dvi silkes

Unless you count washing dishes, I have no particular talent in the kitchen. I can’t “eyeball” measurements like my Mother can, I have no idea what “season to taste” is supposed to mean, and “golden brown” easily becomes “burnt black” when I am in charge. Recently, however, a recipe for something new fell into my lap, and I couldn’t resist having a whirl. The ingredients went something like this:

• one box of goodies sent to us from Nathan’s parents
• a touch of Christmas nostalgia
• one persistent craving for a Slurpee
• one nacho-fanatic husband
• a pinch of homework-free days
• a ray of sunshine making the kitchen the most desirable place to be

Several round of pots and pans and a few days later, four scrumptious new dishes had been stirred, grated, rolled, boiled, grilled, frozen…and licked clean. Here are the results:

Cranberry-Orange Bread, inspired by a bag of soft, dried cranberries sent by Nathan’s parents. The freshly grated orange rind in this loaf makes it smell wonderful, and even though it is usually baked as a Christmas tradition, our boiled version tasted almost as good in May.

Iced-coffee-slush, reminiscent of the kind I used to slurp while driving around on a hot summer day in Canada. This was the closest I could come to slurpee-making, but I am not at all disappointed. Topped with a drizzle of maple syrup, this is so good!

Vegetarian Sloppy-Joe’s, thanks to a seasoning packet that came in our goodie box. We decided to try buckwheat as a ground beef substitute, and were surprised…it worked!

Nachos made from scratch. The jar of Cheez Whiz that Nathan’s parents sent was the perfect thing to go with nachos, but we couldn’t find any unflavoured ones at our local stores. Finally, I decided to attempt making tortillas using a recipe from my culinarily astute cousin-in-law. The process of mixing, kneading, resting, cooking, cutting, oiling, and grilling the tortillas into nachos was a lot of work, but the fun of dipping them into gooey, melted Cheez Whiz made it all worth it. And they must have been pretty good, because they are all gone…even the burnt ones.

There’s something about writing a post for Easter that makes me think I should have something profound to say; that I should be full of descriptive joy for a day of such immense significance and meaning. But the truth is, I had been dreading Easter Sunday. A long-held tradition in our church is to gather near the shores of the Baltic Sea (or rather, in some semi-protective clump of dry shrubbery far enough away from the Sea that we can withstand the freezing wind) for a short service, followed by sharing breakfast and warmth in someone’s home. We enjoy the sense of community and simplicity in this very non-traditional gathering, but it comes with one very un-enjoyable side effect: it’s cold. It’s cold in that freezing, wet, Baltic wind kind-of-way that, to me, feels much colder than the worst Alberta winter.

When we woke up Easter Sunday morning, I was glad to see rays of sunlight coming through the window, though the memory of painfully frostbitten toes still prompted me to pull on as many layers of clothing as possible. Two shirts, two sweaters, tights, my new knee-high wool socks from Mom, jeans…and I was just getting started. Eventually, I waddled my well-padded bulkiness into the kitchen, where Nathan had discovered that the Easter Bunny came! He even found two cleverly disguised jellybeans – instead of the usual vitamins – sitting in his cereal bowl. Our Easter Bunny has learned a few tricks over the years. ☺

We caught the bus out to the local beach, and once everyone had arrived at our meeting place, we made our way up the slope to the peak of the beach. Surprisingly, the sun continued to shine, and the winds stayed calm. Still, I stuffed my hands deep into my pockets, bracing myself against the impending cold. But as our group walked across the soft, deep sand towards a quiet, grassy ridge, I realized that my feet weren’t freezing, and in fact, I hadn’t even put my toque on. Actually, we were all taking our time and enjoying the view of the sun glinting on the soft waves of the sea. Instead of huddling in a valley of sand, we gathered at the top of a ridge where we could look out onto the beach, and let our voices echo in song over the dunes. And there, gathered together as brothers and sisters, we exclaimed, “Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!”

Click here to link to a short video of us singing on the sand dunes.

Following our celebration on the beach, we squeezed everyone into the few vehicles that were there, and made the half hour trip to Modestas and Ramune’s house outside of town. Ramune arranged a simple and tasty breakfast of sliced sausage and cheese, dark bread, tomatoes, olives, yogourt with fruit, Easter bread, grapes and apples. Tadas brought a cold, white-meat meatloaf that was covered in almonds and shaped like a rabbit. We had never seen this particular Easter dish before, and it’s little bay-leaf ears made it almost too cute to eat. Of course, the kids had dyed hard-boiled eggs, and the game of cracking each other’s eggs (without cracking your own) was just as much fun for the adults as it was for the kids. Blobs of spicy horseradish add some zing to the eggs, and help you forget that you have just eaten someone’s artwork!

After lunch, a few of us headed off for a stroll through the nearby woods. As the sun continued to beam down on us, coats were unzipped, sweaters removed, and gloves were stowed away in pockets. It was a beautiful afternoon, and we had a fantastic time together, picking flowers, chatting, and listening to the thrum of hundreds of young frogs splashing in the creek.

We made it home well before supper, and though our apartment was much cooler than it was outside, we quickly peeled out of our layers and settled in to enjoy the long weekend. As I put away my gloves and tossed another jellybean into my mouth, I couldn’t help but be amazed at how unexpectedly fantastic this day had turned out. Not just because of the warm weather or good food, but the unexpectedness of joy. But then…that is the story of Easter, after all.

When we purchased our apartment, we had a new, super-duper-secure front door installed. This replaced the two old doors that had been used by a variety of renting tenants, and gave us the security of having a brand new set of keys. It also gave us a big ugly mess of crumbling bricks (mortared with something resembling hay and horse hair) in the doorway. The company that installed the new door had offered to repair the frame for us, but when they told us that it would cost an additional 1000 Litas, we decided that crumbly brick had a certain…charm.

We have often talked about how to repair the door ourselves: whether we would use drywall, or try to mix up concrete. The sight of broken bricks and chipped mortar has often been the subject of my daydreams, and has kept my brain spinning well into the night too many times. So, after much researching and measuring, and with more than a little trepidation, we finally dove into the unfamiliar territory of brickwork, cement, and drywall. It took four days, too many trips to the hardware store, a few leftover chunks of wood, an entire tube of wonder-glue, two sheets of drywall, and half of an apple crate, but we finally have a doorframe. It is still unpainted, and the bottom of the entry will be a piece of drywall until we can figure out what to do with it, but even if this white, square box is lacking in charm, it is fabulous.

Thankfully, the (almost) finished product doesn’t reveal the quirky details that went into its construction: like the finishing nails that are holding the metal drywall edging on, or the splinters of apple crate used as shims against the lumpy concrete wall, the splatters of quick-dry cement that always seemed to dry to quickly, or the three glue-laminated layers of drywall that dropped the header low enough to meet the doorframe. Eventually, the last of the plaster dust will be evicted from the crevices of our house, the smell of glue will vanish from the air, and my battered hands and aching arms will recover enough to let me forget the unpleasantness of sanding. Until then, I will chase after plaster dust, soothe my shoulders with hot packs, and wait to see where the next daydream leads.