pie Day!

“Prunus, Bartlett Pear,” a watercolor by Linda Kneeland

Even though not quite yet am I ready to un~secret all of my love~affair~with~pies promotional excogitions, this much I am able and happy~willing to spill: it is a crusted bake of a Bartlett and Gruyère that I have bigly thoughts of!

Then you'll accept my invitation to return on the twenty-third of January? Please say yes? I look forward to seeing you, is why! Uptop a dainty dessert plate with a fancy fork at its side, the promise of a warm slice waiting for you will become true, this I whole~heartedly pledge! (Unless bravery finds me, for then it will be Pie Pops instead!)

The Day of the Apple Fruit - Come, Let Us Make Merry!

2011-01-06T01:04:00.001-08:00

(Giving attention to this picture: I could not resist!)
Merry Little Christmas!
Women’s Christmas - 6 January

Garnished up are you with garlands and ribbons?
Have you drained your wassail bowl of Lamb's~Wool yet, singing:

Wassail, wassail all over the town,
Our toast is white, our ale is brown,
Our bowl it is made
of a Maplin tree,
We be good damsels all,
I drink to thee!
?

Lest yours has been mislaid, here affixed is a

Receipt for Lamb’s~Wool
(The Drink of Good Wishes)
A "Door" Translation of the Authentic Lambswool Recipe, 1863,
snuck away from Gemmama's library’s top-shelf, taken from her cherished copy of Cups And Their Customs by H. Porter & G. Roberts, Published 1863

To one generous quart of strong, hot ale (or cider: sweet, or cider and ale commingled), from six cored-to-get-rid-of-the-pip, roasted apples contribute the fluffy pulp, together with a small measure of winter-spices (grated nutmeg and ginger) and sugar, brown, to sufficiently sweeten it (2 tablespoons to one half-cup). Fuss in circles the mixture assiduously with a wooden spoon, then let it be served hot in a bowl with sweet cakes floating in it, and to which an adding of ground almonds sprinklings makes it even that much better!

”Sing We Now A’Wassailing” by Ellsworthcreations

Awakened be your Tree Spirit,
Healthy and be whole be you!
Vesheill,
Cellar Door

Just Wait Until You Get a Lode(stone) of This!

2010-12-31T09:12:00.000-08:00

(Please do brightly sing the following to the same holiday tune, pictured above. A most perfect musical accompaniment can be found at the top of my sidebar. Thank you!)

“The 'Holly and the Ivy'”:
Most Definitely Non~Traditional

The Bat Wing and the Climber,
When together they’re sown
Into a sack drawn by a string,
Then true romance will be honed!

O Christmas “petals” and green leaves
Mingled to make “one,"
Pledging luck in love: your heart’s desire!
Now real magic has begun!

Bat Wing is the sobriquet for holly leaves, the perfect pet tag for this plant of good fortune, doubly enhanced by it mirror-alikeness to the flying mammal’s wings, mustn’t you agreed?!

On a day taken from a big batch of them
in right front of Christmas, when

all halls had just been bedecked,
with Gemmama’s

(It being a scissor similar to this,
as a child, I would feed it nutty sesame seeds!)

tiny stork shearers in hand, I returned to the mantel’s holly bough to make snippets that would earn me two of its leaves. Spit~spot, I then made gentle sparges of a pair of winter “Bat Wings” and several pluckings taken and saved back from a summer’s ivy, into a heart-red and small dilly bag, sprinkling them like seeds being planted in a garden of new hope! Back-to-back, then, High John the Conquer root* togethered with a matched set of lodestones**, were plussed into the satin sack, after which I blew thoughtful kisses into it, before drawing its ribbon~string to tightness.

*High John the Conquer root is a completely benevolent botanical. Born of Morning Glory’s “feet,” it brings luck and good fortune to faithful believers~in.
** The lodestone is a naturally magnetic piece of the Earth's crust. Famous for drawing love to the wearer, it helps to remove any obstacles that would sidestep new romance.

Ever so quietly, huzzahs I soon merrily mouthed as, after only a two-day’s worth of wearing the lovely Bat Wing conjurer, Thomas (my grandmother’s mail carrier and the man I hush~hush and perpetually adore!) made gentle knocks upon the front door (to the beat of “Jingle Bells,” no less!) to politely be so bold as to ask if I might be able to assist him in purchasing a most special Christmas gift for his little niece.

Safe~keeping my grip, yet without hesitancy, my answer was “Yes!” (Very in point of fact and quite actually, I geysered a resounding “Yes! Yes! A thousand times YES!” ~~inside my happiest head, that is!) The next day’s afternoon, together Thomas and I (<~~How beautiful that “music” is to my ears!) located a delightfully fluffy, black kitten --who would later be dubbed Pollywog, only to be called Hollywog, because “It’s Christmas, Uncle Thomas, and so is she!”–- for him to present to an eight and a half-year old, soon-to-be-spounting-“You’re the best uncle ever!” Natalie. The "To Boot": Coming after his daily rounds next Tuesday evening, Thomas and I will have our very first official date together! Again, I say, Happy New Year!

Postscript:
I thought so certain I would not be posting until after the bells rang in 2011,
but with the possibility of me bursting, well, I had little, if any, choice! lol

Stork Scissors: Trocedero Antiques

Fondly Farewelling Old Long Since

2010-12-29T07:04:00.000-08:00

Merely days away from today, calendars will be singing us a shiny new year! And... *gazing into hand~held but unseen crystal ball, bigly smiles a smile edged with promises* ...The future looks bright! As it goes, I continue myself in the happy jumble I call Post~Christmas Tangle, where precious time slips by so easily, so I wish you, now instead of later, a

Happy New Year!

POSTSCRIPT OF THE UTMOST: If you’re making ready spend holly boughs for the tossing~out, please be sure to snip a few leaves as save~backs. I have a

lovely bat wings

tale to tell, which includes these green Christmas “petals” in its mix. I am excited to share it with you, when the holiday’s measure becomes that of dull roar, that is! (My meaning: shortly after the New Year rings in, I will make it my first blog issue of 2011. As they say on TedeedleVeedley, “Please, stay tuned”!)

Nothing but joyful days ahead for you and yours!
Cellar Door

To All, A Merry Season’s Greetings!

2010-12-20T06:54:00.000-08:00

(Come closer...closer. Closer still... YES! Yes, that's me! I am La Befana, flying with the twinkling snowflakes in the upper right hand corner!)
Defying frosty winds that blow,
I shout to you across the snow ~~
Merry Christmas!

Happy “All is calm, all is bright”!
Ever so fondly,
Cellar Door (and Puddle!)

Credit for visual: http://www.vectis.co.uk/

Christmas Shoes!

2010-12-06T16:02:00.000-08:00

A print from the book Yule-Tide in Many Lands, 1916

I trust you remembered to put your shoes at the door last night? (December fifth marks the get-go of the celebration of St. Nicholas Day! His legendary tale has it that if slippers are left outside bedroom doors on the eve of 6 December, the Wonderworker will visit sleepyheads while they are being just that, filling their shoes with goodies!) Happy chocolate golden coins, pomegranates, ornaments and wrapped chocolate orange peels to all!

We Gather Together

2010-11-24T08:28:00.000-08:00

"Hem your blessings with thankfulness so they don't unravel." ~~Author Unknown

THANKSGIVING DAY
by Kathryn S. Gibson

COME GATHER round the table
To say a happy grace
For family and food and friends
And a smile on every face.

The harvest now is over,
The fields are clean and bare,
For all the fruits are gathered in
And stored away with care.

The open fire burns cheerfully,
The dancing flames leap high,
And apples roasting in the ash
Pop with a happy sigh.

Be thankful for the harvest,
For Friends so good and gay,
For happiness and loving care
On this Thanksgiving Day.

To My Dear Friends
Both Old and New:
That your Thanksgiving
Last the whole year through,
Is my loving wish for you!
Good Thanksgiving be yours!
Most sincerely,
Cellar Door

Some Enchanted Evening!

2010-11-19T16:56:00.000-08:00

Harry and I met up again last night
and it was good! (<~~ A midnight rendezvous!)

If you haven’t already attended a showing, you simply must put Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 on your list of priorities! (Hot, buttered popcorn, too! And Raisinets, don't forget the Raisinets!)

Come in from the Cold, Josiette, Josiette!

2010-11-17T09:05:00.000-08:00

Today and quite suddenly, our wee early morning, earmarked as a the start of a Satchel Packing Day, took a turn! Presently, Josiette and I would be at the close of her and her shiny new, black kitty Clarinet’s makereadies for

(A "something" about Josiette that you might otherwise would not have known, unless this little birdie told you: Upon her return to her charges, she will be celebrating her happiest year yet (number six) as their loving nanny! A well-deserved congratulations be yours, dear “Miss Poppins”!)
their road trip home,

as they shall point themselves in that direction, come bright and dawny Friday. (O the funs and frolics we have pulled from each others pockets during her memory~album~pages~filling, several~weeks stay with me, here, while I am caretaking at Gemmama’s!) Instead, and as if mysteriously triggered by the unlatch of the first suitcase we intended to make thick with freshly foldeds, Josiette did ACHOO! And, then, again...and again...and AGAIN! “Oh, no!” to the very thought of such an untimely, respiratory echo!

All matters regarding the making fluffy of

Josiette’s luggage

were put on ice, as I chop~chop gave answer to her “What ever shall I do?!” “The Brick,” I assured her, “The Brick!” And with scurry in both feet I did trot off to my grandmother's kitchen.

After red~hotting by oven Gemmama’s medicinal ashlar, I placed the block in a pan beneath Josiette’s chair with a flannel covering the seat. Whilst a back~into~her~pajamas sneezer claimed sips from a large cup of ginger and yarrow tea, the minder nurse (<~~~ That would be me!) poured hard humming water over the brick, until the tin it be in was full to the half~way. Swaddle~wrapped in a blanket fat and heavy was my dear Josiette, who I had sit down upon this healing throne.

Spoons of orange Royal
I did nourish her with,
until dew of her own body’s making
began on her face.

Afterwhichbe, a hasty but careful ---so as not to egg on chills, not even those of the slightest rank-–- cleansing rinse of warmed vinegar and water was next called for, followed by a blot~off completely. Then, straight to bed Josiette did go.

At her side and on Gemmama’s famous hilled~ottoman puffy~fabricated from a rich red upholstery with dotting white velveteen tuffs <~~all to mirror a toadstool’s look, ~~~> I perched. As my grandmother’s

phonograph played,

I listened with Josiette to special spots of Truman’s The Thanksgiving Visitor, till Dreamland kindly took her over. Despite delay, her sniffles~in~sleep became purrs of a kitten, and

the hovering Florence Nightingale
that I be
at last breathed a sigh of sweet relief!

In minutes short I will return to Josiette in the cozy Pink Room where she rests, to re~tuck and make coverlets to her chin. As her Nose Nasties continue to shift and lift, at her bedside I shall attentively sit. There and by then, since the knowings can now be counted on as All Is Wells, I will

cast on thirty stitches,

those of which I next shall knit one, purl one, knit six, purl two, (purl one, knit one) five times to make a first row. Row two will behave likewise, only a tadly reversed. So forth and so on but only a little bittle more my needles shall play clicky. Then begin again and finish again two times mair this mesh I’ll make from toty amounts of worsted~weight wool gray.

Once

catnip~stuffed and sewn into closed, I’ll have Mousies enough to treat Gemmama’s Spot, Josiette’s Clarinette, and my very own pointy-eared, fur bundle Puddle! I love when meowing faces smile! And I love happily ever afters, don't you?

Dearest Josiette:

Be well soon.
Love, E.

Postscript: Meant not only as remedy for that which calls for many consecutive geshudteits, vapor baths work their wonder on days when you think the water’s going to carry you away, as well!

Picture Book Illustrations: Mary Poppins by Mary Shepard for P.L. Travers' classic series, Harry Whittier Frees/Kitties!

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

2010-11-02T05:52:00.000-07:00

Cup your ear and give a listen.
Do you hear what I hear?
A Christmas Belle is ringing!

That would be my dear pal,

Lolly,
a self~described Cow Belle

ever since moving to America’s Dairyland a few winters gone by. Year 'round is how often Yuletide songs are playing at her house and an O Tannebaum, wealthy with trims, is a perpetual in her parlor! I know no one who loves Christmas as plentiful much as Lolly! And the day after Halloween is when I can without exception see coming a pre~Holiday parcel from my forever walking in a winter wonderland friend. She calls this special delivery her Jolly Jumpstart to me, a ‘Tis~the~Season~to~be~Ho! Ho! Ho! reminder, if you will, and yet another one of Lolly's ratherish ways to say words about it.

Penned in white~as~the~"driven," rolling script that had looks like the “Over the River and Through the Woods” song sounds, Lolly had written this “Open Me! Open Me! lure:

“I’m Dreaming of a....”

Depluming fingers of mine went fast to pluck free the small box from brown postal paper wrap, and then layers of illustrated candy cane tissue that amounted to oodles! Afterwhich, my eyes joyfully met up with a cartonned, “Lolly” two~word finish that would complete the package’s front side inscription, and begin a delicious Christmas story from her house to mine (whose “sips of” I take, amazingly taste like the North Pole itself!):

Noël sous la neige the blanc!
(Christmas in the snow white tea!)
What a lovely song
my unpolished French does make sings of!

Miss Lolly? Cup your ear and give a listen. Do you hear? Another Christmas chime resounds, this time, belling a plethora of Thank~yous in a direction that leads to you!

Have yourself a
Merry, Little Christmas!

She Can Bake a Cherry Pie, Quick's a Cat Can Wink Her Eye!

2010-10-31T00:38:00.000-07:00

(Endora’s voice is the only one wearing

an All-Hallows-Even costume: French! Give listen:)
L'Halloween Heureuse,
mes chéris, mes chéris!

This summer’s late June, I made certain an extra two pounds~worth of Sour Cherries found themselves riding home from The Local (farmers' market) in my bicycle basket, jiggety~jig! At the kitchen table, my dearsweet friend, Soose, and I did set ourselves down and, then, making with the hasties, we stems~stones~and~all turned the fruits out onto cookie sheets headed to the deep freeze to hibernate the cherries for freshness, purposefully.

At last, their long anticipated, circled~and~starred in orangest~glitter~on~the~calendar day has finally arrived! (How lucky~stars lucky we are that someone took it upon themself to invent my close pal, the irrepressible hyphen! Thank the heavens and the planets, too, that I most times have the presence of mind to touch this punctuation mark that I call favorite, with my FullOfFancy paintbrush, causing it to ruffle-- a keyboard~artistc stroke that renders it helplessly beautiful! Wouldn’t you have to agree? Looksee! There go by a few strays as we speak: ~ ~ ~ ~ !)

This morning, I ceremoniously opened the Arctic part of Gemmama’s fridge (Yes, indeed I did not forget to suitcase the bagsful of the rock~solid~frozens, when I packed my things to come to my grandmother’s house to custodian it while she is Across the Pond.) to thaw the main integrals of a time~honored tradition: The Spirit Night Pitting!

It was Gemmama’s younger brother, Ned, who twice~bounced this about to be mentioned ball before getting it to roll for me, when I was a teen~ager learning pies: It was Halloween morning and I was in a snit. My needs and wants were all about baking a pie for the Trick or Treat Afters. But thoughts of making a pumpkin or sweet potato or apple or any other expected harvest pie, tired me. In addition to that particular sulking, I was upsetting over the fact that I did not yet have Halloween ringing in my heart, then right down to the tips of my striped~socked toes and back again. At this game’s stage, I would have been happy merely to hear it chiming in my ears!

Suddenly, my Great Uncle Ned appeared in the doorway. Wearng a crisp white laboratory jacket and an enormous “Nedward”~grin on his face (Nedward is my Fond Name for him!), he would announce: “Methinks I have the cure for your No ‘Boo!’ Boo Hoos!” As he plopped onto the kitchen table a bucketful of saved back from summertime cherries and two silver pitters not unlike Frankensteinian surgical instruments, he went on to say, “What is best needed here, is to do

a big ‘something’ mad scientisty!”

As that proclamation’s loom did take over the room’s mood and mine, I exchanged my flowered apron for the pristine lab coat that my Great Uncle merrily was teasing my undernose with.

An InDeppth Look at Mr. Todd
OR
A Beyond Dark Johnny About to Cut Loose !

Quicker than

a bat indoors
can conjure up a fiercely swinging tennis racket
aimed in the direction of itself,
the kitchen was

a red~splashed scene

straight out of the Victorian penny dreadful, The String of Pearls! Crimson cherry juice was not only here and there, but everywhere! And harmlessly macabre Neddy and I (the Sweeny Todds behind it all) were giddy for it!

Indeed and positively, on Samhain 1999, a miracle did happen: my curious Great Uncle Ned gave birth! To a new Halloween tradition, that is: The Spirit Night Pitting!

Which in turn---upon his kind and a hungry~tinged suggestion, as Nedward does wear a bottomless belly, when life is all about pies and tarts!---brought forth yet another annual practice:

She Can Bake a Cherry Pie,
Quick's a Cat
Can Wink Her Eye Tart!

It pleases me, it does,
to share with you this:
my once a yearly baked receipt!

She Can Bake a Cherry Pie,
Quick's a Cat Can Wink Her Eye Tart

Filling:
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar, but not together
2 tablespoon measures of cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon salt
5 cups whole pitted Sour Cherries (when unpitted cherries, 2 pounds it will be)
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 tablespoon of mik, aboutish

For crust and topknot: Use the Do Ahead, chilling in the refrigerator ever since two days ago.

For filling and "bakes":
Position your range shelf to set in the lower third of a preheated to 425°F oven. Move quickly together and in a bowl a bit less than large 1 cup sugar, cornstarch, and salt. Disturb the blend with the cherries, lemon juice, and vanilla; keep back.

From its fridge hold, kitchen counter the pie crust and a short while more make it wait.
On a flour~sprinkled work board, roll a Do Ahead dough puck into an 11-inch round whose thickness belongs to 1/8 measure; aside it. Spoonfeed the Sour Cherry filling to the pie~panned Do Ahead evenly. Make cut-up pieces of butter be dots on top. Blanket the patient uppercrust. With water, make damp the top and bottom crusts where they happen on, then under turn the top crust to be under the bottom crust: make edges flutey (I much raher the pinches as big as biggest.). Steam slits numbered five or six are next cut into the tightened dough lid. Like Fairy dust, sprinkle with remaining 1 tablespoon sugar.

Place pie on a dribblecatch (baking sheet) and bake 15 minutes before making lower the oven temperature to 375°F. Until the filling is bubbling and crust is golden brown, bake some more, with foil coverings edges if browning does not behave (about 1 hour longer). Rack cool completely. Wedge and serve with vanilla~laced ice cream.

Merriest Halloween!

Credits:. pitter, winker, pie,

No Time Like the Presents!

2010-10-27T08:20:00.000-07:00

Although yesterday’s Sun was being shiny, in chorus a softhearted, steady~down rain arrived –-a light-footed pouring, that of which all-at-once took me by surprise with its impulsive swings: this a way and that a way, then back into a quiescent state it did once more situate itself.

Meanstwhile, our Brightest Star had not taken leave of his senses and glowed he still did. In and out, his brilliance was now more akin to glitter. All of these together-weather bits put this wondering into my head: was I soon to stand under a rainbow?! A fabulously magical rainbow?!?! Lo and behold! Just like that, I was! Because my Thomas was on the front door knocker, turning it into all gentle brass poundings in order to deliver Gemmama and Luella’s cards to me with a parcel ever so carefully barnacled beneath them!

I think I’ve made before mentions of Thomas? He is my grandmother’s postal carrier and my intended Romeo, but, thusfar, only from afar! My feelings for him are unbeknowst to Thomas. Thence, a deadline I have set for myself to ask him, “Scotch Broth is a filling soup of which I am stove-simmering. Please do feast with me this night?’ or “A dessert of Molasses~Ginger cookies so nicely goes with my special receipt Chicken Barley Stew. Please, might I share both with you on an evening of your choosing?”

Too forward? “Heavens to Betsey” be my oath! My internal planning of such an event makes for tizzies and pretty, winged creatures who give me stomach ruffles during this time that the Nervousy Bug does take big bites of me! Courage, Cellar, courage! Deep, deep breaths be mine, and “All in good time” are words I speak to me for the calming. Secretly I do pine for dear, sweet, unaware Thomas. I long also for the day on which the “un” easily drops away from his descriptive.

Goodness! How my mouth is a dash-about! Tee~hees then be yours and mine, since this Cellar Door chapter is to be not about the whys, wheres and howfores of the romantic brew bubbling in my caldron. Here be the instead:

Two days after yesterday marks my being on this lovely Earth for twenty-six years in all! (“Nearly born on Halloween, was I,” my voice gives. “Wouldn’t you agree, that measures for something?” lol) And sweethearts are Gemmama and Luella to

for-get-me-not!

When Thomas handed me the birthday package (at which time, flutters hastily replaced the beating of my heart as his hand did brush mine!), I was profoundly green at the start, as the postmark divulged Gemmama and Luella’s corking whereabouts. Their Halloween holiday has taken them to Amsterdam (where, conceivably, they will conjure up the spirits of Vincent van Gogh, Johann Vameer, Jheronimus Bosch, and Rembrandt van Rijn. With both girls wearing a Master on each arm, because so very much do they enjoy the Arts (“The finer, the better,” claims Luella.) and are quite fond of accessorizing as well, they will go for the Dutch gusto, to be sure! Oops! Please not to disremember Gemmama’s funnyman Jan Steen, who is as gay and animated as any of the party~goers in his paintings! For that, Gemmama has nicknamed him The Carouser. What a fun ‘n frolic his spirit be! O how his humor ensorcels! Many are the times she has called upon Mr. Steen, which makes him a frequent ghosty guest in her home. Positive I am that she will enlist him whilst Netherlanding.

Upon opening my present box, instantly, my envy would turn into ear-to-ear smiling that crossed my face again and over and again! Luella had made for me one of her

signature “ variegateds”: a cozy, hand-knit scarf with an accompanying notecard on which was written:

“Dearest E. That Ever Be:
Best Birthday Wishes!
I love you in the ‘worsted’ way!
Smooches, L.”

(Not about to put into place a case of the Left-Outs, because “It makes for hurts that truly linger,” generously, Miss Luella did send Josiette one of the same, only in yellows!)

And great HUZZAHS to the sends
Gemmama lovingly full-chocked into

the carton’s bottom half:

(Second only to pie, Jimmies are my life!)
Dutch Chocolate Sprinkles!

(A custom of edible letters goes back to Germanic times when, at birth, children were given a runic letter.)
A Sinterklaas Chocolate Letter
molded to be an

the initial of my given name!

And last but not least (because it is best of all!):

(A Barbara Wiggins notebook)
A foiled amethyst Spellbook,
bearing a secret castable created by Gemmama especially for this Birthday Girl, penned in her delightful nervous-pigeon-walking scrawl!

By the by: most possibly
could I interest you in a hardy slab of

Pre-Birthday Cake???

Credit where credit is due: Birthday Cake: ColettesCakes.com

Anything Can Happen Night! (Tea Party Under a Halloween Moon)

2010-10-22T09:21:00.000-07:00

Hat up top?

“Manicure” complete?

Then gather 'round and make hands joined, as we do

Sing a song of teacups
A pocketful of nigh,’

Four
and twenty berries black
baked in

a pie!

The last grain of hourglass sand
has made its trickle!
HUZZAH! and give nods of approbation:
At long last, let the merriment commence!

In celebration of

“Follow me along a moonlit path.
Into the deepest heart of the autumn woods.
Where burnished moonflowers and twinkling lanterns light our way”
--Frosted Petunias
Tea Party Under a Halloween Moon,

ever so graciously hosted by Frosted Petunias, along with her sweets Lucinda, Fiona, Luna and assorted witchy kin, whose furtherance is nothing short of sterling, and because pie is my life, I have baked a Four and Twenty, Then Some More (an old-fashioned blackberry pie), truly whose dressing is as indigo as the night’s sky during this auspicious All Hallows' Eve Moon’s tea~feast!

How howling that whatever streams from Gemmama’s teapot nozzle is the exact tea blend your tongue bits have tastes for!

What be your pleasure then?

Dragonwell Green? Blue Oolong? Or mayhaps my old trusty, Bergamia~Chamomile (hinted with Spearmint)? O what a magic this night owns! ‘Neath a Moon, whose fullness belongs to this Halloween, it is lovely to know that its moonlight is a “same” we are sharing!

Now, have your fork be lively, for I shall serve pie! (<~~ A pause that most certainly promises to be toothsome!)

Pie-seconds and teacup morepours must make waits, as some unsecretting is what I have forthcoming. Perchance not really a hush ~~likened it more to an at last happening of an opportunity to impart the how-tos regarding a little “something” that makes for happy catch and carry. Your curiosity is what I’ve piqued? Let us then put hoof to

a hoot~lit path,

leading us more to than fro, yet a mere four pumpkin luminaries from the garden’s open-edge, where Moonlight is its shiniest.

Whilst we find our way, your ears be open to my spill:

Halloween Moon

Ago two Octobers, I was passing the time in an apothecary that offered magazine reads while orders were put to prescriptions. My paging-through was lackadaisy, being that I was seized with thoughts of Full Moon charged water, before all else, using clear jars to hold the in progress water. “There simply must be a prettier way to contain water go-abouts and its transfer,” said my thinking. Straightaway, the next article featured in the Garden Gate I was strumming, was one concerning the making of a sand-cast birdbath, that of which we are standing before presently, and that of ~~witch~~ which is not a feathered-friends’ tub, but my

(Ever so nicely does the Full Moon Water drizzle from the folio’s “pointy” into a decanter! Not to mention, this rhubarb is portable as well. From my home to Gemmama’s I brought it with me, at the time in which she crowned Cellar Door her Household Custodian, while away she is Across the Pond.)
Drawing Down the Moon Leaf!

Although a mix of jumbles did infect my plan, kind Mr. Google did save this night. Originally, I was to picture “leaf” doings and list jottings of most important instructions. But Josiette and her camera had before now vamoused the coop (a weekend’s holiday on her horizon be), and then not for the life of me, could I conjured up the sand-casting proceedings, specific. Determined not to begin this sentence with “alas,” but most probably due to a happening by a lucky chance, I was able to locate the precise tutorial that did guide me twice-years back! You’ll discover the need-to-knows on THE VERY PAGE (<~~Please see the outloud-printed link at this post's end, if this "click" leads you to an "Oops!") that I’ve turned to for you, in the Garden Gates magazine archive.

Since its season has come and gone, sand-casters might be hard-pressed about their edges to find a rhubarb leaf for the picking. Thoughly, methinks

a Catalpa “fan”
might whole-heartedly be up to the task.

. . . . . .

Shall we reappear at the awaiting tea table?
LET'S SHALL!

Hm.

Now where were we?

Ahhhh, yes!

Seconds!
(Hopes be you kept your fork?)

CREDITS:
If the above link to Garden Gates is best described as out of commision, copying and pasting would best do the trick: http://www.gardengatemagazine.com/extras/53birdbath1.php

How To Build Hooty Luminariums: Martha Stewart

Witches Sipping Tea found at Visual Arts Center of New Jersey

Blackberry pie

Enchanter Claire de Lune Is About to Be!

2010-10-21T07:31:00.000-07:00

Make ready, make steady...

Hourglass sands shall
soonly sprinkle their glad tidings:

“Follow me along a moonlit path.
Into the deepest heart of the autumn woods.
Where burnished moonflowers
and twinkling lanterns light our way”
--Frosted Petunias.

Tea~Party~Under~a~Halloween~Moon Telltale:
The more, the merrier!

O Witch Who Emboldens Me, I Am Beholden to Thee

2010-10-16T20:14:00.000-07:00

On bended blog~knee, a plenty humble pardons I do beg. Even so it be but a mere wiggle-worm after the calendar’s circled day intended, I am nevertheless tardy sans excuses. A College Witch’s Experiences (who has since bibbity-bobbity-booed into Confessions of a Couuntry Witch) merrily hosted an

“Inspiring Witches Halloween Blog Party” on October 13 (one day x three ago = the wiggle-worm span). Presently, please do consider my late-to-the-table? I send lacey~hearted thank yous!

Ever and again --and consistently, too– it is the little things in life that this Cellar Door draws sweet inspiration from! A perfect illustration: the wee witch I did first encounter in one of my Mother’s well-savored comics, saved back from her early years. With all my heart and soul and, in all likelihood, several select eyes of newt, I wanted to mirror the hocus-y pocus-y do~gooder that

Wendy the Good Little Witch was!

Her certainty to use her magic powers to do all things charitable only, would leave an impression of the most forever lasting kind on me. Miss Wendy, my rooftop let~loose remains uninterrupted: “Estimable” be thy middle name!

Latterly, she would be

realized "live,”
top billing with friendly ghost friend (but and thus farly, not so “live”),
Casper, in the bewitching television movie,

Casper Meets Wendy,
over again and gently reminding me of where I needed to be.

HUZZAH! In the wave of a wand, Miss Wendy has grown up, and guesses be yours? She has flown her besom high plumb! My meaning: again inspiring and delighting, she has successfully navigated another air path yet! This go, it be the literary one called “Authoress”:

(Look what found its way into my shopping basket, today, it did!)

O the courage and sugared inspiration “Wendy” unknowingly and constantly offers! Perhaps, then, my time be the nowly, too?! YES and YAY-HOO! I shall gather my inked snippets and coral my many savings of jottings~downs, and weave them together, because *sniff-sniffle* methinks I might finally be catching scent of a Cellar Door page-turner, bubbling in that shouldered caldron I call “topknot”!

I Dub Thee...

2010-10-13T10:52:00.000-07:00

At midnight twice ago, beneath the passing clouds that hid from us the night sky’s sparkles (whose twinklings we so largely hard~hoped would accent our evening’s planned and merry pandemonium, but, alas, could not ~~ yet make do, we did: several strands of blinking yuletide incandescents extention-corded from out the house’s jib door-window, snaked its way to the grapevine arbor where it draped quite nicely and began its stint as a magical, stellary garnish!), my dear friend and house guest, Josiette; her new catta kitty, Clarinet; my from~the~same~kindle tom,

(Look who is sprouting by bounces and pounces!)

Puddle;

Gemma’s gib and my charge while she is Across the Pond, Spot (who, in point of fact, had better things to do, so he was more “there” than “here”); my other dear chum, Soose, and I curled round Soose’s preferred lantern,

a family "heirloom,"
or so he claims (ahem),

middled on one of Gemmama’s plenty big, black sateen bedtop veils in the backgarden. Soose was about to draw the curtain on our ceremony with a reading. As it goes, during the afternoon’s early, whilst Josiette prepared our pre-ceremony supp: her variation of Shepherd’s Pie (Culinary genius that she be, Miss Josiette spins the original receipt by merely substituting the word “Shepherdess” for the word “Shepherd” in its title. VOILA! A more favorful dish indeed!), and

I stoved

a Streuselkin
(Pumpkin Streusel Pie)

for the desserting, Soose searched out Gemmama's library (in which the book is housed) for Mother’s from~when~she~was~a~little~girl edition of Margaret Embrey’s tender and charming and oh so sentimental Halloween story,

The Blue-Nosed Witch.

But first, if you asked our Moments Before, which found us on the coverlet under the outside night, this tale they would tell:

Howbeit I had chosen the name “Puddle” for Puddle upon my first looks at him, his formal Dubbing Ritual had not transpired until minutes ago, because it had to make waits until I settled on a Call Name before the rites could be made true. A Call Name is the name used by a cat’s keeper to literally call his or her pet. Typically, a one-syllable, peaky moniker works best. If it be more than one vocable, it most definitely must shrill the air upon meeting it to be effective.

We cast a magick circle in a clockwise manner and summoned the elemental spirits of Air, Fire, Water, and Earth. On that occasion, in the circle’s center was lighted the lantern’s candle that had been anointed with a few driblets of Catnip essential oil. With arms like a loving cradle, I held my kitten; Josiette, likewise hers. We put gentle strokes to our animal’s fur, and when each began to purr, we visualized the feline surrounded by a protective aura of the whitest light and then nine times we did impart the following prayer (once for each of the cats' nine lives):

Puddle Pie
(Josiette spoke “Clarinet Teasweet”)
is the name I give thee.
Puddle Pie (Josiette again spoke "Clarinette Teasweet")
is the one who ye shall be.
And may the sound
of thy new name
Magick and power ninefold claim.
May ye live free and blessed be
By goddess Bastet. So mote it be!

After the recitations, a consecrated wand traced the scared symbol of the pentacle in the air over each kitten. Along with Soose, we did give thanks, sealing a name to each cat with a forehead kiss. Before uncasting our circle, we bade farewell to the elemental spirits and stilled the candle’s glow. Including sleepyheaded kittens, Josiette and I did then gave listens while Soose read to us from

my favorite childhood novel:

[INTRODUCTION] "Not more than four of five Halloweens ago there was a very young witch named Blanche who owned a broom, a back cat named Brockett, and a bright blue nose. She belonged to a very special scurry of witched, Scurry No. 13, known in the best witch circles all over the country for its beautiful flight formation.

The Grand Madame, who had been leader of the club for as long as any of them could remember, flew center front. She used a vacuum cleaner instead of a broom, and when she gunned her motor it sounded as exciting as a fire engine.

On the far right was Minnie Max waving her blood-red finger nails in the dark; they really did shine like rubies. And on the far left was Blanche’s best friend, Josephine, who had long yellow fluorescent teeth that gleamed like stars.

In between and a little behind flew the nine rather ordinary witches who were only expected to follow the Grand Madame’s lead, and cackle with horrid glee at appropriate times.

And last came Blanche, usually far, far behind. If it hadn’t been for her marvelous blue nose that she could turn on and off at will, she wouldn’t have been allowed in Scurry No. 13 at all...”

POSTSCRIPT: If a cat number two be in my stars, I shall name it

Streusel!

Closelies From Little Acorns Grow

2010-10-05T09:11:00.000-07:00

Jubilancy blankets me!
Our anniversary

Two Witches’
Oak Seed Switch

has once more been

twitched!

As long as long, J______, who answered only to “Lolly,” because “This given name most certainly was NOT meant for me! I SHALL TAKE ANOTHER,” and I fastfriended the moment our arms locked during a youth game of playground Red Rover, which ultimately resulted in us saving our team’s day and, thereafter, we have ever sincely and yearly cast the following charm:

Two Witches’ Oak Seed Switch

Begin this spell by presenting Dear Friend an acorn with. Marry hands in a circled embrace, so as to heartnear hold an Oak tree of both Dear Friends' choosing. (Fingertipping surely makes do, too, when trunks be that of mighty.) Ask its blessings by together saying:

We honor you, O Mighty Oak
Grant your strength unto these folk
Let it surge throughout these seeds
And make us strong in thought and deed

Each Dear Friend then entreaties the other to carry at all times the Oak seed. (Threaded as a necklet, or keychained can accomplish this "fine print" quite favorably!) As they do, the ties betwixt them shall grow and firm.

A few winters ago, Lolly, upon her heart’s urging, followed her “dream” ~~all the way to Dairyland, USA! Regrettably and alas, that particular “dream” of hers was of the two~timing variety and in short order got her boot! But because Lolly had so easily fallen into place with the cheeses and the mooing and all other things Holstein,

she swept up her broken pieces,
declared herself an honorary

Cow Belle,
and to this day and all those forward,
calls Wisconsin "home"!

~~Witch~~ Which beyond doubt created a situation remedied only by invoking the Spirit of Mild Modifications (<~~lol): Now our yearly acorn presents are exchanged by post. And our tree chantings and Oak hugs are solo performances across the miles, yet in harmony, as we renew our friendship pledge at a time and on a day specific, and still with each other!

Acorn Promises

Integrals:
1 3/4 cups flour
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon Cinnamon
1 teaspoon Nutmeg
1/4 pound of butter
1 teaspoon Vanilla
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 cup raisins
1 ½ cups chopped acorns (Remember: the fresher, the better. Not to Forget: un~bitter by leaching)

Make Haste To:
Screen together flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, Cinnamon and Nutmeg. Earmark. In a large bowl, cream butter. Follow the additions of Vanilla and sugar with a hardy beating. Add the eggs and spoon~stroke until smooth. Steadily add the screened ingredients, turning again with your wooden until thoroughly commingled. Gently disturb the mix with a stir~in of the raisins and acorns. Place well~hilled teaspoonsful of dough distanced from each other by two inches on a tin foiled cookie sheet. Bake in a pre~heated 400*F oven for 12~15 minutes.

POSTSCRIPT: Lolly also sent word that she is recovering from a nasty tumble in which she sustained a wrist fracture! Although she mends nicely, her daubers seem a bit south. Might you put some kind thoughts to her? It would mean the world! Thank~you!

(I will hand image credits as soon as I have re-gathered them.)

Which Witch?

2010-09-28T08:04:00.000-07:00

WHAT SAY YOU?

My Much Ratherish!

Who be your
cherished~choice television witch?

Practical Magic After~Be Magick

2010-09-26T07:50:00.000-07:00

Thank~yous abundant to Frosted Petunias and La Boheme Magique, our ever gracious cohostesses with the bewitching mostesses! The Practical Magic Blog Party was indeed a merry~glad time had by all!

‘It Didn’t Appear Indulgent Amid' Tonic~Remedy:
A Receipt to Aid Revitalization of Humours
(Today’s illustrative example of this need: most completely,
too many Midnight Margaritas!)

THE INTEGRALS BE:
1 small caldron (or 1 large pot) of yoghurt (organic~natural is best)
2 equal pot sizes of Full Moon Spill (water)
1 cucumber (I be ratherish to the seedless variety, what say you?), finely chopped
½ cup crushed walnuts (Arriving them them to this condition is half the remedy, as the pounding it requires “doth assist in making easement for a soring head”!)
1 teaspoon olive oil
parsley
[“...always throw] salt [over your left shoulder...”]
1 clove of garlic, grated

WHAT MUST BE DONE:
Comix the yoghurt and water to form a trim liquid. Give boost with the addition of the cucumber, walnuts, garlic, oil, parsley and salt to your desired flavor. Blend all parts to concoct a smooth drinkable. Down~the~hatch it as a cold soup with a spoon. You shall feel uplifted spit~spot!

A PROFUSELY IMPORTANT POSTSCRIPT:
Does anyone know where I might snag a spell
that would have Gillian kindly turning

this sweater
over to me?
(Barely do I exist without it!)

Some Incanted Evening, When You Find Your True Love...

2010-09-25T01:43:00.000-07:00

FIRST THINGS FIRST:

Chocolate Cake
for breakfast!

A glad welcome then be yours to
Frosted Petunias and La Boheme Magique’s

Practical Magic Blog Party!

There are so very many to chose from, aren’t there?! (And a too fewness of hours to watch and re~watch, and read and reread them all!) Merrily I speak of the plethora of enchanting moments from the movie and the book,

Practical Magic!

Today, my always and forever favorite is as follows:

Young Sally: (Pained and speaking quickly, almost chanting) I hope I never fall in love. I hope I never fall in love. I hope I never fall in love. (She leans her head onto Gillian’s lap, still muttering)
Young Gillian: (Eyes glittering) I can't wait to fall in love!

Sometime later, Sally is gathering ingredients from the conservatory, a room containing many apothecary jars, cartons, herbs and plants. As she speaks, she consults a handwritten spell in her open diary. A dried flower has been pressed between the pages.

Young Sally: (Reciting) "He will hear my call a mile away. He will whistle my favorite song. He can ride a pony backwards."

Young Gillian: (Entering and standing in the doorway) What are you doing?

Young Sally: Summoning up a true love spell, called Amas Veritas. (She plucks a petal from a vase of pink roses) "He can flip pancakes in the air.

He'll be marvelously kind.

His favorite shape will be a star. (Picking more petals from a star-shaped white flower) And he'll have ... one green eye and one blue."

(She picks more leaves and petals from another plant along on the shelf. Gillian follows her and peers at the plant.)

Young Gillian: (Turning from the shelf to face Sally) Thought you never wanted to fall in love.

Young Sally: (Pensively) That's the point. The guy I dreamed of doesn't exist. And if he doesn't exist, I'll never die of a broken heart.

Sally and Gillian stand out on the balcony, Sally holding the bowl containing her spell out in front of her. She stares at the petals in the bowl, and as she concentrates, they all rise out of the bowl into the air. They form a beautiful helix of petals, and, with increasing speed, flutter up towards the full moon above. Sally watches them go, as her thoughts repeat:

Young Sally: And if he doesn’t exist ... I’ll never die of a broken heart.

Ever since my this summer's first crossing Gemmama’s threshold (I came to perch a while at my grandmother’s house mid~July just past, when she warmly invited me to custodian her haunt during the time she be Across the Pond attending to a dear friend.), I have been feeling the feels of a love wanting to be encouraged. But, Shhh! Don’t tell: I admire secretly and from a very small afar, an incredible "someone," and it all took start that first day I received the mail whilest~Gemmama~be~away!

(I can't wait to fall in love!)

And each morning thereafter, I awaken with a makemumble upon my lips: a worthy~good charm (Most assuredly familiar?), invoking Aphrodite to introduce love, THE love, into my life:

Inside it and it in me
Aphrodite of the sea
O Powerful Aphrodite,
To let the love find me!

Yet truly, best met spells use things and actions, as well as words (So certainly: Young Sally turned out with petals plucked and leaves and "stars" offered brim-bowled to an ink~sky night’s Full Moon.), thus,

tonight,

I will achieve a particular and love~necessary charm this way (Please join me in the spelling, if your "need" ratherish be like mine ~~~but hold tight to this remembering: THOMAS IS SPOKEN FOR! lol!):

Eyes On Me Apple Love Spell

The Integrals:
Full Moon water, enough to cleanse
1 very red apple, but not a schepabbel (crooked apple): two people who come together in a caring relationship stand equal. An incantation over a misshapen fruit can only result in a less than desirable unevenness!
1 pen that scribes "red"
1 terribly small plane of indigo paper
1 butterfly’s wing (Do NOT spend a living creature for personal advancements. Instead, scour a meadow, park, or, if need be, a motor vehicle’s grill for this ingredient, that of which lends itself to making true love soar!)
1 large spoon of honey
3 driblets of Oil of Heather
1 rose red ribbon

Parlay:
After cleansing the apple, lance off the lid in one slice, exposing it’s star-heart. With an ever so gentle hand, hollow out the core to leave visible a small star, whose points aim directly, yet in all directions, to love. Write with the red on blue paper the name of the one you want to hold you in mind (and then possibly in heart?) Fold the inscibed around a butterfly's wing and insert it in the apple’s hollow. Then, to the top, fill the love fruit with honey and Oil of Heather. Replace the lid of the apple and bow it with the ribbon. Putting fingertip to your Cupid’s Bow, then to the ribbon’s satin knot, twice spell this charm:

O apple~well ‘neath
Full Moon, steeping
Through this night,
heart~wish be keeping.
When feathered song awakens day,
A Longed~For’s gaze shall turn my way.

Now place the apple under a Full Moon’s bright, where its luminous light will charge it until the first song of a bird awakens a new day. (Yes, do make yourself comfortable, as you will have to be alert to its morning sound.) Make haste to then bury the apple in your garden. If you haven’t got a garden, deep earth it in the window box you’ve ahead~of~the~clock purchased just for this purpose. Wait for your results, which should be immediate!

PLEASE TO LOVELY NOTE: And if the first kiss you share together tastes of apples, know then that this be your true love!

POSTSCRIPT:
Be wise. You cannot force someone to love you, so you should never bid on a heart specific. If heedlessly~needlessly nevertheless describes the do~be of you, it might wind you up thrice times more in love with them then they are with you. Also, forever will you NOT be able to trust that the love is true. Then instead, purely intend that the Eyes On Me Apple be of service only to tie snug enough the straps of your Confidence Bonnet, thusly allowing you to finally ask out first the one you’ve been quietly admiring! (No fears be yours of a self~broken heart because you hadn’t done your part!)

Chocolate heart cake originally pictured.

Gemmama Called! Gemmama Called!

2010-09-20T17:44:00.000-07:00

Although this wasn’t THE actual postcard from Gemmama, given her message~intentions, it truly would have been the purrrfect “pick of the litter” to send!

One week ago this day, my grandmother, who remains Across the Pond where she pays visits to her dear friend Luella, jingled me! And, indeed, it was a wee wee early last Monday morning (It would be 6pm, their clock.), when Gemmama and her forever-let-the-good-times-roll partner put down their esscential doings to place a counted on call to me.

(The Esscential Doings: Neither my grandmother nor Luella have ever dealt gently with human deodorizers or Central Air, but that doesn’t mean they surrender their toilette. Instead they trust Lavender-Scented Full Moon Water Spritz before pressing their frocks and linens. (Yes and can you imagine?! These two hens still keep lively their ironing boards!) And nearly at the start, when her receipt called for witch hazel,

Gemmama deemed it necessary to substitute with vodka. Methinks it's much ado about the 100~proof, that of which these two concocters merrily sip before the readying, during the readying, after the makehay, and even while they same~day spritz! More about Lavender~Scented Full Moon Water in a while.)

After an overthewire, quick exchange of “Hellos” and “Oh, How I’ve Missed Yous," Gemmama joyously (and with happy tears in her eyes, I could just tell!) exclaimed, “A card large with importance from we to you has been full chisel sent!” Then she boldly underlined it with, “Be wide-awake of Thomas.” (Thomas being Gemmama’s mail carrier.)

The delivery arrived promptly the following day: a lovely postcard whose illustration expressed a picturesque Welsh countryside and whose backside, penned in Luella’s beautifancy (I'd know it anywhere!), read:

To Our Cherished Pet,

Inked to paper, then torn in half
And bubbled in a caldron bath,
By coalish cats with eyes: marine,
By all the Magick ever seen,
Your wish is granted and anointed–
Now make haste the time appointed!
Love, G. & L.

Beneath the charmed directive and written
in her signature nervous~pigeon~walking scrawl,
Gemmama added:

Off with you, then, in well-timed fashion to 1333, where your dream awaits you. NOW SCAT!
P.S. Bring with you a paper sack into which your hastened breaths in and out shall go, for surely the excitement will take you miles!

Ever since I can remember, my heart~want has been to call a Magickal cat my very own. But it just hadn’t happened yet. That is, not until Josiette and I, with small brown bags in hand, bee~lined to Miss Monica’s, two houses over.

Trumpet fanfare, please!
(But not too full~volume, as he is still a morsel-bit mousy.)

INTRODUCING:

Puddle!

Monica’s cat Boo mixed up a small batch of three kittens about seven weeks ago. Puddle is mine (all mine!) and his lookalike brother is now the latest family member of another neighbor, Ina, two houses the other way from Gemmama’s. And Josiette~~ahhh, my ever~patient Josiette! She has been promised the black cat sister (whom she’s already christened Clarinet), just as soon as the little scamp is finished hiding!

Hmm. Thinking backward in my head, I recall a weeks ago, stifling night at the top part of August, when a sleepy me flipped over my pillow in hopes of finding cool. Suddenly, the entire feathered pudding went sweetly warm and cozy! And I inexplicably smiled, as I am at this point, only this go ‘round, my inside~knowing tells me the exact answer (and so, too, did Miss Monica, verifying with her Kitty Birth Records): That mysterious calefacient had ocurred at the bull’s-eye moment that Puddle met the world!

Come this week’s Thursday, my very own pussycat and I (and positively Josiette and Clarinet) will celebrate our first full Moon together! I am so excited that I’d best be putting little paper bags at the top of the market list!

POSTSCRIPT:

Lavender-Scented
Full Moon Water Spritz
(low yield)

1 couple of small, sealable Masons (jars)
2 teaspoons lavender essential oil
5 tablespoons 100~proof vodka (or witch hazel, if that would be your preference)
1 cup Full Moon water
spritz bottle

Let oil an vodka cooperate by shaking vigorously together. Add Full Moon water and store in previously cleansed~of~negative~energies vessels. Keep in a dark place for fourteen days. When ready to use, shake jar ever so gently, so as not to bruise or bend the luna charge. TO USE: Lavender~Scented Full Moon water~fill a cleansed atomizer. Fine mist on clothing (including dailies, work clothes, romantics and other fine washables, or spray on bed dressings, curtains ~~any fabric items calling for fresh and crisp) before putting an iron to it.

lavender forest, lavender atomizer

The Grape Escape

2010-09-14T18:14:00.000-07:00

Anna Pavlova, the incomparable Prima Ballerina Assoluta
~ Photo by Herman Mishkin, 1923

Still unwinding from weekend fussies, yesterday’s lunchtime found Josiette and I turning to a most reliable and dear, old friend to tame ourselves. Yes, the most agreeable grape, forever known throughout the land for its calming and curative purposes and its "makecertain" to alleviate the brought-on-by-the-world (and then some) wearies. Indeed, and by the bunchful, these fruity do~gooders are a natural diuretic (flusher of all that be body and soul toxic) ~~not to mention, their soothing qualities help smooth out tired nerves.

Call on the grape, we did. And some of his closest tags along, too. Then, WE ATE THEM!

What be you? Are you a nigglebit frayed about the edges? All at once extending your bowls would be for the best:

An Enchanting Grape Salad

INTEGRALS:
1 cup of fresh baby spinach leaves (but nibble-sized butter leaf lettuce will do in a pinch)
1 ½ cups green grapes
1 cup diced green apples
½ cup crumbled Feta cheese
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

SIMPLE PREPARATION:
Gently commingle (so as not to boo~boo any parts) spinach, grapes and apples in a salad dish. Add Feta cheese and mix the ingredients together~~ again with the gently. Add the balsamic vinegar and mindful~jumble once more. Serve immediately.

All~Important Postscript:

Dog with Grapes (1836) by Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller
(Or, as I perceive it: Shoo, Fido, Shoo!)

Remember this PleaseHeed: When treating poochies, make the "fun eats" NOT be grapes. Grapes (and raisins, alike) contain a "something" that negatively affects dogs’ kidneys. (The danger comes when the grapes and raisins begin to work their way through a Rover’s system, causing renal failure.)
　
Truly, being thoughtful of his favorite family member, a Newfoundland, it was dog~loving Ben who was heard to say:

"An ounce of prevention
is worth an ounce of cure."

MEMErabilia: The Magick That Is Me!

2010-09-08T07:25:00.000-07:00

Days back but not so far ago,
TheBlakkDuchess at Absythe and Arsenic
poured me a delightful cup of kindness:

Hip, Hip, HUZZAH!
and merriest cheer!

My much appreciation to you,
and “yes” to the award’s necessities:

1. Thank and link back to the person who gave you the Versatile Blogger Award:

Dear BlakkDuchess ("click"),
A heartfelt thank~you à la a delicious and ambrosial

wedge of Biting Cream Apple Walnut Pie
(which is always worthy of a special friend and a special occasion!), for this lovely recognition!
Most sincerely,
Cellar Door

2. Share 7 things about yourself:

Harry Kemp’s Scotch Broth Entertainers ~ Season 1925~27

ONE~~Being that it is my favorite soup, I would never stop short of a bowl of Scotch Broth.

TWO~~ I arrived four days shy of Halloween. I do regret that I was in such a hurry, as a Halloween birthday, now that would be the living end!

THREE~~ I am in complete agreement with famous Croatian conceptual artist Željko Kipke, when he says and paints:

“I prefer cats to dogs
because there are no police cats." ~~ Željko Kipke

FOUR~~ I am not opposed to the aroma of a skunk; the scent quite appeals to me. Unless of course the “skunk” be human! Tee-hee!

FIVE~~ It goes against my grain
to write in blue ink.

SIX~~ The possibility is ENORMOUS that I am Liza Minnelli’s biggest fan.

SEVEN~~ I am a professional dog walker. Once upon a time, when I was strolling with Doctors Seuss and Pepper (German Shepherd charges of mine), Seuss nosed something in the grass. Lo and behold, it was a glass eye! The police have yet to determine who belongs to it.

3. Pass the Versatile Blogger Award along to 10 bloggers who you have recently discovered and who you think are fantastic for whatever reason! Not to forget: Be sure to let your selected bloggers know that the spotlight is theirs!

A joyful song of congratulations to
My List of Ten!

Moonlit Hootings of a Night-Owl
The Vintage Sage
The Candy Corn Chronicles
Ms Bingles Vintage Christmas
A Very Fairy Garden
Rue and Hyssop
7 Year Old Witch
~serendipity~
Musings From Harmonie House
The Haunted Gardens

A Blessing In Disguises

2010-09-03T00:45:00.000-07:00

My pal of pals Josiette, who is still inclining backward on the fainting chaise in Gemmama’s Upper Pink Room, where she be wink~catching from our last night’s

Midnight Margaritas
~~Shall we call it a practice run in the direction
of La Boheme Magique and Frosted Petunias’

Practical Magic Blog Party?

Let’s shall! Tee~hee! And forgetnot to trace a star around where it’s situated on the calendar. (“Click on the up~top button for the whole of it then, because the more, the merry meet!)...

I re~gather my thoughts: My dear Josiette, who is a little peaked today, and I are trick~or~treaters in an ENORMOUS way. We were wee~witches in late October, traveling door~to~door in our mumsies’ arms, brimming our Halloween candy sacks to bounteous, when we made our pact to always honor the Trick~or~Treat, and nothing less than TOGETHER.

Yes, I spill: at first, it was all about the chocolate bars and wax lips and all things ju ju be~ish. But soon, the “all about” became the fun and frolic of the disguise! Our delight belongs to the annual dress~up (and our homemade pumpkin tart~filled hands extended to offer sweet appreciation to the kindheart answering the ring of the doorbell or the knock of the knocker, who generously treats the little ghoulies and goblins shouting out their wonderful “Tricks~or~Treats!”).

Ten plus one days ago, we panicked! It was already August 24 and our this year’s Halloween "charades" were yet to be constructed (Our unwritten deadline has perpetually been that month’s first day.), because our ideas of what they would have us be, hadn’t even been realized by us!

That night, we turned to

a wise old friend,

who just happened to be hanging over us and full, for meaningful awakening and great reception to its opportunities. We called on the Moon for abundant inspiration.

Under Lunar luminance and beneath Gemmama’s rogue grapevine, we were granted a potent enchantment: after making ourselves the middle of two mirrors placed opposite of each other so that one reflected a moonbeam back into the other, and three orange candles, Josiette and I scratched our initials into the up~top side of the warm wax of one of them. After lighting their wicks and still seeing the letters of our names, I linked to Josiette by attaching my left hand to the orange cord she held in her right. And with my other hand, I grasped the wand of

Honesty Plant

she held in her left, forming us into a circle. As we absorbed the energy of the moonlight, the candles ~~in particular, the "inscribed~by~us"~~ burned, freeing the letters of our names. Just as they were no more, Josiette and I together clockwised seven times. The trailing cord wrapping round us, gathered the moonbeams about our bodies. We felt rawly and happily opened to receive all that was to come our way!

Retiring for the night in Gemmama’s BIG bed, we slept with freshly~plucked~from~the~moon~drenched~stem honesty seeds tucked under our peather fillows. (Cuckoo birds that we be, Josiette and I often speak Oddly Reversed ~~such fun!)

At the snap of a quick dawn, we both sat bolt~up, just as quick and not unlike two reposed vampires caught in a sun chink, but without the smoke and burning. (EWE! Tee~hee!) Josiette looked my way and I, hers. Joyfully we cried out in near harmony (Actually, I think it be all Miss Josiette’s idea.):

Me: Chinese Lantern (Physalis)

Josiette: Deadly Nightshade (Atropine)
“We will show ourselves
as poison plants!”

Following the gardenyard burial of the Honesty coins, and a honey bun breakfast, Josiette and I pleasant tripped to Britex (four floors of store right off Union Station, packed to the rafters with consummate cloths, notions, etc. We would indeed again squidge our wallets, for only the finest fabrics will due for our Halloween costumes, forever treasures that they are.) A good explore later, I had bought miles-long of

bloody orange
to share!

And Josiette had climbed the library ladder
to find luscious remnants of

Yellow Like Fireflies
and Evening Purple
for her delicate accents.

Tonight, we sew!

Evening Nightshade: K.Chayka

Heard It Through the Grapevine, Ratherish

2010-08-25T16:16:00.000-07:00

Days back and a blog ago, I mentioned that supper found my dear friend Josiette, who, much to my delight, is presently my house guest, and I savoring large slices of her grandmama’s

Dishpan

Butter Cluck Pie. As freehearted as she is kind, Josiette offered the receipt to me, that you might receive it, just as soon as I could post it. So, without further bustle, merrily do I share:

"Do You Like Butter?" by Charles Burton Barber (1845-1894)

Geemaw Sudie’s
Dishpan Butter Cluck Pie

Mixing Pieces:

1 xiii~week~old chicken (2 1/2 to 3 pounds broiler-fryer chicken)

salt

5 cups self~rising flour

1 cup shortening (Yes, that is correct: ONE CUP of shortening. No doubt, eaters of Geemaw Sudie’s Dishpan Butter Cluck Pie wouldn’t want to make this receipt a weekly habit.)

2 cups yellowmilk (Yes, that is correct: TWO CUPS of buttermilk. No doubt, eaters of Geemaw Sudie’s Dishpan Butter Cluck Pie wouldn’t want to make this receipt a weekly habit.)

8 ounces butter (Yes, that is correct: ONE CUP of butter. No doubt, eaters of Geemaw Sudie’s Dishpan Butter Cluck Pie wouldn’t want to make this receipt a weekly habit. Hmm. Is there an echo in here???)

pepper

pretty near 2 quarts hot water

Readying:

Salt-sprinkle chicken that’s already been cut into serving-size pieces; set to the side. After large-bowling the flour, cut in the shortening and add enough yellowmilk to make a dough. Knead for several overs and again on a floured board. Divide the dough. After rolling one part of it very thin, cut it into regular-width ribbons. Line the bottom and sides of a buttered "‘namel that‘s been soap cleaned and staretilized. I won’t be having no ‘Sam and Ellie’ in my chicken," says Geemaw Sudie. (NOTE: If you don’t have an enamel dishpan, you can make nicely do with a 6-quart roasting pan or a large casserole.) Place about half of the uncooked chicken detail over the dough strips in the pan; add lumps of butter between the bird parts and sprinkle with pepper to suit your tongue buds. Place the thick threads of dough on the chicken until you can’t see it anymore, then place what’s left of the poultry chunks on the biscuit dough you just laid down. Repeat with the pepper and butter. Be sure to save back enough butter to laquer two crusts. (Heaven forbid you run out of butter! lol!)

Fetch the set aside dough and roll half of the remaining bulge into "large enough" to make a blanket to cover the pan. Seal it to the side crusts by putting your fingertips to good use. Dampen the pie’s dough mantle plenty well with water, then make a small hole in its middle and pour in enough boiling water to barely float the crust. Cook in a 450* hot oven for nearly a half hour. That’d be just until the crust is browned. Remove from the oven and butter~brush the crust all generouslike. Roll out another top crust to

"king"

the other cooked crust with. Back in the oven the pie goes ten minutes more, then brush with butter yet again.

Slow the oven down to a heat that’s lowly, and continue cooking until the chicken is fork~tender. Add more water if the concoction gets too dry. Cook time for dishpan pie is about 1 hour and 45 minutes, and she serves six. Unless Cousin Ludie Earl comes to town.

A Room with a View, Please

2010-08-23T18:08:00.000-07:00

Who is to say that ruts do not befall grapevines? Mayhaps a weariness blamed on the inclemency of their regular climb, catches them up, leaving them to long for a sweet, new direction? Or, merely in need of a switch of scenery?

How very curious! Although time spent in Gemmama’s backgarden is always a gift, I sensed something about it was oddly amiss this year. A secret-so-far change had taken place, not quite catawampus, yet this maybe-happenstance left me with the same feeling that a certain off-centeredness would leave anyone with... Perhaps and peculiarly, then, a mirror-difference? It mattered little that my How-Does-Her-Garden- Grow gazing (ongoing ever since coming to take care of my grandmother’s house, while she is away visiting a friend Across the Pond) soon gave way to strict study, and daily. I couldn’t for the breath of me put finger on what had gone twisted ~~UNTIL YESTERDAY.

My Dear Josiette has come to visit! (She hasn’t said for how long, but her suitcases are hardly on the lighter side of heavy. lol!) She is the Outside Mouse and I am the Inside Mouse. My country friend joke-pokingly calls me "Sitty Slicker," because, unlike her, I am "inclined to recline." Yet, oh, how we mesh!

Last night, as we supped on the porch facing the garden (Did you see the moon? It’s nearly full!), Josiette and I took turns between bites to ponder over its mysterious metamorphosis ~~if indeed one had actually occurred! We would still be slow to figure out what had changed, if just then, Josiette hadn’t suddenly stubbed her toe!

Toe-stubbing has always been the phenomenal prelude to Josiette magically coming up with the right answer, no matter who’s question is being asked! After blowing gentle comfort kisses to her tell-all toe, we followed Josiette’s suggestion and located Gemmama’s house journal. As garnish to some of my grandmother’s decades of weekly entries, snapshots had been generously Scotched along side of them, depicting the featured written highlights. (Gemmama fancies cellophane tape. It’s always a Santa Claus stocking stuffer for her, come Christmas. Actually, anytime!) We ran out the back door with our "answer."

Using a collection of photographs taken of Gemmama’s lush garden growings from years past, we compared. Someone or something had convinced --or yetbetters: had given "permission"-- to the fence grapevine, which has forever followed a "left" path, to travel "right"!

The next time the phone jingles and it’s Gemmama, I will have to ask her if she had words with the tangle in the backyard, before heading off in a different direction herself! It’s likely safe to say, Spell-magick is truly in the backyard air!

Purple: a most perfect onomatopoeia!

Postscript: Yesterday’s supper found Josiette and I savoring large slices of her grandmama’s Dishpan Butter Cluck Pie. Sweetest heart that she is, Josiette has kindly offert the receipt to me, that I might share it with you! Soon, you will be nibbling the same delicious, BIG nibbles that made our beneath-the-moon meal so delicious, as I plan on posting the ingredients and baking whattodos within the next couple of days!

Post Postscript: Thank You, Miss Josiette and Miss Josiette’s grandmother!

“Food” for Thought

2010-08-12T00:54:00.000-07:00

No, this isn't an upside-down rainbow. Two years back, a local (San Francisco) shutterbug snapped this unusual phenomenon caused by sunlight shining through a thin, invisible veil of tiny ice crystals high in the sky and had nothing at all to do with the rain. Instead, the "halo" he saw was what scientists call a circumzenithal arc ~~which I rather think is an overly-enthusiastic scientific name for Cheshire Cat Grin! (Worthy of the name not only because the arc resembles a Wonderland feline’s smiley face, but it vanishes just the same way!)

Early in the day, yesterday, walled up in Gemmama’s library and then sunk deeply, I came across an old paper scrap pressed into an even older book. On it and in a most beautiful hand was written “ Sunshine... Sometimes it comes from the sky, sometimes you have to generate it yourself. ~~P.K.”

It wasn’t until later in the afternoon that I allowed myself to finally un-immerse ~~but only long enough to concoct a steamy, warm cup of "brew." (Regrettably, not an absorbing receipt, this measure. There isn’t an enchanting secret formula for instant decaf! lol) Out the kitchen window, I discovered it was a beautiful day during which a slight, sudden rain had just fallen and LO AND BEHOLD! My eyes were clutching at what had to have been, once and mere moments ago, a most wonderous rainbow! It was like

so many butterflies
with a dash of light-headed happy!

Truly, this be one of those instances when the sky was doing the generating! Thank you, raindrops!

Coincidently (or no?), the aforementioned found-bookmarker was holding a place where a lovely image of a rainbow was displayed with this passage on its page as well:
“Imagine for a moment that you could taste a slice of a rainbow or even hold it in your hands. Doesn’t that make you feel a lot better? It looks as if

it tastes like sherbet.
Does it?”

Most likely!

And might I be so bold as to offer
a personal estimation of mine?
Everything tastes better
when eaten from a sherbet glass.

Especially if it the dish be

coned and footed.

And most decidedly, if it’s

pie!

Thank yous to photographer Andrew G. Saffas, and David Perlman The San Francisco Chronicle (article), Rainbow sherbet/Foodzings.com, and Pie/Cakespy

It’s the Greatest Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

2010-08-09T03:59:00.001-07:00

I am a mere forkful away from my morning being not unlike what Baby Bear’s bowl of porridge was to Goldilocks:

JUST RIGHT!

And yours can be, too,
because by the time this entry closes,

the pumpkin pie
I baked for breakfast

will be cooled and slice-able. Inhale deeply, my friend. Do you smell its nice and creamy, spicy aroma? I trust I can make a plate full and pass-able to you? Grand and splendid! I knew you’d see it my way! (REMINDER of the UTMOST IMPORTANCE: Don’t forget to eat the pie point first, making a wish when you do.)

After your last bite, and if indeed you grow your own pumpkins, there’s a hardy chance your day might get even better ~~Can you imagine?! When your thoughts return to your first meal of the day being your favorite orange pie, nothing could possibly beat that, could it?! Read on!

Step lively, my little crickets! Take yourself down the garden path to the pumpkin patch (I’m watchdogging Gemmama’s while she is away.) and see how big "everyone’s" gotten. If the pumpkins are

fairly partially grown,

you will blissfully call today Samhaim Signature Day! While it was only just last week on my end that it was way soon to let creative juices flow, we'll hope for the best, today. (My excitement for this yearly-dearly always seems to build much too early!) Still, if the pumpkins aren't yet ready, at least the seed will be planted, telling "calligraphers" what to do when they are. And if that is the sobeit, from here on out, a well kept vigil on the situation must be imposed, so chances aren’t missed.)

If your orange moon garden is presently all about fractionally-grown orbs, HUZZAH! You’re right on time to personalize them! Using a white-handled ice pick or other sharp instrument, scratch your name and the names of family members and friends on pumpkins. (Be certain the hand-end of your “penning” utensil is like snow. If pumpkin-writing is achieved by the use of a tool whose grasp is any thing less than Casper color, bad luck will befall the writer AND the person whose name highlights the pumpkin. Mind you, this business is of a serious nature.)

By Halloween harvest, the scratch on each pumpkin will have healed over, becoming slightly raised. The result is a very attractive “signature,” if you will, especially if you’ve chosen to inscribe using a Halloween-decorative script. And the Ooings and Aahings of the personalized-pumpkin recipients will be heard ‘round the world, I promise you!

Now how about some pie before the magickal calligraphy begins? Come on! Who is it that can say no to sustenance ala wish?!

pumpkin pie/nola.com, Hillary Barker/vine pumpkin illustrator

Antirrhinum Majus Magick!

2010-08-05T04:19:00.000-07:00

I merely went out for postage stamps, yet I remain stampless. But oh, no, No, NO~~I didn’t return empty-handed. Not in the least. Instead, after a "mysterious force" prevented me from getting close enough to the Post Office doors to enter them, I ended up pedaling home faster than

you-know-who with Toto in her basket,
having stuffed my front and two side-saddle bicycle baskets with all the

snapdragons
they could hold!

I bought nearly the entire first-plantings’ harvest of these bunny-rabbit flowers from a young man who was selling them in big bouquets in front of the postal building (where his better-than-selling-lemonade stand stood). I laugh now, because I must have looked like

a speeding-bullet float
in a posied Pasadena parade

as I hurried back to Gemmama’s! Then, I scrambled to find every single vase, plus any receptacle I could count on to serve as one, to put to good use before the "wilts" set in. Honestly, I couldn’t save myself~~I LOVE SNAPDRAGONS! And, today, they are my favorite flower!

Along with hollyhocks (whose ambrosial possibilities are endless: ballroom dancer dolls, fairy goblets, and my favorite, firefly lanterns~~And are you aware? A certain $pell can change hollyhock pod$ into money as well. CALL ME: 555-1031 lol! And did you further know, early mornings when the air is still cold, you might find a hollyhock with a sleepy, big, fat, black and yellow bumble bee in it that you can pet?!), pansies ("I’m thinking of you," is what they say when you the blossoms send. And wouldn’t you agree, these velvet blooms also bear a striking resemblance to Persian kitten faces?), and sunflowers (Such a whimsical presence, within or without the garden. Yes, pure magic!), the snapdragon is known as one of the "personality" flowers. They are perfect for hiding secrets messages, making clip-on earrings, having "dragon" battles, using as paper clips, and not to forget, they are

(This quirky, yet endearing blossom opens its "mouth" to speak when you pinch its sides,)
great conversationalists!
Scattering the snapdragons throughout Gemmama’s house was like putting delightful Victorian ruffles on each of its rooms ~~and I danced as I did so!

I bring more glad tidings: Spot, is finally home! ("Dancing" must have made up a great share of his away-antics, too, as he apparently "tangoed" with many a cocklebur during his secret adventure. While welcome back hugging, I even considered renaming him Braille. lol! But it took only one "bird in the paw is worth two in the bush" meow from Spot to nix the idea. The occasions are many that I can’t quite wrap myself around the his peculiar, dampifying idiom choices. But instead of struggling with the whys and wherefores, I find nodding in agreement nicely lends itself.

Snoozing off whatever "it" was that he’s been up to the last several days and nights, the little scamp has himself piled round and cozy in a little sleep-heap in the balloon-back. (SHHH! Not a word to Gemmama! I don’t suppose Spot should be making himself comfortable there, since he likes to fun it up with upholstery now and again.) Sweet dreams for now, Spot, but expect a comb-out ala interrogation when you rise and shine.

But the blame is plenty mine, I’m afraid. Late Sunday night, I absentmindedly left the jib door-window open, which gives onto the back porch. That’s when an otherwise early-to-bedder Spot made his move. Having remained relatively calm after two days passed with out so much as a glimmer of my grandmother’s cat on the horizon, I suddenly was an anxious pigeon! I found Spot’s Cat’s Protection Amulet mixed up with the potted plant nearby his exit hatch!! It must have gotten snagged, breaking it free from his collar "ere he drove out of sight" (My apologies. For moment, I was channeling Clement Moore.)

Full knowing a case of Magnitude Frets would render me useless to help the situation, and against my better judgement (I would have to deal with the consequences of using the big "M" for personal gain.), I decided the time had come to invoke Magick. As I was about to make an incantation begin to be, who do I spy at last promenading through the garden gate?! I sigh yet another deep sigh of relief as I lay a snapdragon near Spot's noggin to sweeten his kitty slumber. Sleep tight, my little Prince Charmeowing! But not to forget, when you awaken from your honeyed slumber, I WANT SOME ANSWERS, MISTER.

Cat Protection Amulet

Cats’ notorious curiosity often gets them into trouble. Attach this magick amulet to your kittybink’s collar to keep him of her out of harm’s way.

Necessary Ingredients:
A silver locket
a small piece of bark from a pussy willow
a small jade bead
Amber essential oil
a small square of white paper
a pen with black ink

~Using your most perfect script, write your cat’s name on the piece of paper, then sketch a star over the name and draw a perfect circle around it.
~Let fall a drop of amber esssential oil onto the paper.
~Place the pussy willow bark and jade bead on the paper and fold everything into a tiny packet, small enough to tuck inside the charm.
~Envision your feline friend completely enclosed by a ball of white light. Fasten the locket securely to your cat’s collar while you repeat this affirmation three times:

"This magick amulet keeps [cat’s name ] unharmed and whole at all times and in all stations, perpetually and without cessations."

NOTE: While you’re at it, get your cat a tag with your name and phone number on it and affix it to his/her collar, too.)

Almira Gulch, Victorian snapdragons, Tournament of Roses Parade

Throwing the Shoe

2010-07-30T19:22:00.000-07:00

While dotting comment boxes with sentiments the day before last weekend was about to begin, I may have mentioned to some of you that my upcoming Saturday was to be about work before play. Midmorning on the 24th, I met with

(She resembled this actress, but was instead partial to the perro chihuahueñ.)
an extraordinary woman,

whose identity I will continue to shelter by referring to her, here, as "Miss Gish." (Truthfully, she is quite the picture of the Silent Screen star Lillian, except that she talks. A LOT. And in a delightful, melodic voice that sounds as if her throat is juggling small stones every time she speaks. Divine!) and her three charming Chihuahuas, to see if the four of us would find each other as agreeable as we did during our phone conversation earlier in the week. (Yes, believe it or not, Miss Gish had her phone set to “Speaker”when she rang me up, so as to not leave anyone out!) Being that I am a professional dog walker and “Lillian,” a potential client in need of my services, I then ventured her way to meet her and her furry family members. Likewise, they interviewed me.

Our meeting went very, very well! Trying to be on their best behavior (The Chihuahua is surprisingly active for its little size.), “Fetch” and “Carrie” were still the adorable little beings who had previously “talked” me into the ground over the telephone, as was their senior citizen-ish, I’m-the-boss-like-it-or-lump-it, visually challenged roommate,

(Not Irene, but close.)
Irene.

As we chatted at great length and then some, my maybe-prospective charges enjoyed treats from the basketful that I had baked especially for them (One snackette a piece, except for the glamorous Irene, who, even though “she is watching her waistline,” just had to have two!).

Then Miss Gish led our parade to the parlor piano, where she played show tunes that her Chihuahuas would soon be harmonizing to. Their howling was near-insanity, but contagious. I couldn’t help myself and boisterously joined them in song! Lillian suggested we next do rounds, but indeed it was time for me to depart.

Even though and way before our get-together’s end, I was totally smitten with the whole batch of them~~all of whom declared/yippy-yapped “Yes, a thousand times, yes!” to wanting me to be their new walker~~I told them I would have to give my schedule the once over and do a certain amount of careful considering, before giving them my answer. Dog walking is, after all, serious business. I promised make my decision in a week’s time.

But of course I’d draw up a contract!!! Because what was not to love about this distinctive clan?? Miss Lillian is the sweetest heart and, although I’d have to provide additional coats for them when going out in colder weather, Fetch, Carrie and Irene are most affectionate, entertaining, sassy, talkative, playful and robust! And did I mention good at conflict resolution? (More about that in a later-on blog entry, to be sure!)

Nevertheless, to remove any doubt that I was indeed heading myself in the right direction, and to avoid being down-the-road flummoxed due to useless second-guessing, I put on my best slippers, both of which took me straightaway to Gemmama’s back-garden toolshed (because her house was much too high for the task) to perform a simple method of divination known as “throwing the shoe.” I then took off one of my dainty pantoffles and tossed it over the roof of the small barn. SO MOTE IT BE! The shoe landed sole down and with its toe pointing in the direction of Gish Manor!

Tomorrow morning, I will dial up Lillian and the wonderful, new little puppiwinkles in my life! I hope Irene answers. She’s such a hoot!

POSTSCRIPT: You, too, can be popular beyond arfs! To make the same basket of goodies that I treated my Chihuahua pals to, just follow this easy recipe:

(NOTE: These treats are even edible by the human keeper of four-legged friends! And please remember: because not all bow-wows can manage them and because most dogs will not chew Rolaids, be on the safe side. Read over the ingredients to ensure that your poocher can eat what is listed..)

Apple PupPIES

2 cups wheat flour
1 cup instant oats
1/2 cup corn meal
1/4 cup wheat germ
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup apple sauce
2 tablespoon honey
1/4 cup water
Apple Red food coloring if desired

(Preheat oven 375*) To form a dough that will not be sticky to the touch but will stick together, mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl. Food coloring may be added at this time. To give the mixwad a pink tint that really makes the treat look like an apple, add several drops of red food coloring and mix furiously to blend evenly. Flour your work surface and rolling pin before rolling out the dough to a 1/4" to 1/3" thickness. Many times-cut with an apple-shaped cookie cutter. (In a bind? A pumpkin-shaped cookie cutter looks like an apple, too!) Place all treats on a cookie pan ~ Note: because these pupPIEs do not raise or flatten out when heated, like a baker would typically expect, there is no need to distance them on the baking sheet like regular cookies. Bake for 45-55 minutes. Cool thoroughly before serving, or next you will be watching your popularity circle the drain.

shoes

Hell's Kitchen

2010-07-27T11:57:00.000-07:00

That would be me, the hungry but anxious looking one,
middle-right, about to be served.

It sounded like a very good idea, being invited to my friend Soose’s house for dinner last night. But Shhhh! Don’t tell Soose’s mother: not everyone who can conflagrate a pilot light is a good cook.

I know. I know. If you can't say anything nice...

Bewitching A Blue Brew

2010-07-25T22:05:00.000-07:00

O Merriest J O Y ! Have you heard? Chocolate and Marmalade Tea’s garden just hatched its first blueberry of the season! In celebration of this auspicious occasion and in anticipation of more “blue” to come, I opened Gemmama’s pantry cupboard to find her sister Driven’s one contribution to the family recipe box ~~that I might share a special, timely recipe with Ms. Michelle (and any other berry pickers about to have an abundance of blueberries at their fingertips and who are wondering what “delicious” they can do with them).

My Great Aunt Driven long, long ago came up with this marvelous mead and named it after her second ex-husband, Eduard, who claimed until the very end that it was all his idea.

Not Ed’s Blueberry Mead

Starting with the Primary Fermentation ingredients list, which includes:

~ 10 lbs wildflower honey (or clover, if honey is unavailable–-but wildflower is much thicker, making it the more agreeable choice)
~ 5 lbs frozen blueberries, slightly thawed or 5 pounds fresh blueberries (About fresh blueberries: Use the low-bush kind if you can; they are inexplicably tastier. Also know: fresh fruit used in brewing should be frozen and then near-thawed before using. Supposedly, it allows the yeast to get at more of the sugars.)
~ 4 gallons of bottled spring water
~ Wyeast Dry Mead Yeast ~ 3 to 4 packets (Because it is the best! Home meaders will find it at their local beer and wine making shop.)

and, later, using the Secondary Fermentation ingredients:
~ 5 lbs wildflower or clover honey
~ 5 lbs frozen blueberries,

this recipe asks you to proceed as follows: Allow 3 ½ gallons of boiling bottled spring water to cool to 160ish degrees, then steep the lightly crushed fruit (A cheesecloth pouch works fine.) for 30 minutes . Very, very carefully remove the bag (Blueberry stains are a nightmare!) and let it drip till no more drops. Return the “must” (the unfermented juice) to the stove, this time heating it to 140 degrees . Remove from burner and dissolve 10 pounds of honey into it. Chill to 65 degrees, then expose to the circulation of air (“aerate”) by stirring, and throw in the yeast. (Do not skimp when it comes to the amount of yeast, as it truly is the magic ingredient!)

Ferment for one month in a large five-gallon or so, glass jug or other suitable, clear container. It’s nice to be able to see what’s brewing! ~~you’re going to just love the end color, I promise you! To this primary brew, add the rest of the honey (5 pounds), stirring till it dissolves. Also add the final batch of blueberries (5 pounds). Let the fermentation take off again. After another month or two, rack off the dregs. Ferment another four to six months before getting out the goblets. Unless, of course, patience escapes you completely, because not to worry. Your palate will find Not Ed’s to be quite enjoyable even at the 3-4 month mark!

Spit-spot with you then! You’ll want to start your blueberry mead now for next Midsummer pouring.

For Michelle:

The perfect image to affix to your blue mead bottle labels!

blueberries: fotosearch

It Was a Dark and Stormy Night...

2010-07-23T10:45:00.000-07:00

Gather ‘round the cauldron, everyone, and cozy your overstuffeds right up close to it, because I have a Tale Worthy of a Tell, as my Great Aunt Driven always calls them. (Curious? Long ago and maybe even before that, my aunt was nicknamed such, because her hair suddenly whitened at an unexpected age (?!) ~but that’s another story indeed.) She’s the one who got me interested in the first place in what I'm about to share with you. Whereas some people delight in their ongoing accumulation of

I couldn’t stop myself from posting these--my Tulah would simply die for them! I just might put them under the tree for her, come Christmas!)
salt and peppers
( My other great aunt, Tu, does.),

or "books of major significance" but then again, mostly not (That would be you, Gemmama!), or "decades and decades of spent saliva," as my philatelist Great Uncle Ned refers to it, I, on the other hand, collect ghost stories ~~many of which I inherited from dear Driven, who does the same.

Still comfy? Cauldron’s not too hot or bubbly for you? Then here’s a bump in the night from my "Recentlies" file. It’sure to give you that goblins-blowing-cold-breath-on-you feel:

It was a dark and stormy night... GOTCHA! That was just me tinkering with you! I’ve always wanted my telling of a tale to open that way, and I thought this might be that opportunity. A thousand pardons, then? Thank you! No more fun-fussy, I promise you. I will begin again:

This uncanny story comes from a young man named Shawn, who grew up in a very old house. But it’s best when he’s spinning the yarn:

"As a result of pecking order, I got the single attic room by myself. One summer night when I was about sixteen, it was so hot in my room that I couldn’t stand it. So, around one o’clock in the morning, I decided to go downstairs, where I collapsed in the livingroom loveseat. I didn’t bother to turn the lights on.

"I hadn’t been there long when I sensed that someone was sitting next to me. Next to me was a woman wearing an old-fashioned wedding dress. No sooner had I seen the young bride than, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the figure of a man dressed as a minister standing in front of the loveseat. He was muttering something like, ‘You could marry my daughter.’ I just sat there, frozen. Then he began reciting, ‘Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today...’

"I thought I must be dreaming, so I jumped up and ran to the kitchen sink to splash water on my face. But, just before I could get to the sink, the man reappeared in front of me again, repeating, ‘Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today...’ I looked to my left and there she was standing again–-the woman in the wedding dress–-standing next to me. So I ran past the minisster—or rather through him—and back up to my attic bedroom. I got under the covers—because ghosts can’t get you when you’re under the covers—and tried to forget about the heat and about what just happened. Eventually, I fell asleep.

"The next morning, I decided not to tell anybody for fear they’d think I was crazy. Years later, My sister and I were talking about that house. At one point, she asked me if I knew the history of it. I told her no and asked her to fill me in. She told me that there was a young woman living there long ago who was jilted on her wedding day. For years afterwards, she never left the house.

"There was no electricity in the house back then, and folks would sometimes see her at night, walking with a candle. She died in the room that became my sister’s room after my family moved in.

"My sister went on to tell me about something strange that had happened to her in the house. It happened one night after she broke up with her boyfriend. She was laying on her bed, crying when she heard the distinct sound of a woman cackling right there in the room with her."
(Excerpted from a called The Ghost Next Door by Mark Alan Morris, whom I hope doesn’t mind me passing the story along to you, here. Thank you very kindly, sir!)

You can’t help but wonder what would have happen if Shawn had stuck around for the rest of the ceremony!

Now might I interest you in a piece of pie to settle those rattled bones?

It’s ~~blueberry~~ booberry!

bride, pie: I'm still trying to locate the source, as I seem to have misplaced it!