A Cart Full of Magic by Ileana Abrev

408 Pages
Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd, Llewellyn Publications
Release Date: July 8, 2018

Nonfiction (Adult), Supermarket, Grocery Shopping, Ingredients, Religion, Spirituality

Shopping does not have to be mundane. When buying groceries, add your magical ingredients to your list. The author states the book is not a “how-to” book but a suggestion of what you can use in your magical practice. She discusses the importance of using fresh ingredients instead of canned or packaged.

The book is very inclusive and easy to read. The author had an easy going writing style so the information is not daunting. If you have been buying your magical ingredients from specialty shops, this book could give you advice for shopping at your local grocery store.

A wonderful primer for those exploring magic for the first time, or more experienced practitioners wanting to possibly discover some hidden gems, A Cart Full of Magic is a fun and informative book, that shows that you dont have to spend hundreds of dollars setting up your own magical apothecary.

Good, easy tips on every day items you can add to your magical arsenal with a simple trip to the grocery store.

A Cart Full of Magic made shopping fun and made performing magic easier. It opened up a grocery full of ideas and ways to make your food work for you.

Shopping became more mindful and I learned how to magically use what I bought and use the rest for meals. While this book was intended to be a book on magic, it also helped my mind as well as my body, and allowed me to waste less.

I love this cover’s simplicity and I can imagine doodling something like this myself in my BoS to have a quick magical shopping list. I’ll practice doodling shopping carts later!

So if you’re a a beginner - and I really mean beginning beginner - this could be an interesting read for you. Please take every information with a grain of salt though and keep in mind that this book is very wiccan.

I didn’t enjoy all that fertility stuff because guess what? Witches do have other interests! (Not saying that there aren’t witches who are very interested in boosting fertility, but... too much here for me)

I also HATE how this book is like make up is only for women. Ummm no?! You wanna wear make up, wear it, have fun with it! Make up is not gendered, FFS.

A further negative issue I had is that this book’s like Black Magic is negative and that’s simply not true for me and please research this a little - even if only to understand why black equals bad is very problematic.

I’m a little sad about how the items mentioned in this book seem rather random and I miss details. Give me more details.

Will I copy something from this book into my BoS? Aside from the doodle inspiration there was a section about hardware that I haven’t encountered before. This may end up in my journal for future reference.

Right away this book falls into the romanticizing the past trap that I think is really prevalent in a lot of new age and pagan spheres. Certainly I’m guilty of it myself sometimes. We think about a life way back then, imagine all our modern stresses melting away... But let’s be real, life was stressful back then too. I do agree with her that the shopping experience in smaller stores, while perhaps not offering the selection of the super center, is generally more pleasant.

So where I really take issue is when she begins to talk about:

"Our practice honors the God and Goddess and the Sabbaths by respecting a faith that is as old as time."

So much happening here, we’ve gone completely off the rails. Not all users of magic work with a god or goddess, and many believe in multiple gods and goddesses. Not a singular pairing.

Sabbaths? In my understand that is something practiced by those of the Jewish faith, and some Christians as well. Sabbats is the neopagan term used (coined I think through Wicca, but many not of that religion use it as well).

A faith that is as old as time... aaahhhh... here we go. This believe that witchcraft is a religion, and that it goes back to the dawn of time is... prevalent and irritating. There are, I believe, a few religions under the umbrella of witchcraft that make claims of lineages that stretch back hundreds or thousands of years. But modern scholars would for the most part refute that quite strongly. And that’s not even going into the fact that witchcraft is NOT a religion.

But here is where I got... angry? With the book.

"...items such as prepackaged cookies, chips, canned vegetables, and pasta sauces are not used in magic.
As you can appreciate, there is no magic in a can of soup that you heat in the microwave for two minutes;"

Like hell they aren’t! This view is so privileged and ableist I cannot even begin to break it all down. I have a tendency to really dislike pagan authors/teachers/etc that preach their viewpoint as The only viewpoint. It’s great to believe in something, and maybe it works for them. And what really grinds my gears is that in a later chapter she talks about buying bread as a magical experience.

So... buying bread (which is generally pretty easy to make at home) is magical? But buying canned veggies isn’t? A can of soup can absolutely be magical. The double standard and hypocrisy here really speaks of some uncomfortable prejudices to me. There are, in a few places in the book, odd references to Weight Watchers, and more than a few “food shaming” sections.

"There is nothing better than a freshly baked cake, cupcake, or muffin with a dollop of cream or frosting. This is a weakness and temptation that lurks within many of us— and one that we try to avoid like the plague."

<excuse me while I go get a cupcake and a soda to finish writing this review>

And then it was really fun later on when she used McDonald’s as a role model for how they started with one poor little sesame seed bun and now they’re this huge conglomeration.

One issue that I had with the book in general is that it felt like it was dancing with appropriation. I talked with @spiritroots​ about it a little, and they agreed with my general feelings. There are aspects of Santería here (the author’s father is a practitioner) but it’s being marketed to anyone. There’s no teaching of the significance behind it, no diving deep. It’s all very surface, and fluffy.

Overall, the book was very strange. Setting aside all of my gripes, it was still badly written. The examples seemed random, and in a lot of cases felt like enormous reaches. In my mind there are sections where the author couldn’t decide if she was writing a magic book, or a nutritional book.

I had such hopes for the concept. I’m forever on the search for writings on kitchen witchery or hearth craft that take our practice into modern times. But this book falls short in so many areas that even though there is a spark here and there... the rest is too awful.

Verdict? Give it a pass. There’s a lot better stuff out there.

I am a solitary practitioner still learning my craft. I started when I was about 13. I love still finding things that interest me. I try my hand at "Kitchen Witchery." It's all pots, pans, and pasta for me usually. So when the idea of turning the grocery store into a magical supply store; I was interested. The idea that things we put into our bodies could be magical is kind of an eye opening experience for me. This guide of the super market was written in parts. You had a wonderful introduction, then sections of the store are broken down. Magic in a cabbage? What can an Onion Really Do? What about colors and food? Magic is not all "casting spells of darkness" . This guide tries to keep it lighter, but still very informative. Next time I go to the store (Probably today) I'll have a handy guide, for not only what goes into my body, but what magic fun it can be. Clear the Aisles Magic shopper coming threw!

This is a fun book which will make you take a second look while shopping for magical stuff. You don't need to break the bank when practicing. So this book is definitely a handy guide to have around. I enjoyed this book very much! I voluntarily read this book via NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinion. Awesome read!

anecdotal and feels made up. Of course there are magical and spiritual beliefs that can be tied to anything but this just felt like a laundry list (0r more aptly, grocery list) of different common goods and what this author says are magical uses/influences.

Interesting and very useful. This book shows what are the good useful for magical use that you can find at the supermarketing, listing them aisle by aisle.
Easy to read and a very useful reference guide.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to Llewellyn Worldwide, Ltd.and Netgalley for this ARC

Thank you to Ileana Abrev, Llewellyn Worldwide Ltf, Llwellyn Publications, and Netgalley for this advanced reader copy of “A Cart Full of Magic: Your Secret Supermarket Shopping List” for an honest review.

I madly loved reading this book and have been looking for something like this for years. Something that breaks down how to do the simplest and most complicated of correspondences with the simplest of ingredients that could be found at any grocery store through the year, any florist, and even already inside all the cupboards of your house.

I will be picking this up as soon as it is published, and gifting it out to certain friends come Yule this year.

You go to the grocery store every week. You probably never thought that there were magical ingredients in every aisle. This delightful book takes you down each aisle and explains what magical items exist in those aisles and how to use them. A quick to read and very easy to use book for practicing witches.

My first thought when I saw this book is that it would be great for adolescents who want to start practicing everyday healing magic with parents who are not that supportive. I mean, how can you restrict a kid from having potatoes or sunflower seeds, right? It would also be a great book for those who have a fixed income because let’s face it, if you walk into a shop selling magical supplies, they’re not necessarily cheap. Yet, items that you can find in a local supermarket can just as much magic for protection, strength, and even money.

While I’m not sure if sesame seeds on their hamburger buns really helped McDonalds grow into the worldwide monopoly icon, I cannot prove otherwise.

My only complaint is that food items, explicitly stated in the egg section, used for magic are not intended to be consumed and that seems like a bit of waste. I would have liked the author to give an alternative for disposing of such items.

A big thank you to NetGalley and Llewellyn Publications for this whimsical ARC of A Cart Full of Magic: Your Secret Supermarket Shopping List by Ileana Abrev.

I read this book on my way to visit with my parents in Québec. My mom used to tell me stories about her mother and how she used to be the country doctor in the early 19th hundreds. My grandmother was a “Sage Femme”. Way before doctors came along in that remote region of Québec, she delivered babies, provided natural remedies for colds, headaches, monthly discomfort, toothaches and many more illnesses. All this changed once doctors started to establish themselves in that region and started a campaign to discredit midwives. My grandmother soon felt like this would turn into a witch hunt and abandoned her practice. Her craft was never passed on to her daughters, therefore, not to me either.

When I came across this book; I was very intrigued and curious, and requested an ARC to see if this might help me gain some of the knowledge my grandmother would have had. I am not sure if I succeeded, but I really enjoyed all the information Ileana Abrev offered in this book. I already tried one suggestion and it worked. My mother has short-term memory issues and while I was visiting with her on the weekend, she misplaced her wedding rings. I used the knotted sock suggestion and we found her rings within 15 minutes in the most unusual place. We would never thought to look in that particular place to find them.

If you are curious about how common items which can be found at your local supermarket can help you bring positivity in your home, chase negativity, increase passion in your love life and many more; this book is for you. This is a quick read filled with surprises.

*Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC of this book that I read voluntarily*

So I love books like these. I love seeing what different people use for different herbs, fruits, nuts, so on and so on. That's what this book is all about, it's showing you everyday items that you get from the store that can be used in magic, some of the things to me are a bit I don't know... I mean toothpaste? It's all in the eyes of the beholder but I will be honest, I don't see toothpaste as magical but hey, if you do, that's great! To each their own.

I will say that I enjoyed this book and highlighted some passages that I liked and that fit with me. It's a great reference book and I loved that the author added nuts. It's not something I've seen a lot of for some reason and so that was nice. It's even got a small section on the phases of the moon and color correspondences. It's a nice little book that I fully recommend to anyone who is into this kind of stuff.

Will go live on my blog: 4/7/2018
http://sweetcherry69.blogspot.com/