Today is the birthday of M.F.K. Fisher – to call her a food writer is an understatement. She was fabulosity incarnate, amazingly talented and inspirational.
“You can still live with grace and wisdom, if you rely on your own innate sense of what you must do with the resources you have to keep the wolf from sniffing too hungrily through the keyhole.”
This is from a book she wrote during the wartime food shortages in 1942, called How To Cook A Wolf , that apparently saved many a woman from utter insanity & desperation.
Her Wiki
Beautiful and sensual – with a fascinating love life – she was an idiosyncratic writer who would come up with little gems such as:
“Probably one of the most private things in the world is an egg until it is broken.”
“Family dinners are more often than not an ordeal of nervous indigestion, preceded by hidden resentment and ennui and accompanied by psychosomatic jitters.”
“Wine and cheese are ageless companions, like aspirin and aches, or June and moon, or good people and noble ventures . . .”
Her practical tips are still excellent AND she wrote Not Now But Now – a weird but utterly absorbing book about a time-travelling, utterly amoral femme fatale sort of gourmet nympho who managed to cross into other dimensions via some kind of cosmic warp she disovered on a particular express train.
Her chart:
Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Neptune and the North Node all clustered together in Cancer! Opposed by Uranus in Capricorn. And then a Moon-Jupiter in Leo…But all that Cancer & to be so interested in elegant forms of nourishment & the lives of the emotions…If you are not familiar with her works, do look at some of these links…
I DO think Cancerians are often the best cooks, btw.
Tags: astrology cooking, astrology food, astrology gourmet, astrology of the G.F.C., Cancer, Cancerian, Cancerian traits, Cancerian Women, How To Cook A Wolf, Kataka, M.F.K. Fisher, M.F.K. Fisher astrology, Mars, Mercury, Moon-Jupiter in Leo, Multiple conjunct Cancerian, Neptune, Neptune Uranus opposition, North Node, Not Now But Now, Sun, Venus
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Love her.. tried to resist the food-urge for a long time, but have succumbed to it and now am a happy lady-chef who’s worked on 3 continents! sun/moon/jupiter in cancer. But I think it’s my sun in the 9th house that causes my wanderlust?
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Must agree too that cancers are awesome cooks!
It was my father who taught me how to cook when i was a wee kit. He was Cancer Sun: Aries Moon: Aries Asc. My first recipe I did with him was Welsh Rarebit at age 9. It wasn’t healthy but it instilled a love of luxury and quality food.
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the cancerean = cook thing couldnt be more accurate
both my nonno’s (Sorry grandfathers in english) are cancereans, one has sun, mercury & venus coming out in cancer – this man is an obsessed grower! like he grows everything in his garden! and nothing is morew important to him than his family!
the other im uploading his chart now so i’ll let you all know!
matt-
2nd grandfather has sun, moon & pluto in cancer!
his profession was a chef in over 9 different resturants (not at the same time of course lol) -
Do you think that might be a italian trait matt?? My dad (cancer),uncle (sagg) & now my brother (virgo) were/are into growing their own & cooking…it’s been really touching seeing how my brother has adopted a lot of things that my dad did when we were kids, now that he has a family. Kinda like keeping old traditions alive
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yes and no lexicorn limbo
i think that YES the Italian tradition of producing ones own food is very promanent in italian culture but i my grandparents are like the sorta people that you know = at a family gathering in which they meet new people ect. many turn to politics as a topic of discussion to break the ice, NOT MY GRANDFATHERS its just food food food pasta and more food!
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Oh Mystic – thank you for this post – I’ve only come across her now and can’t wait to read her life and works – what a woman!
My father was the cook (chef actually) in our family (we had restaurants) and I was always by his side in the kitchen watching (he’s always shoo me out. Consequently I have a passion for men/women who can really cook. There is nothing sexier in my opinion than seducing one’s lover with food…
Dad installed a love of good, loving prepared food in our family – nothing processed. I loathe all this processed junk masqerading as “food” – it is soulless and disconnects us from nature and ourselves. -
Really great cooks are a combination of generosity, perfectionism and the need to nurture/please so Cancer fits better than most signs but I think Ceres might also play her part……also fits the bossy bit
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I love to cook and Alpha Tauri loves to eat….match made in heaven
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My dearest friends, Aquaman & CowGirl are same & their relationship now in 8th year.
She is a CEO & kitchen wizz. He loves to eat & now she has him cooking.
A match made in heaven for sure & a joy to watch.
Grace to you, G’friend.
Me? Office has always been in kitchen, counteracting it’s true meaning of naturing & nourishing
the body.
Eat to live not live to eat, but i was wealthy would eat at the best resturants i could find.
Can do only ONE dish superbly & that’s spag bol…lol.
OH & soups:) -
Oh i get it. we can nuture peeps in different ways, guess my nature/nurture
is with bodywork & creating pleasure for other senses.
So now dont feel like a food failure:) -
with all the talk of worse to come re the economic climate, maybe the Government should reissue Make Do And Mend, which was my Grandmother’s bible
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I loved this thing i posted a while back from the Ladies Home Journal
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Home Journal editor keeping chins up during the depression. I wonder if she would have been so positive if she’d known what was to follow 7 years later.
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Love the MFK article Mystic – yay for finding pleasure in everyday things.
I wonder how I can get my two Katakian daughters to cook? One is a carb-lover who gets all sooky if I don’t feed her, and the other is a little twig of a kid who will drink a glass of water and eat a tablespoon of chicken skin and exist on it for days.
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Get them a really snazzy cookbook & let them choose anything?
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“Family dinners are more often than not an ordeal of nervous indigestion, preceded by hidden resentment and ennui and accompanied by psychosomatic jitters.”
Thankfully this, in most cases, doesn’t apply in modern living. When I was very young meals were formal ordeals and children had to eat and remain silent. As time passed and the influence of grandparents faded meals became a pleasure because my parents recognised that we had minds and could be entertaining at mealtime so the discussions turned into a great blend of opinions. I made certain that the tradition continued for my offspring.
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Linda Goodman I think it was put it out there that Aquarian Moons are great cooks….also, if Cancer is on your 8th house cusp, cooking is a self-replenishing & affirming thing to do. Given I am both Aquarian moon & the 8th Cancer cusp, with Leo sun, I can pull myself out of a bad hair day by mixing it up in the kitchen…aaay,purrrr.
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Lucky lucky you would love to be a top chef. I admire those who can cook up a storm
in the kitchen…..then write a book about it.
Friend has been trying to give me their copy of Stephanie Alexander’s CookBook, as we have the same surname, he reckons i’ll take notice & use it.What a love about Asia is food everywhere on the streets. One is often greeted by
‘Have you eaten?’ in Singapore. The aromas there really turn me on.
Used to go yearly just to eat 5/6 times a day, 5/6 different styles.
Yum. -
She looks absoloutely divine. I love reading about famous Cancerians. My Sun, Mercury, Venus are in Cancer. I also have Uranus in Capricorn. Similar to M.F.K Fisher.
However, I really don’t like cooking at all. I really enjoy cleaning, but I find cooking dull. Maybe it’ll grow on my as I get older….. -
My husband is Sagg sun, Sagg rising, Scorpio moon and is one fantastic chef. Beautiful food made with love, just absolutely crap on details and hates the who admin thing that goes with staff, running a restaurant etc.
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mystic, great article.. I do admire Elizabeth David, but this woman has a sass to her, a ‘don’t you see this is important’ vibe. so ordering a bunch of her books.
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was a film made about her? I vaguely remember watching a film about a lady from – oh I think between the world wars – who was a sensational cook for her time who remained single and publishing cookbooks. It was a french or italian movie from recollection and I was fascinated watching it. Some of the quotes remind me of this film. She had many lovers though she was married to an english bore who turned up from time to time
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I think it was a made for television film about Elizabeth David called Elizabeth David: A Life Of Recipes. She also was one fabulous lady with a life to match
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but a sagg….
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soz…did some googling and it’s called Elizabeth David: A Life In Recipes
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