I could not have asked for a more pleasant Easter, full of all its hopes and promise. The air warmed as the day rose. We opened windows and doors, inviting the outside in. We were surrounded by the gift of family as greetings of Happy Easter, Christos Anesti, and Shalom went from lip to cheek through the portal of celebration; each bringing different belief systems and varied customs, each carrying a plate or platter, box or bag, filled with sustenance to nourish our bodies in this season of nourishing our souls.
I am always my most content, as you, dear reader, surely know, when folks are gathered around our long, worn wooden table. This Easter, we also used the table in our cozy dining room as we served our meal buffet-style. This glass table came from our dear friend Marilyn, who wondered to me several years ago if one of our daughters might want it? I jumped at the chance and said “No, me. Pick me! I need it” and she did. It has been with grateful delight that we sit around this airy orb in our little glass room on $59 upholstered chairs from T.J. Maxx.
We ate and talked and reminisced, as families tend to do. We laughed and commiserated over pastichio and turkey, salad and ann array of vegetables, Italian sweet bread, Greek Easter Bread and potato rolls. Our meal was followed by every type of sweet, from diples and baklava, to karidopeta, lemon pound cake and shortbread. Can you see my waist expanding?
Those who could not be with us were with us just the same. Ted pulled down my framed photo of the “club girls”, and we pointed and named and recalled the years these women gathered to play cards. We ate on Tom’s mother Carolyn’s Brown Eyed Susan plates using her Coronation flatware. A bouquet of iris from Tom sat in a treasured Crate and Barrel ribbon vase, as Heather arranged a spray of roses she brought that seemed to be tailor made to sit atop a well much-used tablecloth.
Sitting, rather contentedly I thought, in Tom’s grandmother’s (or was it his great grandmother’s?) rocking chair, was the bunny Kezzie gave us to take home before we left her house in Minnesota last Sunday. I have picked it up for a cuddle or two and nuzzled in to its soft cloth belly to catch a scent of our Kezzie-kins, reminded me of The Velveteen Rabbit. Isn’t it sweet when children give us their treasures to take with us?
Here is hoping you had a pleasant weekend with all the hope and promise of this season.
Lifeonthecutoff's Blog 
Oh, what a perfect Easter celebration you’ve just described, Penny! Family and friends gathered together to enjoy festive food from different traditions, with treasured heirlooms and gifts bringing to mind those not physically present.
Our Easter was very different up here on the north coast of Scotland, but it was still a very special day.
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I’m sure it was different in the most meaningful of ways, Perpetua, and imagine it, in part, filled with the music you so enjoy – and that I love to hear when you post. It is amazing, isn’t it, how we all come to this point in our different ways.
I’ve been thinking a great deal over the stained glass window of the Birmingham church that was bombed so many years ago that you shared, finding it as you while looking for something else. I hope you know that these posts stay with me, and others as well, Perpetua. Sermons come in all forms, I feel, and you are most gifted at giving them. Thank you.
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Good friends, beautiful flowers, and charming bunnies…you surely had it all for your Easter afternoon.
As with Perpetua, our Easter was also very different this year. The size of our gathering was reduced due to illness during the preceding week (nothing serious), so we numbered only 5 at dinner, and we went out!! Someone else cooked — each of us chose our dinner (none were the same) — we had a nice meal and good conversation — then we left all the clean-up behind! Maybe we’ve started a new tradition???
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I surely did, Karen, and am grateful for it.
Sorry that illness reduced your numbers this year, but, glad to know it wasn’t serious. It sounds like you had a perfect dinner; good food, good company, no matter where the table is. Now, the other side of my coin is that I’m still cleaning up and putting away! We have had more than a few of the same Easter meals. I have this, er, shall we say penchant, for managing to take out every dish and pan possible.
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Such lovely words and pictures conjuring up a really beautiful Easter for you, your family and friends.
We had our usual Easter egg hunt – a little later in the day than usual as two of my three were staying overnight at (different) friends’ houses and despite having had a scorcher of a week prior to Sunday, we had a miserable wet and chilly day here in Andalucia. I made chocolate eggs just for my children this year, not the usual 50 or more to sell, but I enjoyed Zentangling a few instead. Axxx
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Hi, Annie. Nice to see you here and to hear about your egg hunt. We actually usually eat a little later than we did this year, but, needed to eat a little earlier. Funny, isn’t it, how our hours of life change to suit the times and circumstances, especially when it involves growing children. Sorry to hear about your weather.
I’ll have to stop over and see if you posted any of your Zentangled eggs, whilst drooling over the thought of your chocolate eggs.
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What a lovely Easter you had. Beautiful pictures, too.
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Good morning, Nicola (it is the wee hours here right now). It really was a lovely day. Thank you.
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A dream come true Easter that you will always remember. It was the kind of day fit for a chapter in a very good book. I think that is what it was. So happy for you and your family.
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It was a good day, Marilyn, and I left out the funny parts. tee hee Everything came together well this year and I gratefully took it. Who knows what the next will bring? Only one who didn’t show up was Midnight.
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Penny, what a heart-warming post, so full of rich memories and the love of family. Isn’t the generosity of the young so touching? I love the little rabbit that Kezzie gave you – a little piece of herself that wanted to stay.
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Oh, it is, Juliet. Children truly give from the heart. Our nephew used to wrap up things to bring me, which were usually things he “borrowed” from atop his mother’s dresser. I’d ooh and ahh and my sister took it good-naturedly. I think we can all learn a bit from youngsters about the spirit of giving.
Thank you, Juliet.
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I love reading your food posts, Penny. I adore Greek food, and I rarely get it. (Being meat-heavy, and MTM is not a meat person.) I used to beg my mom to give me money to go to the food festival at the Greek Orthodox Church in the town where I grew up. I can still taste the baklava. I’d pull the layers apart and savor it and lick my fingers a thousand times. (Dad hated the whole licking fingers thing. Now we know why. Ha.)
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Greek church festivals are the best places to eat Greek food, Andra. They are almost always food prepared by not only the ladies , but, the men as well (souvlakia, lamb, chicken). I still pull the layers of phyllo apart when eating baklava. Pastichio, which I mention above and our daughter Jennifer makes to perfection, doesn’t have quite as much meat in it (and layers of dough and pasta). Oh dear, it is 4:30 am here and I’m already getting hungry.
I get that whole licking thing and Roy, who is probably busy right now trying to regain his title of selling more books than you!
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This was a lovely memory of a lovely day. Food with an international flavor, how nice. You make me feel the coziness and warm feelings from here. Our Easter was spent in a Chinese restaurant. We had fun too.
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Fun is where you make it, isn’t it, Janet? (Of course, you and I had the “funnest” kind of fun so many moons ago). We are such a delightful mix of ingredients, this family of ours. International flavor, indeed!
We spent a good many New Year’s Eves at a favorite Chinese restaurant when the girls were growing up. It was the BEST! I’m glad you had fun, too, though sure you would.
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Sounds like a lovely, warm, happy day….
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It was all that, and more, Ashling. Thanks for stopping in.
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A wonderful time was had by all! I love that your sweet granddaughter gave you the bunny to take home. No treasure could compare.
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Wasn’t it the sweetest thing, Sallie? I hope you had a nice Easter and all is well with you and your family.
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What a wonderful Easter and Passover you celebrated, Penny. I don’t know anyone who is more gracious than you are as a hostess. Your guests must have left not just full of such delicious food (an oh my! what a menu!) but absolutely full to bursting with the love of friendship and family. I’m charmed by Kezzie’s bunny, and can just see you nuzzling it and drinking in a little of your precious little ones along with it. And you call attention to the details of the table and furnishings that remember those who have left pieces of themselves with you. That means so much to everyone, I’m sure. Lovely, lovely, Penny!
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Bear in mind that there was a bit of chaos as well. tee hee
Isn’t it a treat to receive these “gifts” from our grandchildren? This bunny keeps hopping around the living room. I have a feeling a certain Papa has been playing with it. Thank you, Debra. With most of our family passed on, on both sides, I try to keep some of these bits of memories around.
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