The Food? It’s all I’ve ever known. My first glimpse of a memory was the taste of a scallion mom gave me to ease a growing tooth. How helpful was it? Not really! I gave it back. The rest is a whirl of steam, cilantro, and typical Ecuadorian foods. When my family lived in Jackson Heights, Queens, my Mother entertained our entire family practically every Sunday. She and my grandmother came home from work to make sure we all got a hot meal. I didn’t grow up eating fast food ( that was a rare treat).

I started my young adult life full of exuberance and the “making a difference” complex. I wanted my life to mean something and so I decided that being a doctor was the best way for me to do that. Enter sophomore year of HS where I interned at Bellevue hospital for three years translating Spanish and Portuguese. My first day took me to the elusive F wing, which to my surprise was where they kept the mentally ill patients. Long story short, the patient threatened to kill us all and jump out of a window, which I translated, verbatim, and excused myself to run crying down the hall to the elevator.

I went back. Spent most of my time in the OB/GYN ward, which is the specialty I was so looking forward to enter. My senior year brought about many changes, including a swift left turn. I was going to be a Chef. Trying to tell my mother turned out to be a giant cluster f*ck full of pain, resentment and overall sadness. She couldn’t get why i wanted to do this and I couldn’t explain that I would probably end up a suicide from all of the heartache I has already seen and more to come in the future.

I did an early admissions application, it was all sink or swim for me. I worked at Dean and Deluca and started experimenting with food, trying to get a handle of the kitchen I loved but never really got to know. I dabbled, trying to make meals with my childhood best friend Monique that always cheered by clapping vigorously when edible things were set down in front of her. We focused mostly on breakfast items and traditional cheese empanadas covered in sugar (yes, this is totally weird but so delicious!) with hot chocolate.

My acceptance letter arrived in January and I was overjoyed, until I got to the bottom of the letter… I needed to have 6 months worth of kitchen experience in order to be fully accepted. My heart sank. I was 16 and didn’t know how I was going to accomplish this at my age with no experience getting a kitchen job was going to be a hardship. I decided that my best course of action was to volunteer, free labor will prevail. I got the sunday Times and circled all the hotel and restaurant ads I could find. I mailed 50 copies of a letter explaining my situation, what I needed and how willing I was to work for FREE!

Three weeks later I received one response. One. Naturally I jumped at the opportunity, and completed my 6 month requirement. Side note: I was miserable. The chef hated me and made me cry every day. Told me I wouldn’t be able to finish. I promised to visit him and rub my diploma in his face… when I graduated I went to the restaurant but it was no longer there, karma I guess.

Graduating from the Culinary Institute of America was an incredible accomplishment. Mom had come around and was even learning cooking tips from me! I was ready to take on the world and landed my first job at Tavern on the green.

After a year on the job I had my daughter, my greatest accomplishment ever. I moved around after that from restaurants to catering companies, learning and growing. I even worked with the Board of Education in New York for their School Food division. That place really taught me the ins and outs of budgets, deadlines, codes, chain of command, and general looking good while you wing it sometimes!

The Winds of change swept through my life again and blew me across the river into New Jersey where I now live. I was an instructor for Star Career Academy for three years which was an incredibly rewarding experience, imparting what I have learned over the years to a younger and sometimes older generation of people that just want to make great food!

Today I am using my culinary skills and combining them with my love for the Goddess, Witchcraft and my passion for writing.

Stay Tuned for the next post!

Picture credit : Bon Appetit

The food, and the witchcraft go hand in hand for me. For as long as I can remember these two things were being cultivated in my tiny child brain without even realizing it. My mother and grandmother, both devout Catholics never felt that the folk remedies, petitions to saints, or the evil eye egg warding were anything else but part of how they grew up.

My sister on the other hand was not so quiet and dabbled in different things. Through her adult life she searched for many ways to commune with God and today I think she’s happy with what she finds to be her spirituality, but does not fall short on her clairvoyance!!. Me? I found her tarot deck and was mesmerized by the images and that, I think, is where the seed was planted, even though I didn’t know it yet.

Fast forward through some childhood drama, Sunday school catechisms and divorced parents. At the tender age of thirteen, still holding on to my Catholic faith, I broke. I shattered into a thousand pieces and the “God” I knew and loved, who had never responded before, left me silently crying myself to sleep for the last time. I found solace in the emptiness of it all and healed my broken self with no faith to hold on to.

I was on the tail end of the ugly duckling stage some girls go through and of course boys started to notice me. Long story short, i reached into my mind and remembered how much I loved mythology and my love for the Gods officially bloomed inside of my heart when I asked Venus for help with a particular boy. With no prior experience, no books or the internet, I prayed. I prayed that she would hear me. That she would take pity on me and make this boy TJ love me!

Not a week later, he passed me the first “note” ( this was before we had cell phones and could text!) and the many notes to follow that I still have, till this day as a keepsake from my youth. We had our moment which lead to heartbreak of course. He liked another girl and didn’t like me anymore. This girl confronted me in the hall of my JHS, as he still must have talked about me, and out right asked me if I was a Wiccan! “A what?” I looked at her like she had three heads. She holds up her silver pentacle on a black string and asks. “Know what this is? Are you a witch?” “Nope” and I kept it moving.

There was some gossip about this girl being a witch who casted a spell so we would break up and it was all surreal to me, but my curiosity was piqued and from that day, I fell down the rabbit hole holding Silver Raven Hawk’s Teen witch and came out on the other side where my faith came back to me again.

I dedicated myself to Venus that year and venerated her for many years to follow. I went through some trial and error, read tons of books, learned about witchcraft and its many forms and traditions. I practiced with different people, attended a few public rituals but kept it mostly quiet and to myself. Life went on…
I had a child, a daughter. My dreams of grandeur as a high profile celebrity chef went on the back burner for the moment, or at least I told myself that, because Isis really did come first now. I landed my first supervisory job at a catering company and this is where I met Natalie. For the second time in my life I was asked, “Are you Wiccan?”.

She and I would go on a different spiritual Journey together but ultimately the Moon and the Goddess called us back to her and so we began practicing Witchcraft together. After some amazing experiences and initiations, we created The Oracular Tradition and run the  Deam Lux Coven  as it’s High Priestesses.