The First of May, or May Day, is a holiday with no particular liturgical significance, and yet its history and implications connect so perfectly with the Easter Season that it seems right at home on the liturgical calendar. With roots all over Europe, May Day had an undeniable importance for early agrarian societies. Far fewer … More Welcoming Spring with May Baskets
Easter, like Christmas, is usually celebrated as a single day– however, both holidays are actually much longer than many people realize. Eastertide is 50 days long, beginning on Easter Sunday and ending with Pentecost. This means there are seven Sundays in the Easter Season, and I plan to use every one of them as an … More Italian Easter Cookies
As spring days go, our Easter Sunday was a paragon– warm and sunny, with the scent of violets in the air and a sprinkle of tiny flowers in the lawn. Brunch was a veritable feast, an abundance of food lovingly prepared by extended family. I’d been baking feverishly for several days, and contributed four kinds … More Easter Delights
In many Christian traditions, Good Friday is a day of fasting. The extent of the fast varies, but in our family we eat a small breakfast (usually hot cross buns) and then nothing until the evening, breaking our fast with soup and fresh bread (and more hot cross buns.) It is a day of quiet, … More Breaking our Good Friday fast
Holy (or Maundy) Thursday is beginning of the Paschal Triduum, the Liturgical period beginning with the Mass of the Lord’s Supper (Thursday) and ending with the Easter Vigil Mass (Saturday evening.) Holy Thursday commemorates the Last Supper of Jesus, when Jesus and his disciples celebrated Passover with a Seder and Jesus’ passion began. This Mass, … More Holy Thursday: the Shepherd and the Lamb
Mushrooms are a food that, for me, speak directly of the earth. Though not technically in season right now, there is a something in their earthy brown shapes and flavors that lends itself well to Lenten foods. They seem to combine the hope of growth and the delight of unexpected bounty with the somber frugality … More The small miracle of a mushroom
Long ago in England (and still in Hereford) clergymen would distribute “pax cakes” to their parishioners at the end of Palm Sunday services, with the words “peace and good neighborhood.” The idea was for neighbors to end disputes and quarrels before Holy Week began. Sometimes they were small fried pancake-like treats, and sometimes they were … More Palm Sunday: peace, good neighborhood, and sweets.
An unspoken tradition of Lent in our house is the Making of the Easter Dresses. Though it tends to be biennial rather than annual, I often find myself sewing something special for myself or my small daughter during the weeks leading up to Easter. The weather is usually still cold, but our long-sleeved, often dark-colored … More The Making of an Easter Dress
During my search for Lenten foods, I discovered a wonderful, simple bean soup called fasolada (fassolatha). Sometimes called the national dish of Greece, it dates back to Ancient times, and has sustained the people of that nation throughout history. It is a common dish on Greek tables and a Lenten staple. Simplicity is central to … More Ancient food and thoughts on Lent
In Due Season 