Category Archives: church

Cakes for her birthday.

church, feasts, food and cooking, , ,

Today at church we celebrated the birth of Christ’s mother, the Theotokos (God-bearer) with Divine Liturgy. I was among those who brought birthday cakes to enjoy after the service. I have made this particular lemon cake four times now, and I like my version better than the one I adapted slightly, which was the America’s Test Kitchen version. I just now typed it up in a tidy form that I could post here. Everyone who tried it loved it; they said it was “fluffy” or “spongy,” and especially praised the crunchy topping. It is oh-so-lemony.

LEMON BUTTERMILK SHEET CAKE

Cake:

  • 2 ½ cups unbleached flour (10 oz.)
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon baking soda
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • ¾ cup buttermilk
  • Zest of 3 lemons or 3 tablespoons, grated
  • ¼ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 1/2 cups white sugar (11 oz.)
  • 12 tablespoons butter, softened
  • 3 large eggs
  • 1 large egg yolk

Glaze:

  • 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar (6 oz.)
  • 2 tablespoons lemon juice
  • 1 tablespoons buttermilk

Instructions:

  1. Have oven rack in the middle, and heat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour a 9×13″ baking dish and set aside.
  2. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. Set aside. In a measuring cup, combine buttermilk, lemon juice, and vanilla. Set aside.
  3. Using a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the white sugar and lemon zest on medium speed until moist and fragrant (about 1 minute). Remove 1/4 cup of the sugar mixture and place it in a small bowl. Cover and set aside.
  4. Add the butter to the remaining sugar mixture and beat until fluffy (about 2 minutes). Beat in the eggs and yolk, one at a time, until incorporated. Reduce speed to low. Add the flour mixture in 3 additions, alternating with the buttermilk mixture in 2 additions. Mix until smooth (about 30 seconds)
  5. Scrape the batter into the reserved baking pan and smooth out the top. Bake until the cake is golden and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean (about 30-40 minutes). Be careful not to over bake. Transfer the pan to a wire rack and allow to cool for 10 minutes.
  6. While the cake is cooling, whisk the glaze ingredients together until smooth. Spread the glaze over the cake and sprinkle evenly with the reserved sugar mixture.
  7. Allow to cool completely, at least 2 hours.

Happy Feast to All,
and Happy Birthday to the Mother of our LORD!

Sunday afternoon…

church, friends, my garden, , , , ,

At church we had quite a few people received into the catechumenate before Liturgy. Of them, I had only met one family before, and I sat with them at the agape meal afterward. I had mistakenly thought it was my turn to work in the bookstore right off the dining hall; when I found out I had the “day off,” I switched gears, and got in line for a plate of chicken and rice and vegetables.

First I sat with the new family, and another catechumen joined us, and they told stories about how they got to this place in their life where they have committed to follow the Orthodox path. A couple more people stopped by to chat and share news. What is the best news? We suddenly have at least three families expecting babies!

After that conversation broke up, I moved out to the patio and joined another table of friends, and caught up a little bit on their lives. Twenty years ago one of those women and I had been in the same catechumen class together. Last spring she learned through a series of freak events — which could only be considered providential — that she had a serious genetic heart defect, and within a few weeks had open heart surgery to correct the problems that had developed without her being aware. She is on the mend now, and I was grateful to sit there by her as we rejoiced together in her survival, and in our very existence.

When I finally came home, I watered the Italian Silver Rib Chard seeds I’d planted in the ground on Friday evening, in a place where plenty of morning and midday sun will shine on them and give them a good start in the next weeks. Saturday I seeded parsley and other greens into 4-inch pots in the greenhouse. I don’t want to transplant them into the ground until I have cut down the asparagus jungle; right now it would shade that area too much.

I drank tea, and read a few poems, and articles about poetry. I’ve been sitting here just being thankful for poetry, and how happy it makes me to read poems that I like. I really want to memorize more of my favorites, including Psalms, though I find it really challenging these days.

At this point I ought to insert a short poem. Instead, I will show you the new Monarch caterpillar I discovered, ten feet or more away from where the first one disappeared.

We are pretty sure the first one didn’t crawl across the wood mulch that far to find this relatively healthy patch of leaves to munch on. So this is Caterpillar #2, and he was still there ten minutes ago when I went out to check on him; he seems to be making himself into a J shape, which is what they do before forming the chrysalis.

One of the Narrow-Leaf plants has managed to make a few narrow seed pods, in spite of the severe aphid damage. I hope they develop to the point of splitting open to reveal the fluffy white contents.

The Japanese anemones I planted not long ago are starting to bloom. In the front garden I have deep pink ones. They seem very robust, but they are afflicted with powdery mildew, poor things. And many of the flowers have fewer petals than is normal, or they are differently arranged — hmmm.

While I was out checking on the caterpillar, I snacked on a few fruits of the Arbutus unedo, known as the “Strawberry Tree.”

This year I’m not going to the mountains in late summer the way I usually do, so I have more time to enjoy the garden — and pay better attention to it. Figs are starting to ripen, and the basil crop is abundant. Time to make pesto!

Today was a lovely warm day, with sunshine. Now it’s evening, and nearly the eve of September. Good-bye to August!

Many wonderful things.

books, church, food and cooking, home, my garden, , , , , , , , ,
The turtle is an old pool toy.

As summer warmth makes the lizards and bees busier, so it works on me. The point of Too Much Heat might lie ahead at some point, but evidently I am still on the continuum with no end in sight. New opportunities and fun things have recently come into my life, so that my calendar has been over-full for a couple of weeks, and my heart the same. So far I haven’t reached the stage where I am craving empty days… but today I am a little bit at loose ends, and probably distracted by the wildfire smoke that is drifting south from the Woodside Fire up on the coast, not close to us, but making the air unhealthy.

I don’t like having to keep the house closed up against smoke, but I am glad the indoor spaces had cooled off the night before the smoke blew in; I had closed all the windows and shades that morning, and in the evening it was still cool, so we didn’t open the windows when the sun went down. Our only “AC” is the marine air that almost always flows into the neighborhood in the evenings or at least at night. So far, the heat (about 90 degrees at the moment) has not seeped indoors very much.

Leaving comfort behind me, I walked out the door into the smoky heat to add water to the fountain, to see new things that have bloomed, and to deadhead a little. I tend to focus on garden “problems” that need fixing — transplanting, weeding, trimming, irrigating. But when I don’t have it in me to do actual work, I usually can remember to just look around and be thankful — for my patch of paradise.

At church, we had a funeral this week, and I was able to participate in commending a 90-year-old child of God to her Father. Our funerals are so nourishing to the soul, as the hymns and prayers acknowledge our grief, and help us grieve in what is ultimately a healing way. The Church and her sacraments are truly full of Christ, His Life and Love, and I come out of every funeral full to the brim.

I told my priest that I wish I had a book into which I had transcribed over the years all the short homilies he has given at the end of funerals. Each is unique to the person and the situation, but they all are incredibly rich and edifying. Next week will be another funeral, for a priest dear to me, and I am very interested to learn how that is different from other funerals in the Orthodox Church.

I trimmed all the lavender but two bushes that the bees were still visiting, though they are faded quite a bit. Another purple note showed up in soup I made, using gifted carrots, cabbage from the freezer, a few ingredients from my garden: Painted Lady beans, kale, parsley, and tarragon.

I have joined a small in-person book group reading The Ethics of Beauty (by Timothy Patitsas) together every week, and an on-line class to study Universal History. I’m planning a trip to see my granddaughter Ivy in a youth musical production, and will continue visits about once a month to the nearby house of a family at church, to read stories to three young children. This is one of my very favorite activities, and it’s so sweet how this arrangement benefits all of us.

My new housemate Bea has been with me now for about a week. We are already having a good time brainstorming about various events we’d like to collaborate on, around books, high schoolers, tea, cooking… She’s baking a cake at this moment, and almost every day she is playing the piano, and that makes the house feel right.

Our usual women’s book group continues, and we have been reading Peace Like a River, by Leif Enger. It’s the second time I’ve read it, and I love it still. I’ve been reading Death Comes for the Archbishop over and over, because the narrator and the story are very calming, when I wake in the night and can’t go back to sleep on my own. For the first time ever I’m reading The Iliad in the original (translated), and that has been satisfying. Because I haven’t read the whole of the Odyssey before, either, I’m a little reluctant to jump into watching the new movie based on it. But I’ve read plenty of interesting reviews!

My large Nodding Violet plant I have been planning to give away as soon as it started blooming again, which is Now! If you live nearby and want it, let me know in a direct message. It needs protection from frost, so I bring it indoors in winter, but many people in my area leave them under a roof outdoors.

Here is a clearer photo of it from a year ago:

At the moment I can’t remember what this plant is… I think a salvia. But it is the one that pulled me outside this afternoon when I saw it out the window. One of the bright and wonderful things in my life right now.