Devshirme

Yesterday afternoon I pulled into the parking lot during the middle of Greek School time and noticed a whole bunch of crossovers, SUVs and mini-vans.  Something clearly was up!  Sure enough, the Greek School PTA mothers were hard at work in the Tonna Room decorating Easter candles.  They will be on sale after church to benefit the PTA and add a lot of color to the services when they will reappear at Pascha.  Here is Olga holding a couple of freshly decorated candles and doing her best to try to duck out of the picture:)

Earlier I posted the prototype for this year’s festival artwork.  Here is the final version, with artwork by Joan Gage and design by Sarah Kyriazis and very much in the style of a classic Alex Gazonas festival poster.    If you live in Central Mass. prepare to see this image all over the place leading up to the first weekend in June…

1  jar grape leaves

1 large bunch parsley, chopped

4-5 medium onions, chopped (4 cups)

2 cups rice (Carolina)

1 cup canola oil

1/4 cup pomegranate syrup

juice of 2 lemons

2 T tomato paste

1/2 tsp black pepper, salt to taste

1-2 T dill, chopped

1/4 cup pine nuts

1/4 cup golden raisins

Add oil to deep pan.  Heat.  Add onions until softened.  Then add all remaining ingredients, with the rice coming last.  Taste test and allow to cool.  Line pot with broken or tough leaves.  Layer the rolled (stuffed) leaves onto those.  Cover with another layer of remaining leaves in a flat layer.  Cover with 1 and 1/2 cup boiling water mixed with 1/2 cup lemon juice.  Pour over leaves.  Bring to a boil then simmer 45 minutes – 1 hour.

We went away for a few days – more about that later – and I am still trying to get organized and back into the swing of things.  For now, check out this great article on the mismanagement of the city of San Francisco.  Hat tip to the Baseball Crank.

This is most definitely not a Lenten recipe but I feel I need to celebrate the new blog with a recipe, since recipes are by far my most popular posts.  I am especially ebullient right now since, after reviewing pending comments, I noticed that the new software eighty-sixed my first spam comment (you will recall that these nefarious comments plagued the old site).  So here is the recipe.  As usual it is a Prez original.  She says it is good for pasta, fish or poultry.  Add to a food processor:

2 cups baby spinach, 2T olive oil, 2T grated parmesan or romano, 1T pine nuts (optional), 3 cloves garlic, salt and pepper.

Process until a paste-like texture.  Use as a topping.

I stumbled upon this Wikipedia article by accident – don’t ask – but it is both informative and, on another level, absolutely hysterical.  My language posts are usually pretty dry, but this one is purely for fun.  Warning: some grim language.

Here is a prototype of the 2010 Grecian Festival poster.  The final version should be out soon:

John Miller has some spectacular photos on his blog of the snow that has hit the Middle Atlantic region.   Of special note is the collapsed roof of the ice rink where his children play hockey.  As a transplant from New England living in Virginia I was always shocked when we would have a snow storm looming and school would be cancelled for a week, premptively.  I soon realized that people who lived out in the country would not get plowed out for days – it is a very different universe there.  We up here have so far been spared snow from this storm but it looks like Wednesday that may change…

Metropolitan Methodios and Bishop McManus will be leading a pilgrimage this fall – check out the details here.

Hello everyone!  This is indeed the blog.  We moved it to a new software that will allow for comments with no spamming.  Bear with me as I get used to how to use it.  If you have the old one in your RSS feed make sure you change it.  We will be working on the design but for now we are going with this bare-bones theme until everything is settled.