Ceridwen’s Cauldron

I almost forgot! I have an appointment to meet my Changeling GM online to roleplay later on tonight.

Wheee! I can’t wait.

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I love my ritual tools, but I’m always frustrated by people who seem to think that they need a $100 ritual knife in order to cast circle. So with that in mind, I offer you this link…

Wicca for the Low-Budget Witch

Enjoy!

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Upon getting to work this morning…

Producer:[looking at the clock] You’re late.
Me: Er…
Producer: You should have been here yesterday.

The producer also informed me that it’s sort of a good thing I couldn’t come in yesterday. “They have to learn you can’t just come in at a moment’s notice.”

Yep. My feelings exactly.

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This morning at my house…

8:15: The telephone rings. The Husband answers it.

Husband:Yes…she’s here. Just hold on. [calls] Ceri….it’s for you!
Me: [picking up the phone] Hello?
Producer: Good morning! It’s (Producer) calling from (show). I guess no one told you you’re in the schedule to work for my show today and tomorrow?
Me: No. No they didn’t.
Producer: Can you work for the show today and tomorrow?
Me: Er…Sorry but I can’t today. I will come in tomorrow though… I’m really sorry.
Producer: Okay, well, we’ll manage. But can you please work on absorbing the schedule by osmosis?

You know, it’s really, really a good thing this producer has a sense of humour.

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I love having dinner parties. I don’t have them often, because they can be a lot of work and I’m a lazy, lazy person, but I do enjoy having people over.

Last week I decided it had been way too long since we’d seen two of our friends, and so they came over last night for supper. It was a very nice evening, lots of wine, lots of food, lots of good conversation. We really have to do this more often.

I rarely cook fancy meals when I have people over. I’m big on the simple, tasty meals. So last night was a good down home meal of Shepherd’s Pie and my mom’s Chocolate Chip Pudding. Both are favourites of mine and seemed to be hits, so I post the recipes for posterity…

Shepherd’s Pie

I got this recipe from my grandmother. My aunt Susan (who is an amazing cook) told me some modifications she’d made to the recipe, and I’ve done some very minor fiddling to make it what you see below. It has lots of vegetables and lots of gravy in it, so it’s not really dry like most shepherd’s pies I’ve tried.

Ingredients:

1 lb lean ground beef
1 can peas, drained
1 can corn, drained
2 cups of potatoes, cut up and cooked
2 tbsp parmesan cheese
3/4 cup carrots, cut up small
2 cups water
2 tsp liquid beef stock (or one cube)
2 tsp worchestershire sauce
1/2 tsp celery salt
1 tbsp flour

Instructions:

1. Cook potatoes. Drain. Mash, adding parmesan cheese. Set aside.

2. Fry onions and beef together until cooked through.

3. In a small bowl, whisk together the water, worchestershire sauce, flour, celery salt and beef stock. Pour into the beef and onion mixture, along with the carrots, peas and corn.

4. Bring the beef mixture to a boil. Simmer for 15 minutes.

5. Spoon the beef mixture into a casserole dish. Top with mashed potatoes. Bake in a 375 degree oven for 30-45 minutes.

Notes: This makes enough for a decent portion for four people. I’d use a small can of peas and a small one of corn, or a can of peas and corn together unless I double the recipe. I also always make more mashed potatoes than what the recipe calls for. The more on top, the better, I say!

I double this recipe when company comes over, and it makes enough for generous portions for six people. It could easily be served for eight if you want room for dessert (and with the chocolate pudding, you will!). Oh, and don’t worry if the gravy from the beef mixture spills over the mashed potato topping. I have yet to figure out how to make it not do that, and no one notices once it’s spooned onto a plate anyway!

Carmel’s Celebrated Chocolate Chip Pudding

This was one of my favourite desserts as a kid. And it’s so easy to make!

Ingredients:

Pudding:

1 cup flour
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3 tbsp sugar
3 tbsp canola oil
7 tbsp milk
1 cup chocolate chips (semi-sweet or milk chocolate)

Sauce

1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup margarine or butter
1 3/4 cup water
pinch of salt
2 tsp vanilla

Instructions:

1. for pudding Mix dry ingredients together well. Stir in milk and oil. Drop in chocolate chips 1/2 cup at a time. Don’t worry if they don’t all stick in the dough. You want some to fall into the sauce.

2. for sauce Combine the sugar, brown sugar, margarine, water and salt in a casserole dish. Bring to a boil on the stovetop, then remove from heat. When the sauce has cooled a bit, stir in the vanilla.

3. Gently drop spoonfuls of the pudding into the sauce. Try to spread them out, but don’t worry about covering everywhere.

4. Bake at 350 degrees for 30-45 minutes, checking often.

5. Serve with ice cream.

Notes: I put my corningware dishes on the stove burner with no problems. I bring the sugar to a boil over medium heat. This pudding will serve 5-6 people, depending on serving size.

Posted by Ceri under Cooking | 4 Comments »

Do you ever have that feeling when you wake up in the morning that something’s changed? Everything’s clicked into place somehow and you don’t know how?

You haven’t?

Well, I did. This morning. It was bizarre. I woke up and everything felt different. This isn’t due to anything I can put a name or a number to. I don’t think it’s due to a particularly good night’s sleep or anything, there was just a feeling in my chest like something that had been bothering me was gone now.

Today is very different than yesterday. That’s the message I got.

I have no idea what it means.

Or to put it another way, I know exactly what it means but I can’t really put it into words anyone will understand.

Urgh. Time to break out Ye Olde Magical Journal and get this down.

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So I’m on the phone with t! and for some reason the Welsh language comes up…

t!: I don’t think anyone can actually speak the welsh language. It is a myth propogated by the Welsh.

A:(in the background) My grandfather speaks Welsh!

t!: Your grandfather does not speak Welsh! He takes his dentures out and speaks English!

…
…
…
Yeah.

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There’s an interesting article here about drinking and driving punishments. If you get your license restricted for DUI in Ohio you have to put a special “scarlet letter” license plate on your car so everyone driving around knows what you did.

I’m less moved by the complaints of drunk drivers who say that the plates are “humiliating” (should’ve thought of that before, shouldn’t you?) than I am by the complaints of their families who have to use the same car — they’re not the ones who committed the crime, after all, so it’s sort of unfair that they get punished too.

Still, I find the idea quite interesting. I’m curious to find out if it deters drunk drivers at all, ’cause some offenders just don’t care, license or not.

(Link via BoingBoing)

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Apparently someone has found that students in french immersion classes have better literacy skills than non-immersion students.

And it has nothing to do with economic or social background! Government officials are mystified.

I could solve the mystery for them…. If you don’t have high literacy skills, you don’t get into a french immersion program. It’s as simple as that. Kids who are already having problems with school don’t go into programs where they have to learn in another language. How stupid would that be? So the ones with low literacy skills are yeah, all in non-immersion programs and the ones in immersion are the ones with stronger literacy. And better all-around students, I would think.

Duh.

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So I came across this in my internet travels. Apparently this is the new Hollywood fad — learning how to striptease as a workout.

What actually interested me in reading all of this was not the exercise itself, but what it says it’s doing. The author of the book I linked (called “S Factor”) is selling it as a way for women to feel more comfortable with their own bodies. This isn’t about stripping for men — or, at least, it isn’t only about stripping for men. It’s also about getting woman to see themselves as sensual creatures.

Which fits in with a lot of Wiccan philosophy. Sex isn’t seen as dirty, but as a natural act, celebrating the divine within ourselves. (Which doesn’t mean we all get naked and have orgies, either. Just that we can enjoy sex.) Taking it a step further, erotic acts, such as striptease, can be used as a way to honour the feminine principle. Or to honour ourselves as women. “Hey — I’m sexy and I like being sexy!”

Taking it another step, the act of stripping can become removed from a sexual context entirely — “Hey! Look how I can move! And how beautiful it looks!” It’s a sensual rather than a sexual act. Not that that’s what this workout is doing, of course — there’s no denying it’s selling itself on the sexual aspect as well — but at least on a superficial level, it’s moving away from seeing eroticism as taboo and toward seeing it as healthy, as a way of becoming comfortable with our own bodies.

Plus, y’know, it’s a great way to drop a dress size.

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