Христос Воскресе

Happy Orthodox Easter to those celebrating! The words in the title say Khristos Voskrese, which is Christ has Risen in Russian. It is the traditional Easter greeting followed by the triple kiss which will be practiced for the next few weeks. Us Russians like to extend our celebrations as long as possible....

After the cooking marathon that I participated in this week, much consumption has happened yesterday. I am completely spent now, so clean up and getting back to normal life will take a while. In the picture above are the hands of my little assistant licking the pot from which came the cake below. It is a traditional Easter dessert made out of cottage cheese, eggs and butter mainly. Similar to a cheesecake in taste, but much better in my opinion. It's a good thing that we only eat this once a year, my cholesterol would be sky high... I made this using my grandmothers wooden mold, I am looking forward to passing it on to my daughters one day. Today we went to an Easter Monday service that was special for the kids so they could walk around the outside of the church carrying the icons and get blessed with holy water. Luckily the rain held off just for that portion, and then the kids ran inside the church hall for the egg rolling contest and lunch. ...and now I am am off to the kitchen for clean up....