Pascha nibble plans

We always go way overboard for Pascha and decided that this year, we're REALLY going to keep our cool. Not too hard for me since I'm not lusting after every single forbidden thing this time. Matt is almost always moderate. So between the two of us, we might pull it off this time.

At our church we have the excessive but of course fun tradition of a full-fledged pitch-in at two in the morning as WELL as Pascha baskets AND a cookout/pitch-in for Agape Vespers. I always get a little confused and overwhelmed, with both making and eating that much fancy food in a 24 hour period. Here's what I'm gonna do this year:

My 2 am pitch-in contribution
A couple of sweet galettes according to this recipe. Don't know what's going in them yet; whatever fruit is cheap at the store, and definitely some sweet ricotta! Matt thinks a spinach galette would be good too, although for some reason I don't feel very excited about that. Perhaps he can make his own. They look so fancy but they are very easy to make. The dough can be prepared ahead of time and then almost literally thrown into the oven with some random stuff wrapped inside half an hour before we have to leave. Awesome.

Pascha basket
It's ridiculously luxurious of us, but we're just going to drive to Indianapolis this week to go to a fancy cheese, wine and sausage kind of place, in order to get fancy cheese, wine and sausage. AND THAT'S ALL THAT'S GOING IN THE BASKET, for real this time! Except I'll make a baguette-ish kind of loaf too. And we're not even going to look at the basket when we're at the pitch-in, we're just going to save it for a picnic the next day, if we are even hungry.

Agape Vespers
I'll make four or five loaves of bread on the day of Pascha itself, and this week I'll make a couple of batches of olive tapenade. That's all I'm bringing to the Agape Vespers cookout/pitch-in. People don't get to eat home-made bread very often, and the tapenade is pretty damn exhilarating, so I think that's a fair contribution.

What are you making for Pascha? Never mind, just concentrate on prayer and fasting. Unless you are a woman and you have to go grocery shopping and plan the long-expected sumptuous feast four or five days ahead of time!

On Holy Thursday, I have to ride in a school bus full of children to the Children's Museum, which is an hour away. Then I have to chase them around in a lackluster, seven-months-pregnant kind of way (I have been given a dispensation to do it in this manner,) and then ride back on the same probably stinky bus. I decided to take the next day off completely, even though I'm out of paid days off. Holy Friday and Saturday just wouldn't be real pretty if I didn't.