My Spicy Valentine: Candy Hearts, Passion Magick, and a Damn Good Biscuit
This is the ninth in a series of guest blog posts by up-and-coming author, Suzanne Hersey. Her first book, Faith, Food, Family, will be available from Iaconagraphy Press in Spring of 2019!
What to do when you are lucky enough to be in love and be loved by romantics and you are generally romantic but completely reject the concept of Valentine’s Day? Many years ago, I was young and in love and this wonderful man. This soulmate sent a clown to my house with a huge balloon that said “I Love You,” roses and candy, and then whisked me off to dinner and home to snuggle in front of a fire with champagne. Nine months later, I stood over his open casket and a part of me died. The rest of me came to really resent Valentine’s Day.
Over thirty years later, I am the lucky recipient of so much love every single day that at times I wonder if I deserve it. This is not that “I buy you stuff” kind of love-reinforcement that we see all of the time, especially at this dreadful time of year, when stores are full of hearts and pink bears. This is an I cherish you kind of love, every single day. And every day I make sure to say thank you, and I love you, and do little things (many without even conscious thought) to show my love and passion for my beloveds.
But you bring on the aisles of red and pink commercialism and my heart is back at twenty and broken and I shut down and turn into one of “those” people: the Valentine’s Day-is-a-Massacre-commercialized-and-fake kinda people. I am really not cold-hearted, but this holiday is hard for me. My love is “on” every day for those in my inner circle and even those who are a bit further out. I love people, my children, my friends, family, partners, and my fur babies. I just don’t like to be told to love them. I don’t like clowns, and I don’t want balloons. I want magick! I want it completely charged-up, beyond what it is every day; steady, gentle and cherishing. I want the Passion Magick. (I would like to say I want that every moment of every day, but seriously, I have to work and maintain a household so that’s not very realistic!)
I am a Kitchen Witch and that is where my energy resides, so when it comes to Valentine’s Day, I do what a Kitchen Witch does: I conquer it in the kitchen! Awhile back, when I was starting work on my upcoming book, Faith Food Family, I was playing with recipes that I wanted to incorporate in the magicks of the book. One such recipe was Chili Chocolate Biscuits with Macerated Bourbon Cherries and a Ginger Buttercream. On my first test-run of the recipe, I delivered packages to my witchy friends as gifts, and though they said it was good or okay and maybe kick the spice up a notch, there was not a resounding “That was some sex magick that rocked my world.” So it went in the book, but I knew before publishing I was going to have to get back to that recipe. And then I did. I took the chocolate bar out of the biscuits, because they seemed so dense, and instead I made a chocolate glaze with just a bit of a kick. I scrapped the original spice profile and went right for a huge dose of cinnamon and cayenne. I dumped the heavy ginger butter cream in favor of a slightly sweet whipped cream, and last of all, I used frozen cherries but kept the bourbon cooking process the same. The end result was lots and lots of moaning while we cuddled up on the couch, my loves and I, and we still had our clothes on! That was one heck of a biscuit dish–a sexy take on strawberry shortcake–and the passion shone right through!
So, this year, my loves and I will make and exchange sweet homemade cards, as is our tradition. We will have a nice quiet dinner together, made with so much love and magick, and we will curl up with the rebooted passion dessert that I have reworked. You see, the love I lost was not a reason to give up: it was a reason to take that love and create something bigger; something magickal. So blessed February 14th which this year is a waxing moon: the perfect time for something spontaneous and spicy!
