For many years, I collected Tarot decks, as much from a personal development point as artistic, or even professional ideal in mind. Various shapes and sizes, and I started before the Internet was “a thing,” and collecting Tarot decks was all about the adventure, prowling esoteric bookstores and similar venues off the main pathways.

Over the years, I’ve retained only two or three decks besides the working tarot decks I carry, part of my Every Day Carry, and one of those is a rare Dali Tarot. Rather expensive deck, about hundred quid, if I recall, and one deck that I use rarely.

Anymore, the tarot decks are for show, as I tend to prefer to cast a quick chart, but we must always remember our roots.

The images are a little dark, that coming from someone who regularly relies on a Thoth deck, yes, I understand the irony.

On Amazon one evening, I noticed that there was an impending release, really a re-release of a Dali Cookbook.

I wanted it. Lavish images, arcane recipes, the master surrealist bending bread instead of breaking or baking, sure. Or more than baked, depends on the terminology.

But in a day and at an age, it’s not a book I would use that often. Mere ownership of tangible product doesn’t do much for me. I have a few tokens like that, but this is much less about objects. I don’t want stuff to cart around. Love books, but a book like that? I doubt I would even read it, just look at the pictures, get a few ideas, and then wander off in another direction. While I have particular affection for Dali’s body of work, I really don’t need any more coffee table books.

The Dali Cookbook

The book looked rather engaging. However, I prefer “Works of art” that I can interact with, like a set of cards that I do, from time to time, drag out to read with rather than just pictures in a classical book.

Besides, Dali’s artwork is something that is best viewed, like, in a museum as some of the material is, well, weird. He was a surrealist.

For years, turn of the Millennium, there was a huge bronze, or bronze-esque statue of Dali’s “Time” — the melting clock — poised in the shade of London’s Big Ben. My original images were from — circa — 2003, best guess.

In person, up close, seeing, and feeling, the various dimensions portrayed, it helps.

For the right person, that cookbook has got to be a wonderful resource, alas, not for me.

I already live in a pretty surreal world.

The Dali Cookbook