A couple of months ago, a certain free morning newspaper (and I say “a certain” but I actually don’t remember which one, as I took it with one jet-lagged eye open from the chirpy giver-outer at my metro stop, and read only one page) suggested rather unhelpfully but with all good intentions that instead of spending money on a costly summer vacation, one should simply go out and buy a cookbook. Thus, I suppose, cooking one’s imaginary way through an exotic land, steeped in the spices and flavorings of a culture hitherto unexplored (by you, or me, the cook/traveller).
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I’m off to California to partake in a fairy-tale wedding. So I’m extending the deadline for our Fanciful Foods and Kitchen Witchery Recipe Contest to 11:59 p.m. on September 30. Keep cooking: there are four spots left for excellent entries!

This week’s stellar entry in the Fanciful Foods and Kitchen Witchery recipe contest, submitted by Albin, left me speechless with delight. And it contains some very sage advice. Read on.

Albin writes:

Tagliatelle al Burro e Salvia

Once upon a time, there was a girl who believed she had magical powers. She moved to New York from Northern Italy and was very happy. But it soon saddened her that many people did not share in her happiness. They failed to see the beauty in the city. After all, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.
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I had never seen or even heard of Thumbelina carrots before today, and when I saw them I had to have some. They’re in fact the nicest thing about today–my today, at least–because they reminded me of Hans Christian Andersen and the tale of a tiny girl who became the Queen of Flowers. I still love reading about Thumbelina’s adventures with beastly beasts, of her tulip-petal boat on a bowl-of-water lake. I may love even more dearly the 1952 film Hans Christian Andersen–also a complete fairy tale–with the dreamy Danny Kaye as Hans Christian.

Back to the carrots. They’re sweet, squat, and somewhat radish-like in stature. They’d be perfect for pickling, but mine are going to be eaten raw, now, with a sprinkle of Cassina Rossa’s Sweet & Salt, pictured above in my birdbath salt-cellar.

I made my first batch of flapjacks at the beginning of August, as a small observance of Lammas, a folk festival of the British Isles marking the first harvest of the year. The holiday coincides with and may derive from Lughnasadh (pronounced LOO-neh-seh), an ancient Celtic festival sacred to the god Lugh, who is said to have declared a day of feasting in honor of his foster-mother, Tailtiu, who died of exhaustion after clearing the plain of Breg for planting.

At Lammas, which literally means “loaf-mass”, tithes of wheat and grain were paid to landlords, and in Christian communities, loaves made from the harvested crops were brought to church for a blessing. I think I first encountered this holiday and its forebear in a Celtic mythology class at school, and it stuck with me. It’s a holiday of thanksgiving–it’s often called the Feast of First Fruits–and of hope for a bountiful harvest. I like marking it in some small way: it’s nice to say thanks to the earth, to celebrate a particularly important moment in its year, and to look forward to a new, fruitful season.
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