Category Archives: church

We make festival.

church, food and cooking, love,

GGL coffee

 

My parish puts on a huge international food festival every year in September. I’ve written about it before, I think. We have to start baking and doing other kinds of preparations months ahead.

 

 

GGL IMG_0207baked crp
GGL IMG_0247 roll Gk crop

Earlier in the summer when Maggie was visiting we worked together at church on one of the cookie-baking projects, the Rainbow Chocolate Chip. Another week I helped make the Greek twisty cookies.

GGL IMG_0252 GK baked crp

I always enjoy working on church projects like this, where I am on an assembly line and can chat and get to know people a little better. It’s not stressful when someone else has the recipe and the system all figured out and I can just do as I’m told.

GGL green bean prep 2015

 

 

When the date of our event drew closer I went one day to cut up green beans for more than three hours; these would go into my favorite dish that we sell, Serbian Green Beans. The blanched beans are mixed with garlic-laden, buttered bread crumbs, then topped with sour cream and heated in the oven for about 20 minutes. Most of that process happens just before they are served steaming hot.

 

 

GGL P1010592 cabbage 2015

That prep day we were also making Sarma, which are stuffed cabbage rolls; the recipe includes a bit of sauerkraut, and the picture below shows the total amount that was needed. Actually, one gallon had already gone into the kitchen before I took the picture.

GGL P1010588sauerkraut

GGL IMG_0682

 

Just one day before, my friend Diane came with me and we offered our four helping hands. So many tasks had to wait until this day, such as cutting up vegetables for the kabobs, and stirring the Eritrean stews.

 

 

 

 

 

GGL IMG_0679

Year after year I notice how happy everyone seems to be, getting our party together, even if they are awfully tired by the end of it. We all see it as an expression of love to our community; if it were merely a fund-raiser I’m sure we couldn’t drum up enough energy for it. But it’s been going on for more than 25 years and a lot of people now look forward to the food, the music and dancing, and the joy.

GGL Glendi dance (2)

GGL IMG_0686

That last day Diane and I ended up sitting at a table where we made finishing cuts to endless sheets of baklava and placed the diamonds carefully into individual serving trays. Some people avoid this job, because it is messy, but there are plenty of little broken corners to snack on while you work, so if you like baklava….well, come to think of it, that might be another reason to avoid that job.

My job on the festival day was not to work in a food or craft booth, or the beer garden or the children’s area, but to mind the bookstore – I’m sure that doesn’t surprise anyone. I served several hours, and then I had a hard time dragging myself away, even though I did need a rest.

It was time for Vespers, which was the perfect thing to restore the soul that might be weary. After that I was looking around for a particular old friend I wanted to talk to, and I discovered her in the Eritrean tea and coffee tent, which I didn’t even know existed, maybe because it was tucked in a corner behind the main Eritrean booth.

GGL P1010684 Eritrean tea-coffee 2015

The woman who made tea for me was burning frankincense while she told another customer that this event is the thing she most looks forward to all year. Her colleague explained that the whole reason we make this offering of our time and effort is to express the harmony that we in our church share.

That is just what I was feeling.

Glorious Beheading

church, feasts, icons, saints,

Recently there has been an increase in Christian martyrdom by beheading, but that isGL P1010418 not what the title of my post refers to. It is a phrase from the hymnography of the Orthodox Church for the commemoration of the Beheading of John the Baptist, which we who use the Gregorian Calendar remember on August 29 every year.

John was the Forerunner of Christ, and his preaching of repentance prepared many hearts to receive Christ.  You might say that John got involved with politics when he spoke up about the governor Herod’s unlawful relationship with his brother’s wife Herodias. It doesn’t appear that they had asked for his opinion, but Herodias was angry enough about it that she asked Herod, via her dancing daughter Salome, for John’s head on a platter, which was granted. In the Gospel of Mark is one passage that recounts these events.

The hymns lament that Herod and Herodias missed their opportunity to repent and gain eternal life, but rejoice that God was glorified by the prophet’s death as well as by his life, and speak of John continuing to preach repentance even to the souls in Hades.

Icon Reader tells in depth about the iconography of John the Baptist, who is often pictured with wings. These symbolize the fact that he was a prophet or messenger from God. He is also called an “angel of the desert,” because like angels he was not involved in normal mundane things. The icon I show here is my own; when I received it as a gift it was the first time I saw that John is holding his own head on the platter. Some Orthodox do not eat anything from a plate, or anything round, on this day, and we all keep a fast in St. John’s honor.

I have a particular interest in the Glorious Forerunner’s beheading because the saint whose name I bear, Joanna, was married to Chuza, Herod’s steward, and is reported to have used her connections to retrieve the head so that it could be given an honorable burial.

The Bread of Offering

church, , , , ,

I helped to bake Communion bread this week.

P1010401

This time I was off in a corner by myself, near the icon of famous prosphora makers Sts. Spyridon and Nicodemus of the Kiev Caves. We also have a photo of some monk bakers, and the Prayer before baking The Bread of Offering.

GL Spyridon & Nicodemus

Prayer Before Making Prosphora

O Lord Jesus Christ, only begotten Son
of the Eternal Father,
who has said with Thy most pure lips:
Without Me you can do nothing.
O Lord, my Lord,
with faith I accept your words;
help me a sinner
to prepare the Bread of Offering,
that the works of my hands
may be acceptable at Thy Holy Table
and may become
through the operation of Thy Holy Spirit
the communion of Thy Most Pure Body
for me and for all Thy people.
In the Name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen

Three other bakers were making about 200 smaller loaves in the middle of the kitchen. While we are working the dough and forming the loaves, we pray the Jesus Prayer silently.

After stamping the top part, I sealed together with water the two halves, representing the two natures of Christ, human and divine, and joined them into one loaf.

P1010405

Each of these loaves called “Lambs” will be used for a Sunday Liturgy. We wrap the extras tightly and freeze them. I had to leave early and let other bakers take the bread out of the oven, but this is what I hope it looked like when baked.

prosphora lamb crp