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Johnmas Soothing Nopales Skin Gel

It’s cactus season here in my neck of the woods. I’ve been foraging the youngest paddles for a month or two now, with my biggest harvest on Johnmas/Midsummer Night when I discovered a new (and large) patch in the woods.

The prickly pear I worked with for this project was one of my nine healing plants gathered according to Czech custom on St. John’s Eve when the plant’s benefits are at their peak. According to tradition “In order for the herbs to retain their magical power, they must always consist of nine species (regional Czech custom).”

This was a two day process. To start I cut off the bottom end of each paddle and sliced around the edge. Then I scraped off the spines and rinsed them well to make sure all the stabby bits were gone. I then “butterflied” each paddle and cut it into approximately one inch pieces.

I placed each piece with the internal side down in a dish, and covered with a shallow layer of distilled water and then placed it in the fridge overnight.

Today it was oozing thick, snotty, sticky gel.

I scraped the gel and the cactus solids into my food processor, blended it into a liquid, and then strained out any remaining solids.

To preserve the gel I used a recipe I found for aloe vera gel (I lost the page or I would link to it):

“To preserve aloe vera gel without refrigeration you can use gelatin- you can mix one cup of aloe vera gel with one and one fourth cups of distilled water and three and one fourth teaspoons of gelatin. boil the water, mix in the gelatin, and let it cool before adding the aloe vera gel. This mixture can last for six to eight months without refrigeration.”

This is an experiment for sure, with me making the assumption that the two succulent gels are similar enough that it will work. 🤞

Prickly pear gel, derived from the Opuntia cactus, offers a variety of benefits for skin and hair, primarily due to its rich content of vitamins, antioxidants, and hydrating properties. It can help to hydrate, soothe, and protect the skin, while also promoting a brighter, more even complexion and potentially reducing the signs of aging. For hair, prickly pear gel can provide nourishment, shine, and strength

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The First of the Midsummer Dried Herbs

Some of the faster drying herbs that I gathered at Corpus Christi, or the day after, were already good to jar (some of them had some help from the dehydrator): shiso, mimosa, wood sorrel, pepperweed, blackberry leaves, and dandelion leaves.

I did my Midsummer gathering this year from Corpus Christi to Midsummer Day. However, some of the herbs that I gathered on Midsummer Night will be jarred separately and labeled accordingly.

I was inspired to label decoratively from an article linked to below.

Before everything was put away in the cupboard Děduška and I shared a glass of black cherry cordial to celebrate our hard work and I asked him for his further blessings upon the house.

Fabric Labels on Jars: We have moved to our new home this summer and I was eagerly looking forward to decorating my kitchen with some creati

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Midsummer Iced Tea Punch with Mimosa and Wood Sorrel

I managed to get to the grocery store without a list or any planning and forgot to get any of the ingredients for my usual midsummer dishes. So no salmon this year, no strawberry and cucumber salad, and I forgot oranges and Earl Grey for my iced tea punch.

At least the punch is something I could play with and come up with something just as good, or in this case, even better!

I increased the water to 6 cups of boiling water since I didn’t have the full amount of orange juice. I steeped 6 teaspoons of Irish breakfast tea and a cinnamon stick for 10 minutes. I ended up adding 6 TB of mimosa syrup to the steeping tea, instead of the 3 TB of sugar the original recipe calls for (it probably seemed less sweet because of the missing orange juice).

I then strained off the tea leaves, added the 1/4 cup of orange juice that I had leftover from another recipe and a good sized handful of wood sorrel. This version of the recipe used wood sorrel in place of the citrus juice for tartness. I then wandered off and spent an hour foraging outdoors and removed the wood sorrel when I got back.

I added some mimosa blossoms for pretty and rum for booziness. And of course, Děduška got a nice boozy glass as well!

The original recipe from Porters Seasonal Celebrations Cookbook:

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Svatojánský věnec (Midsummer headwreathe)

I am spreading my Midsummer festivities from Corpus Christi (which fell the day before the summer solstice this year) through Midsummer Day/the Feast of St. John the Baptist (Kupala). Tonight I made the first of two věnce—this one to be left at the creek as an offering to Morana.

Czech midsummer věnce are most usually made with nine herbs, though the number can vary from region to region. I plan on using nine since that is the most common, plus the number nine shows up symbolically in other Czech traditions such as the nine strands in a vanočka (braided Christmas bread), and nine course Štědrovečerní večeře (Christmas eve) dinner, and Morana’s nine brothers in folk song.

“The nine St. John's herbs are suitable not only for a wreath, but also for your green pharmacy, from which you can draw all year round.”

“The herbs are definitely not to be thrown away and will come in handy all year round. Herbal mixtures made from the nine flowers are used for digestion, relaxation, and even for colds.”

Tomorrow’s wreathe will be saved for medicinal and magical uses.

I used muscadine as the base, sunflowers to represent the sun, sheep sorrel for medicinal benefits as well as personal connection, shiso, mimosa, blackberry, burnmouth vine, pepperweed, and American beautyberry. All have medicinal uses, topically and/or ingested.

“Water, dear water, as you run through rocks and roots, run through me and cleanse me of all evil so I might be wonderful as spring, beautiful like the fair zorza, full like autumn and rich like earth itself” —from @slavicafire ‘s wonderful post about Kupala Night.

I was excited to read @lesorciercanadien ‘s post about Midsummer Night and learning about the herbs my québécois ancestors would have gathered during this time. Unfortunately, none of those particular ones were in the area that I forage, but it was nice to think I was honoring their traditions as well just by gathering.

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Summer Altar

Today, I changed the altar out from May to summer. The first cicada sounding on Semik during Rusalia/Green Week seemed like a nudge in that direction. Also, Sunday is Letnice (the Czech folk name for Pentecost)—the root of the word is the Czech name for summer.

I made an offering of first fruits and amaranth and sheep sorrel to the ancestors. Amaranth has a long tradition in the Americas as a spiritual offering and I have been developing a strong personal relationship with sheep sorrel.

I always put this cicada netsuke out the first day I hear a cicada.

The netsuke and berries are sitting on a tin of dandelion salve “the sun itself in the grass.”—Thoreau 🌞

Mimosa was put on the altar for pretty and birch for its long relationship with Rusalia and the rusalka.

This was the first time Morana was dressed in the linen that I dyed in the spring with redbud blossoms.

For the first time the Sun Goddess tapestry (left) that I stitched last year appeared on the summer altar. I stitched this piece in honor of the Northern European sun goddess who shows up under the names Sunna (Scandinavia), Saule (Baltic), and Solntse (Russian).

The painted rock was a lovely gift from my days as a children’s librarian. One of my tweens decorated it for me.

Happy Semik everyone!

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Happy Boží tělo (Feast of Corpus Christi)!

White-dressed girls or "bridesmaids" (Královničky) walked around the given area, scattering flower petals from baskets onto the ground. In addition to the prescribed devotion, the priest prayed for the harvest together with the faithful and gave everyone a blessing at the altar.

Corpus Christi altars were decorated with green birch branches, which people plucked and carried home after the mass. In folk tradition, it was truly a day of blessing flowers and spices.

Corpus Christi greenery was a remedy endowed with magical power. People attributed extraordinary protective and healing effects to consecrated wreaths made from selected plants. For example, wreaths were burned during summer storms to protect the house from lightning. They were also used to brew a medicinal potion against internal diseases. Altar decorations made from bulrush, sedge and especially young birches were subsequently used in folk medicine and to increase good harvests in the fields. Birch twigs were placed behind pictures at home, in the field as protection against hail, and in flax beds so that the flax would grow as tall as the twig.

The custom is believed to have pagan roots, welcoming spring, worshipping the sun, and celebrating the rejuvenation of nature and water.

I gathered sunflowers, queen anne’s lace, mimosa, black eyed susan, fleabane, two types of sedge, and burn-mouth-vine. I made a strewn offering to the birch before gathering some of it’s branches and some of the remaining flowers back to the house for the main altar and the kitchen altar. Both will be dried and saved for future rituals based on Czech customs. I wore my white, trimmed peasant blouse in honor of the little queens.

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Summer Solstice Brunch—Lívance (Czech Yeast pancakes) with Kahuda (Sweet Strawberry Sauce)

I was looking through a cookbook I found in the spring for ideas for summer solstice through midsummer dishes and came across yeast pancakes with sweet fruit sauces made with seasonal berries in the summer section of the book.

The cookbook (link below) is a joint project between museums in Austria and Czechia to collect recipes from 1750 to 1918 (my great-grandparents left in 1912—a part of the Slavic diaspora that was getting out before WWI) that were going back and forth across the borders as Czech and Moravian domestic workers went back and forth—introducing Czech folk recipes into Austria and Austrian recipes back home to southern Bohemia and Znojmo (my great-grandparent’s region of southern Moravia). Today’s historic recipe is from Písek, a town in South Bohemia, about 170 km from my great-grandparent’s village.

To begin preparing the pancakes you activate the yeast.

Our neighbor brought over fresh eggs from her hens again a couple of days ago. Just in time for the summer holidays.

Melted butter and eggs are added, and then flour. The mixture is then left to rise for 45 minutes to an hour.

Děduška bless this dough,

Let it rise like mushrooms from the earth.

The yeast doubled in about 45 minutes sitting on top of the refrigerator. This was the first time I’d made anything with yeast since I removed the space heaters so I was very happy with the result.

The pancakes were wonderfully fluffy, with a yeasty taste that went well with the sweet and sour tartness of the strawberry sauce that I made from strawberries from mom’s patch.

Source for the historic recipe:

Modern pancake recipe:

Lívance (Czech Yeasted Pancakes) are soft, fluffy Czech pancakes made with a simple yeast batter — perfect for breakfast, dessert, or a nos

Modern strawberry sauce recipe:

Kahuda je šumavský název pro rozmačkané jahody se smetanou. V pozdním létě je vyměňte za borůvkový žahour. K jemným tvarohovým knedlíčkům s

Or if you prefer to try the blueberry sauce:

Ať už se chystáte na knedlíky či lívance, jistě vám přijde vhod ovocná omáčka, kterou hojně používaly naše babičky. Řeč je o tradičním žahou

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June Devotional Schedule

(Červen — red/ripening fruit month)

"Oh strange, strange Midsummer Night,

where the fern unfolds its power.

Whoever gets its golden seed,

the treasures of the earth will be revealed to him,

he will learn what has just been, what will ever be,

the secrets everywhere will be revealed to him.”

—Karel Jaromír Erben, Svatojánská noc

Monday, June 2nd — first quarter moon

Saturday, June 7th — Pentecost Eve

Sunday, June 8th — Pentecost Sunday/Letnice

Monday, July 9th — Pentecost Monday/Svatodušní pondělí

Wednesday, June — Strawberry full moon/Plný měsíc v červnu

Friday, June 13 — St. Anthony’s Day/Svátek svatého Antonína

Sunday, June 15 — Feast of the Holy Trinity

Wednesday June 18 — third quarter moon

Thursday, June 19th — The Feast of Corpus Christi/Boží tělo

Friday June 20th — Summer Solstice

Monday, June 23 — St. John’s Eve/Midsummer Night/Svatojánská noc/Kupadla

Tuesday, June 24 — Feast of Saint John the Baptist/svátek svatého Jana/Midsummer Day

Wednesday, June 25th — new moon

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Svatodušní pondělí/Whit Monday

The processions of the little queens were an ancient Pentecost custom, with a long tradition, especially in Moravia. They apparently evolved from the processions of girls to the wells.

While Sunday was mainly characterized by church celebrations, Monday was dominated by various folk customs and games. There are many more Pentecost customs and traditions, but the celebrations inevitably included rich feasts, singing, and dancing.

"The chronicler Kosmas describes how the Czech prince Břetislav expelled pagan sorcerers, soothsayers and fortune tellers from the country, forbade villagers from bringing gifts to wells on Pentecost, killing animals and sacrificing them to evil spirits. Complaints from the church against exuberant celebrations with feasts, dancing and singing have also been preserved from subsequent centuries," says PhDr. Alena Vondruškov.

Pouring out wells was one of the customs that sometimes occurred on this day.

Source:

Čas letnic neboli svatodušních svátků původně trval osm dní, postupně byl zkrácen na Boží hod svatodušní a následující Svatodušní pondělí. V

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A midnight pfannkuchen for us means midnight pfannkuchen for Děduška.

My husband requests this pancake so much I have the recipe memorized. 🤣

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Black Fairy Spear Charm—A Personal Working

When I started researching sorrel I found that in parts of Europe the plants are considered favorites of the Fae.

Today I decided to make a protection charm utilizing it. Ever since I ran across an article (which I failed to bookmark) in which the author said his children called sheep sorrel leaves “fairy spears,” I’ve wanted to work some magic with them—because of my name.

My names, when broken down to their original languages’ meanings:

First name = black/dark

Middle name = fae/fairy

Surname = spike/spear

So today with the intention of personal and household protection I made a “black fairy spear” charm/amulet.

Before I began work on the actual charm I made a pot of Czech sorrel soup. I was reading an article on the Slavic versions of sorrel soup that mentioned running across a Czech American recipe for the soup that had apple in it. I loved this quote from the article, “Sorrel soup is a pale green thread that runs through the cuisines of Eastern Europe”

So, I added apple to include the idea of some sweetness and abundance in the working alongside protection; lord knows we could use some.

I have written before about foraging, cooking, and eating being a huge part of my practice at this time of year as an act of communion with the land. In this case I wanted a physical act of communion before working with the sheep sorrel in the charm.

I also asked Děduška (our version of the Domovoy)to join me in the meal and to lend his blessings to the charm.

When it came time to actually make the charm, I utilized the sheep sorrel for the blade of the spear (four leaves, one to offer protection from each of the cardinal directions), wild garlic for the staff, and black thread to bind it.

I haven’t found a true primary source yet, but all the online chatter points to sheep sorrel being used in protective and healing folk magic.

Garlic, of course, is well known in protective magic.

And again online chatter says black thread is used to banish negative energy and keep bad things out.

Since today’s project was personal and not a recreation of anything from a particular culture, I decided that folk meant magic of the common people and that online chatter was an ok source for this project alongside my intention and will. I channeled my inner Granny Weatherwax down to earth attitude on this one.

Although the charm itself isn’t from any particular culture I did use bits of my ancestors’ cultures in the actual working. Having asked Děduška for his help, I also included the use of Czech hátová salt to consecrate the charm as I recited a Gaelic incantation.

After the ritual was over I offered Děduška milk and bread in thanks for his blessings. After leaving the offerings on the kitchen altar for a period of time I gave the bread to Marcy (our dog whose idea of protection is to bark at a bicycle riding down the road as well as howling at Perun as he thunders across the sky 🤪), drank down the soup myself, and went out to the sheep sorrel patch to give the milk to the sheep sorrel and any fae allies who might hang out there. Again, acts of communion.

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I decided in addition to hanging the charm on my altar I’ll carry it on my person via my phone wallpaper. 😜

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Kimchi with Foraged Wild Lettuce and Dandelion Greens Experiment: Part 1

I have always had an unhealthy relationship with baking because of inattentiveness/impatience due to ADHD—much, much preferring to be artistic with cooking meals. This year with my diagnosis, I’ve really slowed down with baking and had a lot of success with yeast breads and pastries. The new habits I’ve built with baking stood me in good stead as I experimented with this kimchi—taking time to research and making adjustments in ingredients and equipment.

Luckily with kimchi you can practice a lot of versatility; families tend to have their own recipes. I’ll talk about the changes I made and why, while linking to the recipe I used. If this doesn’t end up turning out it won’t be due to the original recipe!

The first adjustment was to cut the recipe down to 1/3rd the original as I managed to forage roughly 6 oz of greens instead of the pound required. Plus, I figured it didn’t hurt to use up less ingredients in case it didn’t turn out or I didn’t like it.

I parboiled the greens for 30 seconds and then laid them on a tray to cool. Then put them in a bowl with the salt for 30 minutes, and then rinsed them well, and chopped them into bite sized pieces.

I DID NOT use a vinegar and water bath as I usually do when cleaning greens. The research I did indicated that the vinegar could kill the bacteria on the plants that was necessary for fermentation.

Meanwhile, I brought water, fish sauce, maple syrup, and flour to a simmer—this is where I made another change. I did not have rice flour. Apparently, traditionally a glutinous rice flour is used. I researched and found many people who didn’t use flour at all, or substituted other flours, such as all-purpose, which is what I had on hand. The main purpose of the flour is to thicken the liquids—without it the kimchi can be watery. My liquid turned out nice and thick.

After this mixture returned to room temperature, I added the chili, ginger, and garlic. Here is where I made another change. While I used to regularly keep Korean chili powder on hand when we lived in a more urban area with access to a Korean (and Vietnamese) market, now that we are in a rural area I didn’t have any. I found people recounting using all sorts of peppers. I DO have access to peppers used in Hispanic cooking, and ended up using the tiny dried, red chiltepin which packs A LOT of heat. I only used a TB of them whole (I crushed them before adding to the liquid). When I taste tested, it seemed plenty spicy!

Since I used a very small amount of the whole chili peppers, the color was all wrong. A lot of people said they used a mixture of spicy peppers and paprika to get a redder color. So since I always have paprika (Czech-American cooking here, Baby!), I went ahead and added enough to turn the liquid red.

I then poured the liquid over the greens, smooshing the greens down to make sure that they were well covered and leaving a little room at the top for gas to escape. I would say it was about 3/4 full.

Last change: I was supposed to use a jar with a non-reactive lid because of the possibility of pressure building up and bursting the jar to shards. I really didn’t want to spend money on an experiment (pretty much the reason for most of my changes), so I just recycled a jar and will “burp” it twice a day during the 2 weeks when fermentation should be at its most active. This means loosening the lid twice a day to allow gases to escape. AND I put it in a loose plastic bag in a box in a closet in case it explodes!

I’ll be posting updates about whether it starts to bubble in a day or two like it should.

Sour, spicy, and loaded with umami, fermented dandelion kimchi is a good way to preserve bitter greens for use throughout the year in your c

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rose-colored forest

Zły rosochaty bór

The sky in a luminous glow

Niebo w świetlistej łunie

There's a pounding overhead

Tętent jakowyś w górze

Are you going, Perun?

To ty jedziesz, Perunie?

Are you riding on a cloud?

To ty śmigasz na chmurze?

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Twice Baked Potatoes with Pepperweed

Bake two large russet potatoes as usual and then scoop the potatoes from the skin. Mash together with 1/3 cups of sour cream, 4 TB butter, 1/3 cup chopped pepperweed (woody stems removed), and salt and pepper to taste.

Return mashed potatoes to skins and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. Bake in oven at 450° for twenty minutes.

I really packed in the pepperweed, but you could use less. I find the horseradish/wasabi like flavor fairly mild so I use a lot. But I like a punch with both wasabi and horseradish. 😉

Based on this recipe:

Every time I make twice baked potatoes I curse myself for not making them more often. They are hardly more …

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Korean Style Pancake with Lyreleaf Sage

We have a huge patch of lyreleaf sage growing in the shade of the hickory out back. “The young tender leaves can be eaten in salads or cooked as a ‘pot’ herb cooked like spinach with a slightly minty flavor – even the older leaves. The seeds can be gathered, ground, and added with flour to make bread. It was considered a staple food traditionally by the Catawba and Cherokee peoples.”

This morning I gathered a large handful that I used in this pancake for lunch

After washing and soaking the leaves in a vinegar/water bath, I chopped them, and then sautéed them with a little garlic and ginger in a mix of vegetable and sesame oil, when I was almost done cooking them, I added a splash of soy sauce.

After removing the greens, I ladled in half the batter (1 cup all purpose flour, 1/4 cup corn flour, 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp kosher salt, 1 & 1/4 cup ice water), topping it with half the greens, followed by a spoonful of panko bread crumbs. Once the bottom crisped, I flipped the pancake and cooked the other side.

Instead of making a dipping sauce, I was lazy and used a bottle of sweet chili sauce.

Source for the quote with more info:

4-19-19 For several years I have seen a pretty purple flower with colorful leaves (purple in winter, green in summer) growing around my gard

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White Sunday offerings to the ancestors. Scotch for the Scots-English side and wine for the Moravians. Mazanec and kraslice will probably appeal most to the Moravians, but offered to all—who doesn’t like a sweet bread?

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Last year

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Svatý Marek (Saint Mark) Day Brunch

This morning for brunch I wanted to use some of my Kraslice (Easter eggs) before I used the egg shells in a ritual this afternoon. I decided to dig through a cookbook I found a month or so back.

It is a joint project between museums in Austria and Czechia to collect recipes from 1750 to 1918 (my great-grandparents left in 1912—a part of the Slavic diaspora that was getting out before WWI) that were going back and forth across the borders as Czech and Moravian domestic workers went back and forth—introducing Czech folk recipes into Austria and Austrian recipes back home to southern Bohemia and Zjnomo (in southern Moravia where my great grandparents were from). Today’s recipe is from Ivančice—about 30 km from my great-grandparents village.

The first step was to peel and halve the eggs and make a filling. Of course, these old recipes so often do not give proper quantities! I decided to use four eggs. I melted 3 TB of butter and whipped the egg yolks into it and added 2 TB of cream and salt and pepper. The recipe said to mix in egg yolks too, but I didn’t want to waste an egg white and decided after taste testing that it was fine without it.

I then filled the eggs and scrambled one more fresh egg and poured it over. The recipe said to push the two halves back together into a whole egg, but further down it said you could also do it in a layer of halves. When I tried to stick them back together it didn’t work very well so I decided to leave them as halves.

I then sprinkled over a layer of bread crumbs and put the eggs in the oven at 350°F for 10 minutes.

Instead of making the ragout in the recipe with mushrooms, green peas, and asparagus I decided to use the leftover houbová omáčka (mushroom sauce) from the řízek I made on Svatý Jiří (St. George) Eve and use some freshly foraged greens in place of the asparagus and peas. After washing and soaking some lyre leaf sage leaves in a vinegar/water bath, I chopped them and sautéed them, and added them to the houbová omáčka—which I poured over the baked eggs when I took them out of the oven.

It was 👩🏻‍🍳💋.

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