The Cook’s Tarot

It’s time to twirl in the kitchen with
joyous abandon, taking in the Tarot like the scent
of warm cookies, just from the oven.

~Quote from the back of the box

Title: The Cook’s Tarot

Author: Judith Mackay Stirt

Illustrator: Judith Mackay Stirt

Publisher: Schiffer Publishing

• Your delicious meal awaits you, hot and tender. Bonne Appetite.

• The Cook’s Tarot presents 78 tastefully illustrated cards that have characters doing everyday life things in a kitchen or anywhere there is food. In each card you will anything from food to kitchenware. Some may be eating or serving their meal. Either or, food, food, food is involved.

• From this deck I found The Chariot card very pleasing and a reminder of myself. Here we see a gentleman who appears to be rushing throughout the store with his shopping cart. In his shopping cart, he has what appear to be groceries that he will use to cook. That’s pretty much me when I’m shopping for groceries. I just go for what I’m looking for, pay, and go home (lol).

• A card that I found to be such a treasure is the five of Wands. This card reminds me of when I was growing up and whenever a friend or cousin would have a birthday party, we would break a piñata. In this card we see five kids who are blindfolded and gathered around and each kid has a wand and they have cracked open a star shaped piñata. Out of this piñata pour a handful of candies. Ok, analyzing this card closely, the kids are blindfolded and are swinging their wands in all angels… What are the chances that they will not club one another on the head? (Lol).

• From the Court Cards, one card that reminded me of me was the Page of Swords. In this image, there stands a young man who is wearing a trench coat and is holding a kitchen knife in one hand and removing the lid of a pan with his other hand. He appears to be cooking outside his home on the rainy day (?). On his keft hand side he has what appears to be a cookbook and his laptop facing where he can see it. This is pretty much me, looking up recipes online and open a cookbook for guidance. Of course, I don’t cook outside on rainy days (lol).

• The backs of the cards are reversible and the primary color is green. There is a patter of two kitchen objects crossing one another, a pitchfork and a bowl spoon.

• The texture of the cards soft and very flexible. The sizes of the cards are approximately 7” by 3”. Check this out, there are NO borders on the cards. Just a border at the bottom of the cards that illustrates the title.

• The box where the cards are stored is a two-piece box, bottom and lid, which is very sturdy and stores the card and booklet absolutely well. The format of the box is that of a book and may be confused for an actual book for an un-vigilant eye.

• The companion book for this tarot deck is written by Judith Mackay Stirt. The book starts off with an Introduction, Five tarot spreads called; Card of the Day, The Three-Card Spread, The Five-Card Spread, The Ten-Card Spread, and The Cook’s Tarot Maitre D’ Spread. And then we get into the Major and Minor Arcanas. For each card that is explained in the companion book, there is a description of what’s going on in the card, “Key Elements” that explain the symbology/meaning of an object within the illustrations, and last there’s the Card Meaning that obvious informs what the card means, after that a Kitchen Wisdom that’s a short quote/phrase that sums up the meaning of the card.

• Judith Mackay Stirt does the Illustrations for this tarot deck. The illustrations are done by hand and colored in by using gouache, opaque watercolor on canvas sheets.

• This is by far and truly a loving and warm deck that shows what we do in our every day life while in the kitchen or around food. We all understand that food is a very important thing in our lives and we can’t live without it, which is why Judy, in her tarot deck, honors it. Going through the cards and seeing the details, I sense that the illustrations are a beautiful memoir from Judith’s life and it is explained in the companion book. I remember when I first spoke to Judith about her tarot deck and thought to myself how she was going to pull off a tarot deck about food. I know that there are other tarot decks that involve food, but this one takes a cake (no pun intended, lol). As Judith posted pictures of the cards, I was interested and loved how close it stayed to the Rider Wait imagery. The art is very down to earth and very mundane. If you are interested in acquiring this tarot deck, click here!

                        © 2010 – 2015 J. R. Rivera
Reproduction prohibited without written permission from the author.