That inner world and its joy.

Lent, quotes,

I’m taking a break for Lent.
This will be my last post until after Pascha,
which is April 12.

Let us understand …that what the Church wants us to do during Lent is to seek the enrichment of our spiritual and intellectual inner world, to read and to meditate upon those things which are most likely to help us recover that inner world and its joy. Of that joy, of the true vocation of man, the one that is fulfilled inside and not outside, the ‘modern world’ gives us no taste today; yet without it, without the understanding of Lent as a journey into the depth of our humanity, Lent loses its meaning.

-Father Alexander Schmemann, Great Lent

Man will not have peace in his heart until he… says,
“God and I are alone in the entire world.”
-St John of Tobolsk

Got butter and eggs?

food and cooking, Lent, , ,
Custard

In the Orthodox Church we start fasting from meat a week before full-on Lent. And this week we don’t restrict ourselves otherwise, even on Wednesday and Friday. I thought I might post an appropriate recipe … but I’ve run out of time, so instead I’m just going to put up a few pictures of such foods as I have cooked, and might cook again, during these seven days.

Butter Week Quiche
Salty Honey Pie

As I eat more butter than cheese always, I prefer to call it Butter Week,
but Cheesefare Week is also a good name.

Egg Lemon Soup

I can make Egg Lemon Soup with vegetable broth instead of the traditional chicken broth, but I can’t see making it without eggs, though I’ve seen recipes for such a thing. But please, give it a new name if you are going to do that!

Tea Eggs

You know I’ve never even flirted with the idea of being vegan.

Lemon Sour Cream Cake

You can find some of these recipes on my Recipes page tabbed above.
Happy Butter Week!

Rosemary and bees.

bees, ,

By the time I got out for a walk today, the sun was shining. My neighbor’s rosemary bushes are in bloom — unlike mine which gets no morning sun in winter — and lots of bees were drinking their breakfast there. I seemed to soak up some of their energy just watching them for a minute.

As of this evening my neighbor who said he would cut up my Christmas tree seems to have forgotten. But this morning, as I continued past the rosemary, I greeted a third neighbor loading up her own green bin with prunings from a shade tree. She offered to come down with her chain saw to cut my tree, but I declined; then she suggested that I put the whole tree at the curb, where she thinks the garbage man will kindly pick it up. So I did that. Tomorrow will show the results of the experiment!