The Feminist Kitchen Recommends

Seven ways to bring a little magic to your week. ✨⭐

Happy Thursday!

Inspired by newsletter OG Austin Kleon, who sends an email to subscribers each Friday morning with 10 things worth sharing, I’m using this Substack platform to send 7 ideas for bringing magic into your life each week.

Why Thursday? Why magic? Why 7?

1) Seven is a code for adaptability, wisdom, the spiritual seeker, according to Tiffany Harelik, the founder of Wise Skies Collective, which is my first recommendation this week. Tiffany is an intuitive astrologer and tarot card reader I’ve known through the food world for like a decade. She has fully pivoted to the healing arts, and I’m a big fan of her podcast and her platform. Her post this morning about being in yin energy was some magical medicine I needed.

2) “In & Of Itself” on Hulu. Magic used to drive me nuts. I couldn’t *not* watch all those David Copperfield specials on TV in the 1990s, but he and other magicians seemed to be practicing the art of intentional deception, which makes me feel squishy. And then I saw Derek DelGaudio's incredible one-man magic show on Hulu, and I changed my mind. The piece explores identity in such a powerful way that I was sobbing by the end. Just like Tim Gunn, who makes a special appearance in the audience.

3) The Birthdate candle. Seven, in tarot, is a card of illusion, decisions, perception. My birthday day and month are both 7, so I’ve got that Chariot energy pulsing through me. Choices are inherently neutral — and so are detachment, debt and asking for what we need, but those are posts for another day — but how we think about them is what matters.

4) Homemade marshmallows. For my day job at the Statesman, I recently wrote about making marshmallows with my kids. I tied it together with Amanda Gorman’s inauguration poem, grief and pandemic parenting. Since then, we’ve made several more batches of marshmallows and they have given us just the sweetness we needed during this cold, blustery month.

5) Black Puma’s take on “Fast Car.” Pure magic.

6) Ritual. A little ritual goes a long way, and we all have them, even if we don’t honor them as rituals. Having coffee or dinner at a certain time. How we put on our shoes or brush our teeth. The only difference between ritual and routine is the quality of the attention we give it. Thursday is a day of ritual for me. I have a standing 9:15 a.m. meeting with my sisters in recovery. Writing this newsletter to publish each Thursday morning feels like a new ritual I’m ready to add to my week.

7) Hafiz’s “The Gift.” A mentor gifted me a copy of the gold-covered edition featuring Daniel Ladinsky’s translations. I’ll leave you this week with a poem I flipped open to this morning.

This Constant Yearning

We are

Like lutes

Once held by God.

Being away from His warm body

Fully explains

This

Constant

Yearning

I hope these recommendations bring a little magic into your week! It’s been a fun launch week for The Feminist Kitchen 3.0. This is the last free edition of the newsletter, so make sure you sign up for the paid version so you don’t miss any new posts. I’m grateful for your support!