Recharge your relationship with some cookery spells and make beautiful food together.

CLASSES FOR COUPLES

A Sacred Chef cooking class just for the pair of you!

Cooking can be a bonding experience – fun and inspiring too!

Share some good food secrets with the Sacred Chef and take home recipes that you made together.

Choose a menu for two in consultation with the chef.

Enjoy a delicious lunch afterwards and reap your rewards.

$178 per couple 

your day includes a 3 course meal; complimentary selection of wines; take home recipe pack & goodie bag too!

BOOK HERE       PURCHASE ONLINE NOW

By Sudha Hamilton

House Therapy is Sudha’s soon to be published new book.

The Kitchen

The Ancient Greeks, who gave us many of the founding principles upon which we base our modern societies – democracy; logic; philosophy; literature and poetry to name but a few salient examples, had  a rich collection of gods and goddesses. Hestia was the goddess of hearth and home, older sister to Zeus and first born of the titans Kronos and Rhea – perhaps not as well known today as her siblings Demeter, Hera, Haides and Poseidon.  This may have been due to the fact that she was swallowed first by her titan father Kronos, who in  a bid to avoid being overthrown by one of his children, as prophesied, ate all his children, she was thus the last to be regurgitated, once Zeus had forced his father to do so.

The Romans also worshipped her in their homes and knew her as Vesta. The areas of responsibility for which Hestia was worshipped and sacrificed to, were most aspects of domestic life and in particular what we now call the kitchen. For it is around the cooking hearth or kitchen that a home or house builds up or out. Hestia was always toasted at the beginning of a meal in thanks for the hospitality proffered. She was probably where the early Christians appropriated their ‘saying of grace’ before dinner from.

Homeric Hymn 24 to Hestia (trans. Evelyn-White) (Greek epic C7th – 4th B.C.) :
“Hestia, in the high dwellings of all, both deathless gods and men who walk on earth, you have gained an everlasting abode and highest honour: glorious is your portion and your right. For without you mortals hold no banquet,–where one does not duly pour sweet wine in offering to Hestia both first and last. And you, Argeiphontes [Hermes], son of Zeus and Maia, . . . be favourable and help us, you and Hestia, the worshipful and dear. Come and dwell in this glorious house in friendship together; for you two, well knowing the noble actions of men, aid on their wisdom and their strength. Hail, Daughter of Kronos, and you also, Hermes.”

Interestingly Hestia was a virginal goddess and refused the suits of both Apollo and Poseidon. Perhaps this is where we get the separation of the sexual roles of the wife and mother in the home and the focus on providing nurture and hospitality instead. Hestia was seen as the giver of all domestic happiness and good fortune in the home and she was believed to dwell in the inner parts of every home. She was also the first god mentioned at every sacrifice, as she represented the hearth where sacrifices took place – this is the direct link to our kitchens today and the genesis of the sacred chef. There are very few temples of Hestia extant and this is thought to be because every home was her temple in the Hellenistic world. I think we can draw some intuition from this in our view of our homes being places of divine inspiration.

The kitchen has of late become a popular focus of interest, with TV chefs and groovy restaurants grabbing the public’s imagination. For House Therapy the kitchen represents our centre, our practical and instinctual selves. This is where we prepare food for family and ourselves. It is also often where food is stored in the refrigerator and pantry cupboards. Food is about survival and security. There is no bullshit about these things and the kitchen is a place where the elements of nature still regularly intervene. Fire on the stove and in your oven; water at the sink, earth in the bench tops and structure; and air in the extractor, fan forced oven and all around. You can be hurt in the kitchen if you do not pay attention to what you are about. Unlike the faux furies vented in the kitchens on TV, you can experience some real passions in these hot and pressurised places at home. You might be burning fingers and dishes, dropping scoldingly hot plates and crying bitter tears over chopped onions. The kitchen is where we show our real reactions to strong emotions, pressure in our lives and our appetites and jealousies.

Have a look around now at your kitchen, the colour of the walls and general lay-out of things. What is your first impression? What does it say to you about your instinctive self? Are you clinical or passionate? Are the walls white/neutral or vivid/strong colours? Is it large or small? Is the instinctual, raw and pragmatic you an important part of your life? Or is it hidden away or missing? The trend in studio apartment architecture now, to build them without kitchens and have neutered mini servery’s instead, is a reflection of a missing essential in sections of our culture. Stripping away the practical ability to fend for yourself by cooking your own food and becoming dependent on pre-prepared meals is symptomatic of us having lost our way along the journey. Is your kitchen well equipped? Can you cook? Do you enjoy cooking for friends, family and yourself?

Returning to the rich historical connection our modern day kitchen has with Hestia’s hearth, as mentioned earlier it was the place where the highly necessary ritualised sacrifices took place. These sacrifices usually involved a calf or some other domesticated animal and those involved with the sacrifice would share in eating the meat of the roasted animal. So the power of the sacrifice would be in the ritualised slaughtering of the animal in dedication to the goddess for a particular purpose – to bring good fortune upon whatever was so desired for example. Today the cook or cooks go into the kitchen, risking cuts, perspiration and burns, to prepare a celebratory meal for our friends and or family – Christmas, birthdays and other days of ritualised festivities. We may not consciously invoke Hestia or any other gods but the overall intention is the same, we wish to share good cheer with those we love and bring good fortune upon us all.

It is interesting to ask oneself what is true sacrifice and what does it mean in our lives today? When we think of sacrificing something, we tend to see it as foregoing or missing out on something so as to have something else. “You cannot have your cake and eat it too.” Which I have always thought was an incredibly stupid saying, because what is the point of possessing uneaten cake? A sacrifice I hear you say, perhaps a slice for the gods. Interestingly the Greeks and Romans would eat the cooked flesh of their sacrifice, offering the bones and fat to the gods and goddesses, but it was the life itself, that was the real sacrifice in my view. The word sacrifice means to make sacred, so whatever we offer up in dedication to the gods becomes sacred. Actually the word anathema, was the Greek word for laying-up or suspending something in wait for the gods, and it is has now taken on the meaning of something that is accursed, through its contact, down through the ages, with the jealous Hebrew  god, Yahweh; the Christian god. Our language, and lexicon of words, have taken an interesting journey over the last four millennia, and it is no wonder we are all a little confused at times. So we could make  a correlation between sacrificing something in our life and that thing, which  has been sacrificed becomes anathema to us or accursed. How do you feel about the things you have sacrificed in your life? A person’s love; a relationship; a career; types of food; alcohol; drugs; sex; lifestyle; freedom?  We do not live in a particularly sacrificial age, more of a ‘you can have it all’ age, but can you really enjoy it all and be present for entirely disparate things in your life? Do we appreciate things more when we make room for them in our lives? Perhaps sacrifice still has a part to play in our lives today, better sharpen those knives.

The kitchen is also a place of transformation, where base elements are turned into the gold of love and nourishment. Is your kitchen a space where magic like this happens, regularly or just on special occasions? Domestic kitchens have a great tradition throughout the West of being incredibly impractical, lacking preparation space and adequate and functional cupboards. This is now being addressed in more modern homes, as the passion is returning to the kitchen. I think that we suffered for a few decades from the ‘American wonder of white goods’ syndrome, where no home was complete without these wonderful space and time saving machines and that a mentality of faster was better grew up around them. Fast foods, sliced white bread, whipped cream in a can, all these travesties were accorded the haloed status of modernity and progress. When in actual fact they were soulless short cuts that ripped the heart out of good cooking. Yes we still do have a lot of gadgets in the kitchen but we also now understand that good food still needs dedication and application. Bread makers are great, but bread cooked in a wood fired oven tastes better and if it is naturally fermented sour dough even better. Espresso coffee from your home machine tastes a lot better than instant coffee.

Your kitchen is a place where you can practically respond to the basic needs of living. Is your kitchen letting you do this? Is your kitchen supporting you in feeling centred and secure in dealing with the vicissitudes that life often throws up? Are your knives sharp and well balanced? Do you have enough bench space when preparing meals? Does your stove cook the way you want it to cook?  If not then you are letting yourself down and going around with a bloody great hole where your centre should be. As a member of the human tribe you need to be able to fend for yourself, and the kitchen can empower you to be grounded in the here and now. Not wafting around on the ceiling hoping for the crumbs of human kindness to drop your way.

Things we can do to transform our kitchen

As a chef, who has owned and managed a number of restaurants and cafes, I know all about kitchens and their design downfalls. First and foremost it is about space and in particular bench top space where most kitchens, especially older kitchens, are lacking. Storage space comes a close second and it is in these areas that a solid beginning can be made in transforming your kitchen from a frustration trap into a pragmatic pleasure dome. Cooking is never completely easy, if it is, it isn’t real cooking, in my opinion, there must be some blood, sweat and tears in every great dish but not too much. Unnecessary suffering is not on anyone’s menu by choice.

Buy an island bench if you lack bench top space and cannot easily create more, they are great and I have several of them, and you can take them with you when you move.

Sharp knives, that are also well weighted in the overall heft of the knife, can bring a smile to any good cook and I always say, “happiness is a sharp knife.”

Obviously kitchens need to be clean and cleaned regularly for all sorts of reasons, hygiene, health and happiness. Clutter in the kitchen causes chaos and calamity, food takes longer to prepare and the energy around it is bad.

Trapped dead energy, in the form of rotting and old produce in fridges and cupboards, does not augur well for happy kitchen gods and thus producing yummy healthy and nutritious food; so clean out and clean up.

©Sudha Hamilton

For more articles www.sudhahamilton.com or www.sacredchef.com 

Learn to cook delicious new dishes on the sunshine coast, at the Sacred Chef cooking school, where you will experience fun learning in convivial circumstances.

Ask your reader a few questions, before committing to a reading or astrological interpretation, about their training and life experience; and philosophy. Where are they coming from and how do they see the world and beyond. A reading is an opportunity to pass on some wisdom, it is a momentary break in the ongoing story of your life, and the cards revealed are chosen by your subconscious to impart illumination where there is currently darkness. If your reader is as caught up in the drama of relating incidents and activities happening on the wheel of fortune, rather than in the light of awareness at the centre of this spinning wheel, then what is the point of divination? Are you seeking excitement or enlightenment? Ask yourself this question.

“Since then, at an uncertain hour,

That agony returns:

And still my ghastly tale is told,

This heart within me burns.

I pass, like night, from land to land;

I have strange power of speech;

That moment that his face I see,

To know the man that must hear me:

To him my tale I teach.”

Ancient Mariner – Coleridge

Eventually she came out of her reverie and her eyes opened and settled on me. I shrank back a bit and held her gaze momentarily before looking away and coughing gently. I glanced back and she was still staring at me. What did she want from me? Hells bells!

Madame Shantelle was a large woman in a purple velvet dress, which clashed with her lined, tired skin creating an interesting textured effect of wrinkles and worn fabric. She had long painted nails, purple again, and fat fingers with multiple rings, all glinting with costume jewellery intensity. Her hair was dyed henna orange and permed into a fiery frizz, which sat about her head like a halo. This was definitely not my usual scene.

“Hello love and what can I do for you today? Come for a bit of a reading have we, to consult the cards?”

Her voice was like golden syrup bubbling in a fry pan with some animal fat.

“Have you had a tarot reading before?”

She wet her lips with a greyish pink tongue, which peeked out between her purple lip sticked lips.

I saw my brief life fast forwarded in quick review and came up empty.

“nnn…no, I hhhaven’t,” I managed to get out.

“Never mind put yourself at rest, it is nothing to fear and much to profit from.”

The cards in a deck, shabby and well thumbed,  sat disconsolately on the silk clad table. Her fat old fingers soon found them in a familiar caress and stroked their tired surfaces as she shuffled. Murmuring some mantra or tune.

“I will get you to have a bit of a shuffle with the cards, so’s you can get to know each other like.”

She extended the pack to me and I reached out, avoiding the sharp edges of a ring or two, and took hold of the cardboard cards. I looked down at the design on the back of the cards and noticed a swirling tail of some creature or another. I fumbled the largish cards and had to steady myself with my other hand to avoid dropping them and scattering a mess of them everywhere.

“sorry!”

“No problem love, take your time.”

“how shuffled do you want them?” I queried.

“Just a little more and perhaps have a think about what you would like to ask the cards dearie.”

Her powdered cleavage rose up as Madame Shantelle took in breath and a slight wheezing emanated from her. Purple velvet stretched across a vast expanse of chest and it shook with the effort of each breath.

I finished with the cards and proffered them back to her and prepared myself for the next instalment of this strange process.

“I want you to close your eyes now and think of your question. Take  a deep breath and focus on your desires for the cards to answer.”

Still holding the deck I did as she asked and shut my eyes, hoping that I wouldn’t be assaulted or something worse.

“Now put the deck down on the table, still with eyes shut, and carefully cut the deck into three piles, using just your left hand.”

I felt for the table surface and found it, still there, and like a blind person I sensed the cards and separated sections into the requested amounts. I waited for what was next and took another unasked for deep breath.

“Now put the deck back together in any order you feel to, just let it happen when it feels right.”

I felt around again in the dark and my hand made contact with a small pile of cards. I reached further and felt the second and third groupings of tarot cards. Time seemed to be painfully slow and I thought that I better get on with it, and so pulled and piled cards together in to one formation.

I felt her hand brush mine and confidently grab the newly arranged deck.

“Righteo you can open your eyes and we shall begin.”

She turned the top card over and revealed a king, whose feet were immersed in water, within a stream.

“I see a tall dark stranger…”

The Christian religion has magpied rituals and festivals – Xmas & Easter – from earlier religions and like a new franchise rebadged them their own. So that the majority of people who have emerged from Christian backgrounds have no idea where these concepts of good and evil etc have actually come from. They do not know why they may fear things like the tarot but in their ancestral collective subconscious minds they sense taboos and heretical condemnations, which led to things like witch hunts and burnings at the stake. There are sadly still a minority of people who maintain these ignorant and ancient beliefs.

My advice is if you feel a sense of foreboding about things like the tarot – then investigate it and the taboos put upon it by the Christian church. Find out for yourself!