Dear subscribers,
I’m happy to be back in your inboxes after quite the hiatus. Truthfully, I feel like I’ve been on a bit of a detour the last year and am now trying to get back on a track that feels right for me. This mostly has to do with work and accepting crushed dreams, so I won’t bore you with that. But I’m feeling good about the year ahead, despite the slight uncertainty of my current moment. There are also many things to celebrate.
Mainly, in the time since my last newsletter, the oral history-based cookbook I had been working on with the Federazione delle associazione molisane del Quebec - Dalla valigia alla tavola: A journey through Molisan culinary heritage - has been published! We had an intimate launch with the Federazione, the cookbook team (shout-out to Vee, Joey, Erica, and Barbara), and all those who participated, as well as the associations that helped make it a reality through their moral and financial support.
After 4 long years of work, it is still surreal when I hold it in my hands. Especially when I think about the last two weeks before it was printed. At one point, in the span of 48 hours, the proof was handed to me on the side of a road (the easiest place to meet up between myself and the printer running errands); the photographer had checked for any changes needed in the visuals; the graphic designer (thanks, Salma and Griffintown Media!) made them; and the proof was back at the printer (thanks, Accent Impression!), ready to be printed and shipped to Sherbrooke for binding. It was a whirlwind and mind blowing that all those years of work could then be crammed into those last few days to production.
We are now working on getting it into some local shops, doing more promo, and holding a larger-scale launch. In the meantime, it is available online.
I have, as usual, other projects up my sleeve, but am taking it easy since there is still a lot to do around the cookbook (see above, and also, making sure it gets shipped out to everyone who ordered outside of Montreal. It’s coming soon, I promise!).
One of my goals for this year is to write more and dedicate myself to this newsletter, through which I will continue to explore the historical, cultural, and folkloric aspects of my Molisan heritage. Another thing I am celebrating is access to this time; it’s a huge privilege to be able to take it back after a year of getting closer and closer to burn out, pouring all my energy into something that didn’t even align with where I want to go in my career and my life.
I can’t wait to continue sharing what I am learning and mulling over on the third Friday of every month.
Until then,
Cass
PS: I also revamped my website. Check it out here.
See below for monthly tarot pull (no footnotes for today, but I’ve added all the texts shown in the photo above to a resource list with links, when possible).
Monthly Tarot
Each issue will include a tarot pull reflecting on the research and folklore discussed in the newsletter.
I love the absolute chaos of the imagery in this deck. The cards are so colourful and dynamic, allowing you to connect with and interpret them in such creative ways. Of course, a reminder that I am a mere learner in the art of tarot reading and part of including it in my newsletters is to keep practicing.1
Unlike the more traditional image on the five of swords card, which depicts a man holding three swords that he picked up from the ground, where two more are laying, as two other men walk away, shoulders slumped, this card feels more internal. In the sense that, the conflict (as the five of swords usually suggests some type of conflict, battle, disagreement, etc.) this image evokes for me, at this moment, is an internal rather than external one. The cave, according to Kim Krans’ The Wild Unknown Archetypes deck, is:
“A place to return for meaningful retreat, where one can ‘see’ the true self in the darkness.”
“Those who are fortunate enough to find and enter the cave are forever changed. It is a place of potent power, acting both as portal to another realm and a space for sacred ritual and initiation.”
Yet, people fear the cave for the unknown, the darkness, the isolation. And here, in this card, there are also these many eyes, peering out from the darkness - watching, judging, waiting. This card is also giving me big The Sword in the Stone vibes.
But five swords in a stone? One of the main lessons to take away from this card is to pick your battles. You can’t pull out all five swords at once. Maybe, like in the story of the sword in the stone, you won’t even be able to pull out one until your figure some things out and you come back ready, knowing that your new baggage will help you slide the sword(s) right out without having to pull with all your might.
Something I am trying to learn is acceptance for the moments when I need to take a step back. I’m someone who has always had multiple jobs at once; who always felt like I needed to be accomplishing something “concrete” (and that is loaded in a lot of stuff that we can get into some other time); who associates “doing” with moving forward.
To be fair, I do think it’s important to work hard to realize your goals and, in fact, that it is quite necessary for most of us to do so. But I am questioning where I spend that energy just to work hard for working hard’s sake. In doing so, I neglected myself - my health (mental and physical) - and lost focus on my ambitions and priorities. Keeping that focus and honesty with yourself means facing the dark, contemplative space of the cave, beyond the distractions.
If this is your journey, too, I wish us luck because it’s hard to undo the urge to just throw yourself into whatever spaces make you feel useful and validated, only to end up a shell of yourself. Yikes.
My sister said that her hope for this year is to do things with intention, and I love that. Because it means doing things in respect for others, the world around you, and yourself. Let’s make 2024 the year of intention (thanks for the inspo, Erica) - the best way to tackle your own five of swords, whatever it may be.
One little but long footnote on my basic philosophy around tarot, at least right now. For me, tarot is a creative way to approach self-reflection, and reflection more generally, using the images and symbolism in the cards. I don’t think that I can predict things or offer general, open-ended readings for everyone. As a historian, I actually connect a lot of what I know about doing history to doing tarot. For example, we can never know what fully, truly, objectively happened in the past (which isn’t the point of history, anyway). What we do, instead, is use the evidence left behind or collected through testimonies to make interpretations about the past. We do the best we can through these resources and honest work. Meaning, we share our sources; we are transparent about our process; we do things ethically. I see tarot the same way: I can’t predict the future, but I can make interpretations based on what is in front of me. And those interpretations speak to something that is on my mind; or that I need to think about more; or maybe that has been buried away. Maybe some of these reflections will resonate with you.
Resources
Alquati, Donatella and Giorgio Mininno. Sagre d’Italia. Bra: Slow Food Editore, 2023.
Del Conte, Anna. A Casa: Seasonal Italian Home Cooking. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1992.
Herr, Johannah and Cara Marsh Sheffler. The Banana Republican Recipe Book. New York: 2021.
kitchen work. “The Vegetable Issue” (number 8, winter 2023) and “The Home Cooking Issue” (number 9, winter 2024). https://www.kitchenwork.com/.
Lazzaroni, Laura and Massimo Montanari. Gusto! Gli italiani a tavola, 1970-2050. Venezia: Marsilio Editori, 2022.
Montanari, Massimo. Il mito delle origini: Breve storia degli spaghetti al pomodoro. Bari: Editori Laterza, 2019.
Natali, Carlo. Abruzzi e Molise in bocca. Palermo: Il Vespro, 1978.
Pecchioli, Morello. I frutti dimenticati: Conoscere e cucinare prodotti antichi, insoliti e curiosi. Milano: Gribaudo, 2017.
Pecchioli, Morello. Le verdure dimenticate: Conoscere e cucinare ortaggi antichi, insoliti e curiosi. Milano: Gribaudo, 2016.
Put a egg on it. Issue 16, Fall 2019. http://www.putaeggonit.com/.
Re-enactment Recipes. Montreal: OK Stamp Press, 2019.
Verde Barr, Nancy. We Called It Macaroni: An American Heritage of Southern Italian Cooking. New York: Knopf, 1991.
Von Bremzen, Anya. National Dish: Around the World in Search of Food, History, and the Meaning of Home. New York: Penguin Press, 2023.