Exogeny Network ℠

The kitchen is usually the heart of the home.  It's in the kitchen that food is prepared, many of us actually entertain in the kitchen as well.  Here the meals that fuel our very essence are prepared and often served.  Too often, the concept of the "kitchen" is disregarded.  On this page, we'll celebrate the kitchen, food, and the whole idea of sharing.

 Family Traditions

We are now entering the heart of winter, and the biggest season of the kitchen.   Holidays are when we go all out with our cooking, and spend the most time preparing meals.  Its when we prepare special foods and have special meals.

• What are your family's favorite foods for holidays? 
• What is traditional for your family?

Recently, I interviewed Desmond Green on the Dawn of Shades.  The interview was very interesting, and Mr. Green is very pleasant to listen to.  Apparently, it takes me a while to digest bits of knowledge though.  One of his statements was in reference to what we put into our bodies, which eventually led me to thinking about food, particularly the modern American diet in a particular week.

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     Monday morning finds us in a rush, and breakfast is a donut and a cup of instant coffee as we rush off to work.  The kids had some sugary cereal topped with the cheapest milk in the grocery store.  Lunch was fast food—for the adults and the kids, who left their school to visit the nearest fast food chain.  The kids grabbed a soft drink and a candy bar from the corner store on their way home, where they watched tv while doing their homework and their required chores.  The adults had a latte or a cappuccino with a muffin during the afternoon, then grabbed take out from somewhere on the way home.

     Dinner was a session in griping at the kids about various offenses, at the spouse for various bills, and dealing with telemarketers before everyone drifting off to their own personal television or computer to be entertained for the evening.  You have a bowl of ice cream after eating some chips while watching the television, then go to bed.  Sleep is elusive, but finally you drift off, and it seems like the alarm is immediately screaming at you.

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Now its Tuesday, and the day doesn’t start off any better.  This time, its fast food for everyone for breakfast, along with a cup of coffee for the adults.  You are running late, so your stomach is knotting as you try to navigate the choking traffic while eating the breakfast on the run.  At work, you have another cup of coffee and a donut from the break room, which you consume at your desk while trying to catch up for the missed ten minutes at the beginning of the day.  Lunch is a sub sandwich someone brought back for you, which you eat at your desk with a vending machine soda.  The kids eat lunch at school today, some mysterious meal designed for inexpensive fueling of children approved by some entity in Washington D.C.   Your lunch leaves you feeling hollow, and you fill that vacancy with a candy bar and another soda, then grab a coffee on the way home as you pick up yet another take out dinner.  In the meantime, the kids have snacked on ice cream, soda pop, and chips.  Dinner is another miserable experience, with more focus on the sins of the day than on what you are eating.  After dinner, its again a family retreat away from each other, with various ventures to the kitchen for snacks and drinks to fuel the marathon of tv and computer.   Once again, morning arrives almost before your head hits the pillow it seems.

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Wednesday is merely another Monday or Tuesday, and Thursday and Friday doesn't look much better.  On Friday, instead of take out, you order pizza and chase it down with mass produced beer while trying to get household chores done.  Saturday, you sleep in, wake up cranky and out of sorts, and are now forced to rush around to get shopping done and other errands run.  The spouse decides it’s a good day to grill, so everyone skips lunch while you assemble stuff for grilling dinner, and hunger inspires snacking on chips, cookies, crackers, and soft drinks.  The budget is tight, so grilling is just hamburgers and hotdogs, along with more chips and some ice cream for dessert.

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Sunday, you are expected to produce a “Sunday dinner”, and you throw a roast in the oven with some potatoes, onions and carrots.  The gravy comes out of a pouch, mixed with water and brought to a boil.  There is prepackaged salad for the salad, along with a bottle of dressing.  You open a can of vegetables and heat them up in the microwave.  There is bread from the bakery to go with it, and your duty is done.  Dessert is a slice of cake or pie from the bakery too.

 

It’s a pretty typical American week.  Is it all that different from yours?

Now, think about what you are using to fuel your body.  Think about the thought and ritual that went into that fueling of your body.  How much concern was with it? 

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We have lost the spirituality of food and the ritual of meals.  Is it any wonder that all of this has lead to unprecedented rates of diabetes, cancer, obesity, hypertension, and assorted other diseases directly related to our food consumption?  We are fueling our bodies with foods that have no soul, no spirit, no value.  How can these chemical laced and mass produced artificially flavored foods possibly fuel any of us in a wholistic, spiritually enhancing manner?

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Food is the most central form of magick in the home.  Its fueling the core of each person’s being.  Without food, in a relatively short period of time, we would be severely debilitated.  After another brief period of time, we would die.  Food is essential to our existence, yet we are giving very little thought to it beyond immediate satisfaction.  Our food is one of the simplest, yet one of the hardest, parts of our lives to change, yet without changing that, how can we even dream of becoming more spiritually enlightened?

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Like roughly 60% of Americans, I am obese.  I have fought it for years now.  Looking back, the problem has gotten totally out of hand when I quit putting the ritual & spirituality of food on the table with the meal.  I’m embarking on this journey myself, of learning how to eat joyously and realizing the first three letters of the word “DIET” spells DIE.  Who wants to eat to die? 

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Meals should be an experience in which we delight in the food—its tastes, its textures, its color, its story.  We should ensure that mealtimes are a time for joy, not for airing sins and grievances.  Make meals an actual RELIGIOUS experience, a ritual of daily life in which we feel our connection with our souls and spirits.  Preparing a meal should be an act of love in itself, for its here that the magick enters the food initially.  Learning what things enhance each other enhances the natural magick of the food.

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I invite everyone to join me on this journey, as we explore our kitchens, find our souls, and learn to feed our bodies in a way that is meaningful and good.

Christmas Dinner

Christmas dinners are another meal filled with tradition.  Common mainstays include turkey, leg of lamb, ham, goose, beef roast, and duck.  Mincemeat pies, pumpkin pies, and a wide variety of fruit pies also grace many tables.

Traditions also frequently include dining with one's extended family.

This year, once again, I'm far away from my family and won't be able to celebrate the holidays with the extended family.  I am spending it with my fiance, and we aren't having a "traditional" sort of big meal~that's just too much for two.

Like many families, we are "financially challenged" as we all navigate through what has been dubbed "The Great Recession."  We aren't giving as many gifts, and aren't exchanging gifts between us.  (I am cheating a little bit, and will make him a batch of his beloved toffee for his gift.)

Toning down the expense of holiday foods is also not uncommon in hard times.  Our focal point is not an extravagent cut of meat for our holiday feast, but instead a Native American-inspired meal of pumpkin stuffed with wild rice, mushrooms, meat, onion, chestnuts, and sage then baked to perfection in the oven. 

I had plans to make the same plum pudding I've made at almost every Christmas in 25 years...but discovered that there was NO candied fruit to be bought in New Orleans.  I'm adapting the recipe to using regular dried fruits.  I'll flame it & serve  with hard sauce at some friends' house on Christmas Eve.  For me, that's an expensive dessert, between the variety of dried fruits and the brandy.

On Christmas Day, we will join friends for a Christmas brunch, and I was asked to be the biscuit queen, as my peculiar square biscuits are tasty, if shaped different than the norm.  Later that evening, we'll actually have our own dinner of the stuffed pumpkin.  I'm still debating on whether we'll enjoy a glass of wine with dinner, or stick to non-alcoholic beverages.  My favorite wine happens to be a shiraz, which I haven't decided would be a good combination with the pumpkin or not.  We might save that bottle of wine for New Year's Day!

The Thanksgiving Menu

Roast Turkey with Cornbread-Sage Dressing

~I rub the turkey with rubbed sage, stuff some fresh leaves (if I have them) under the skin, and thats about it for turkey preparation.  I don't baste the turkey, I don't inject it with mysterious substances, or anything else.  The stuffing is homemade cornbread (made the night before) mixed with liberal amounts of chopped onion, chopped celery,poultry seasoning,and rubbed sage.  You can also add things like raisins, chopped apples, cooked sausage, or oysters.  I don't get creative with the Thanksgiving turkey dressing, that's reserved for other occasions when a turkey or chicken or duck or goose or whatever is being cooked.  I cook the turkey according to the package, or until the thigh doesn't bleed when its stabbed.  Its not scientific, but it hasn't killed anyone in the family yet.

Green Bean Casserole

~this is the same one everyone makes with french-fried onions, french cut green beans, and cream of mushroom soup.

~simple recipe again, 1 c. cranberries, 1 c. water, 2 c. sugar.  Bring to a boil, and serve hot.

Old Fashioned Candied Sweet Potatoes

~Peel sweet potatoes, cut in chunks, place in baking dish, sprinkle with white sugar liberally.  Top with a few pats of butter and bake until potatoes are done.  They get a nice crispy-candy coating.

Mashed Potatoes

~Okay, I will confess.  I am apt to cheat and use instant, my favorite brand is the Idahoan ones in the envelope that are complete, just add water.  The baby red version really tastes like fresh.

~You can use frozen rolls, bakery rolls, or your favorite roll recipe. I prefer a recipe for dinner rolls that uses milk AND eggs in it, as it makes a softer, more delicate roll to accompany dinner.