Next Holiday please

Well now that Easter is behind us for another year, what is next? Here in Ottawa it's the tulip Festival a gift of the Royal Family of the Netherlands who spent the Second World War in the Capital.

Already the National Capital Commission is setting up in the various parks the tulip beds and the fencing to keep the pesky squirrels out. Our Nora is doing her best to hunt them down.

Here are some photos of this year's Easter day.

 Easter flower arrangements for the table in a great porcelain egg

Pastiera Napoletana, traditional Neapolitan dessert of Easter, whole wheat berries, ricotta, essence of orange blossoms 

Home made coloured hard boiled eggs

 Bunny bread crown

Glass chick in Egg, the first gift I bought Will all those decades ago

Easter cookies

 Nora waiting for her Easter bar-b-q black squirrel she caught, nothing better

Monsieur Nicky, watching out for his roasted leg of lamb, thinking they always make me wait the stinkers

Passover, Easter

This holiday unites two great religion, Judaism and Christianity through biblical text and music. Pesach for the Jews is about the Exodus from Egypt a re-birth as a people and liberation from slavery in a foreign land. The Israelites saved their new born from the last of the 7 plagues visited upon Egypt by marking their thresholds with lamb's blood. A symbol which re-appears in Christianity.

For Christians it is about Resurrection of the Messiah and Salvation and the promise of Life after death. Religious texts are united in the Eternal promise of God the Father of a Messiah and of Paradise.

In Christian homes roast of lamb is the traditional meal of Easter Sunday.
Easter also is associated with Spring re-birth of nature. We went to the Tenebrae Service on Wednesday evening at the Ottawa RC Cathedral on Sussex Drive. The musical setting by Mgr John E. Ronan with the combined Male Choirs of the University of Ottawa, Notre Dame Cathedral and Alumni of the St-Michael Choir School. The Lessons by Matthew, John, Luke, Peter, Isaiah, were read by 8 women. The service was presided by the Archbishop of Ottawa, Mgr Terrence Prendergast,S.J.

Chag Pesach Sameach!

Happy Easter!

  

Auguri di Compleanno, Bon Anniversaire

Another year, a little song, a little dance, a little seltzer water down your pants. (Quote from the Mary Tyler Moore show). Birthdays are a funny thing for me, each year is different, different cities or continent, in all kinds of places. This year in Ottawa, though we are suppose to be in Spring now it is still cold and full of snow, however all this is set to change dramatically by Thursday when temperatures soar to 10C over night and a massive melt will start quickly, meaning floods, ah Spring in Ottawa.

I have many things to be thankful for on this Birthday, good health, good teeth, my dentist told me this week that for a man my age having all my teeth is remarkable. It seems that like 300 years ago most people in their fifties today have lost a large amount of teeth or are looking at dentures.

We have a nice home, friends, our dogs and each other. We still travel a lot, I have taken in my lifetime more trips to exotic, strange and foreign lands than anyone I know. I have seen 45% of the planet and have lived in many countries for extended part of my life. Going abroad for a few days does not appear on my chart. I have studied and learned foreign languages. I understand quite a few others and am not lost or put off by foreign cultures or mores when I travel.

I now work as a volunteer in two National Museums in Ottawa and I enjoy it immensely. Spending easily upwards of 50 hours a month doing volunteer work, it is like a second career and it is fun, something I always wanted to do and can now do. Not a bad life Maggie Muggins.

Here are some pictures of little me through the ages.

In Ville Saint-Laurent in our backyard in the little pool, I am about 5 yrs old with my little brother.

My first morning going to school, grade 1, on my own in Quebec City

On the train in Poland going from Warsaw to Krakow, 1998.

Italian Cooking School near Rome 2009

In Rome in 2013 at dinner at our friends house

With our Reesie in Rome in 2008 our first apartment on Via Asmara

 In Assisi in 2010

At dinner in Salzburg at the Sketch Bar, Hotel Bristol

With Nicky in Rome on Via dei Villini

On the old Via Latina, with one of the many old aqueducts, Rome

At the monastery of Pedralbes in Barcelona

 At Cap Sounion near Athens at sun down 2010

In the Silk Merchant Guild Hall in Valencia, Spain

Breakfast Italian style at the Hotel in Ragusa Ibla, Sicily  

On the Island of Capri

At the Festival in Salzburg the Karl Bohm Hall 

Infamous photo abroad the Azamara where I was mistaken for Karl Lagerfeld 

Café Bazar, Salzburg, my favourite café at Festival time.

The little wood house in which Mozart wrote his music, beautifully preserved in the garden of the Mozarteum in Salzburg

This for me is the most beautiful fountain in Rome, the Turtles fountain in the area of the Portico Ottavia and the old Ghetto

With Professor A. Testa on Easter Sunday in Rome 2010 

On Via Appia looking for Spartacus 

On board Air Transat going to Italy, a good airline 

Pâques

Today we decided that despite the fact that it will be a quiet Easter at our home we wanted to decorate and do the traditional thing. So we have put together a menu which will include roast lamb with the roast potatoes and green beens, we will start with a giant shrimp cocktail and for dessert we have this wonderful Almond and Apple cake a recipe from our friend B.S.
It is gluten free and is wonderful. We also went to the local bakers, there are two on Elgin street a few steps from each other, both are Japanese. They make wonderful bread, cookies, pies and other special items daily.

 Making coloured Easter Eggs with food colorant

 from our favourite florist Minou at Bel Fiore Flowers on Elgin street

we found these beautiful natural flowers just sprouting out of the clay egg enchanting. This will be our table centre piece.




Russian Easter Festival Music by Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov. The painting is Easter Procession by Illarion Pryanishnikov.

Easter this year was a simple affair, only us and one guest, but it was fun all around and the lunch was wonderful. We ate the coloured eggs.

so simple to make and it makes the table special.

But to start the day we had the traditional Hot Cross Buns

In setting the table we got special bread shaped like Easter bunnies

Our table with the Polish table cloth we purchased 14 years ago near Warsaw while we lived there.
With family tableware that is more than 65 years old and used at so many family events.

We were especially pleased with our centre table flower setting arranged by Minou of Bel Fiore accompanied by the Cristal egg with the small chick inside a gift to both of us some 35 years ago.

To accompany our espresso after the meal the Easter cookies, they are decorated gingerbread.

Today in Saint-Peter's Square, Easter Mass with Pope Francis

Le mercredi des cendres, Ash Wednesday

For me today has always been a day of reflection on the meaning of life and death and the afterlife.
It is the beginning of Lent or Le Carême as we call it in French and in 46 days we will celebrate Easter and the promise of the afterlife.

I always like the opéra Dialogue des Carmélites by Francis Poulenc. The story is set during the French Revolution and tells the story of the Carmelite nuns in Paris who fall victims of the fury of the French Civil War and of the street mob. The final act of the Opera takes place on Place de la Révolution today Place de la Concorde.

These women are facing execution in public, the mob roars, the sinister guillotine looms large over them. At this grave hour they are carried by Faith and Faith alone and the promise of the Afterlife. Poulenc uses the Salve Regina as the backdrop music to make his point and to illustrate the courage of the nuns. At the very end Sister Constance is the last to walk to the guillotine, she falters and Sister Blanche who ran away from the Order when the revolution started comes out of the crowd and joins her, having found Faith and Courage.

In our world this is a forgotten message. Poulenc wrote this opéra 60 years ago but it could have been 300 years ago, the world today is so very different. Difficult to find people motivated by Faith or by Courage today. Such themes take us into a different reality which requires a deeper understanding of who we are and of the world around us, hopefully Ash Wednesday is such a day.

The finale of the Dialogue of the Carmelites, Canadian Robert Carsen created this production that we saw at the Scala Milan a few years ago.

A simple recipe for now

I receive daily messages from Canadian Living Magazine, they have all kinds of ideas about cooking, living, health, decorating, etc... I also get messages from Gourmet magazine, remember Gourmet years ago with the impossible recipes. I say impossible because I had to shop for the ingredients so the great one could cook marvellous dishes to dazzle our guests, and he did, not to mention that he also sang and told jokes, ah, the Irish, so talented, that is why I married him.

The magazine is no longer printed but now exist in the internet format. This recipe first appeared in December of 2008. A simple dish recipe which I tried out today. It is quite easy to do, in fact they suggest you put it together and throw it in the oven and go shower, when you are done the dish is ready. It is also delicious and has a classy European look about it, if you read the ingredients.

I do not make pastry and have no idea how to make pastry, but thanks to modern shopping, I bought puff pastry frozen and simply thaw it for an hour. Got my dish out and put all the ingredients together, simple really you only need an onion or two, prosciutto, one potato and some eggs. We all have those ingredients in our Emergency Shelf, right?

Here is the recipe for Egg, Potato and Prosciutto Pie.

1 package of frozen Puff Pastry, thawed.
2 medium onions, finely chopped (2 cups)
1.5 table spoons of good olive oil
5 oz of thinly sliced Prosciutto
1 large potato (10 oz weight)
6 large eggs

Put in a baking sheet in middle of oven and preheat at 375 F or 190 C.

Roll out 12 inch dough into a square dish, the dough should drape on the edges.
Stir in a bowl finely chopped onions and olive oil, add black pepper to taste. and then spread evenly
on the dough in the pan.
Top with Prosciutto.
Peeled potato must be sliced thin, then arrange as one layer over the prosciutto, covering it all.
Crack eggs on top of potatoes, arranging gently the yokes so they do not touch one another.
Season eggs with black pepper to taste.
Then cover it all with remaining pastry, crimp the edge. Cut several slits
Bake for 50 to 60 minutes until pastry is golden brown and puffed.

You may want to let it cool for 5 minutes before serving.
Will feed 4 adults.

Egg, Potato, Prosciutto Pie

This being the ''Season'' our little Dachshunds also get special dinner treats, tonight we had Venison and some beef in egg yoke all cooked up. They being Wire Hair Dachshunds they are hunting hounds, this is their main function in Italy where they come from. The smell of the Venison gave a glow to their eyes a bit like Count Dracula gets when he smells blood. Obviously the food of their ancestors the giant Dashchunds of Europe.

Here is our little Nicholas at dinner.

This being the eve before Christmas Eve here is a little music with Teddy Tahu Rhodes. Beautiful voice, clear pronunciation, which is a must for Georg Fredrich Handel's Oratorio The Messiah, originally an Easter offering. This passage, The Trumpets shall sound, more an Easter piece than a Christmas piece given the topic of Resurrection. My favourite of the Messiah. Strange how it now is so closely associated with Christmas.

Passover-Easter

Tonight we have a full moon and Sunday is Easter. Little do people know that the Apostles did not celebrate Easter but Passover, after all they were Jews. Early Christians or followers of Jesus were mostly Jews. As the centuries went by Christians celebrated Passover with the Jews, it is only with the passing of time that Christians started to develop their own traditions and beliefs independent of Jews. By the third century the scale was tipped and most Christians were non-Jews, pagans were starting to join in other words. By the first Council of Nicea in 325 AD the Emperor as head of the Christian Church decided that all Christian Churches in the Roman Empire would celebrate Easter on the same day instead of having different dates for the celebration and it would be independent from Passover, it would also be celebrated on a Sunday instead of the day of Jewish Sabbath, Saturday. Today we celebrate the Easter Bunny who brings everyone chocolates for your salvation. I am not sure which Council made the Easter Bunny the other son of God.

Anyway enjoy and have a good Easter or Passover.

High Altar Church in Palermo, Sicily


But one tradition which we started last year in Rome is the making of the Pasteria a recipe given to Will by a friend from Napoli, the recipe is from his Grandmother. It is the traditional Easter pastry in Southern Italy.
Made from good quality Ricotta cheese and using such ingredients as pre-cooked grano, vanilla, Orange blossom essence, Cinnamon, Candied fruit, it takes 2 days to make. Last year Will made several Pasteria and brought one to Easter lunch at a friends house. One of the guest was the great grand-daughter of Giuseppe Garibaldi, Anita Garibaldi declared it to be the best Pasteria she had ever tasted, making Will an honorary Italian Citizen. I am glad he is making it this year, it is very good. 

 Pasteria a traditional Italian Easter dish.