Monthly Archives: June 2009

Egg Lemon Soup

food and cooking,


I’ve been cooking some old favorites today. One of them is Egg Lemon Soup. I got my recipe from a Greek cookbook decades ago, so I stick by it, though I’ve seen other methods and ingredients for making this soup. I’m sure every Greek lady has her own version, as well.

GREEK EGG LEMON SOUP

1 1/2 quarts chicken stock

juice of 1-2 lemons (I always use 2)

1/4 teaspoon summer savory (If you don’t have this, use oregano. I think the savory is a relative of oregano). I used dried, but fresh would be lovely and leave you something to garnish with.

4 eggs, beaten

1 cup cooked rice (If you don’t have this, cook 1/2 cup raw rice in the stock until tender, and then the rice will just be in there from the beginning.)

Heat the stock to almost boiling, with the herb. Beat the eggs and quickly whisk in the lemon juice. You can add some of the zest if you want. While beating briskly, add a cup or two of the broth to the egg mixture. Then add it back into the pot, along with the rice. Keep it from boiling, or it may curdle. Serve.

A bit of fresh chopped parsley would be perfect for scattering on top of this soup, but I couldn’t find one leaf of it in the garden.

So…it’s too cool a climate here to be able to eat outdoors very often, but the flip side of that is, we get to eat soup all summer long!

A saint, a party, a hot day.

church, food and cooking, garden, , ,

The most important thing, today, is that it is the day when we commemorate Saint Joanna, wife of Herod’s steward and follower of Christ, one of the women who came to the tomb to anoint His body, only to find that He was not there, because our Lord had risen from the dead.

I took the name of Joanna as my Orthodox, baptismal name when I converted, so “her day” is my day, and thoughts of her and her example, our communion in Christ, our prayers for each other, overshadowed the day with a sweetness. This evening, I was able to go to Vespers, always a blessed beginning of The Lord’s Day.

But I also went to a tea party given by a young friend. It was hot today, and we ate out of doors under an awning. The colors were refreshing, including the tea: green or passion fruit. It was iced tea, served in teacups.

My friends’ garden is always full of flowers, of few of which were happy to float in plenty of water, and in the shade, on such a day.

Salad was the perfect main course, followed by ice cream. I had no time to photograph the ice cream as I was too busy eating it before it melted.

When I came home, Mr. Glad let me know that as the forecast is for more heat tomorrow, he invited some other young friends to come and swim after church tomorrow. I immediately thought of how hungry kids get after swimming, and remembered that I had some cookie dough in the freezer. I can’t remember if I made the dough for Christmas or for a tea party, but no matter, it baked up into nice Cardamom Butter Squares tonight. Even on hot days, in our area, the nights are usually cool. If one has baking to do, it is best to do it in the evening so that all that oven heat dissipates before the next day. This is one way we manage without air conditioning.

In the background of the cookies, you can see some crayons and paper, tools for a very preliminary step toward designing a baby quilt I hope to make this summer. One step at a time…”inch by inch, it’s a cinch.”

It was a full and rich day, on many levels. As I drove home from Vespers, I even saw “my” goslings in the park!

Make Way for Goslings

animals

It was a foggy morning, but warm weather was expected to assault my newly-planted beds and pots at church, so I made a quick and early trip over to make sure everything was moist. Not as quick as expected because as I drove past the lakeside park between my house and the church, the waterfowl were making one of their frequent expeditions into the street, and I noticed–goslings!

Normally this is the scene. It’s amazing how many different directions all these creatures can point in at once, when I am trying to take their picture.

We also have Canada Geese, but you have to see this picture I got off the Web of a gander from somewhere else, because ours were segregated this morning, way down at the other end of the park.

 

 

 

Mom and aunties had decided it was time for nine goslings to learn how to cross the street. There is a small grassy area and shrubbery on the other side, too, and at any time of day, commute traffic or no, any number of the flock may meander across.

“Come on, kids!”
“But, Mom!”

Some of the relatives are on their way back to the park.
Discipline is starting to break down.

It appears that the children are getting an earful of scolding.

“Look, Mom, in this gutter! There is something wonderful! Why don’t we hang out here for a while?” Evidently that is just what they did, because when I drove back by an hour later, they were in this exact position!

Sit down quietly.

my garden, quotes, ,

Happiness is a butterfly, which, when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you sit down quietly, may alight upon you.

–Nathaniel Hawthorne

You won’t find butterflies in this photo…it’s just that the sunlight shining through the lemon balm made me happy. Also yesterday’s gardening work at church made me happy, all six hours of it, re-planting containers and flowerbeds. I even took a few photos, but they only convey the chaos stage of a work-in-progress. Not to mention that my camera got dirty hanging out in the pocket of my gardening apron, and the great picture I thought I was getting of a giant snail wasn’t great, because the lens cover didn’t open. It was the middle of the day, so the sun was too bright.

I never sat down quietly, but the gardening happiness came to me anyway. In a few weeks, when the plants have filled out and my work of art is more ready for viewing, I’ll sit down earlier in the day and from a different vantage point take my pictures and joy.