Pâques – Easter

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61, Charlottetown, Easter, Handel, PEI

So here we are again Spring, my 61th, incredible how the world has changed since I was born and so many Easters celebrated in so many countries and now in Charlottetown.

We will be in a small village for Easter Sunday this year, St-Nicholas which is outside of Summerside, about 1 hour from Charlottetown, in the Western part of the Island and South coast facing the Strait.

Monday we are entertaining for lunch here at home a few friends. No we are not doing ham or turkey, it will be Saltimbocca alla Romana with roast potatoes. One guest is bringing the Entrée and one other guest is bringing the dessert. So we do the main course. So simple!

What are you doing for Easter?

Well whatever it is do enjoy and all best Wishes to you and your family.

Alastair Miles sings The trumpet shall sound from the great Easter oratorio Messiah composed by G.F. Handel in 1741, with scriptural text compiled by Charles Jennens from the King James Bible and Psalms in the book of Common prayers. First performed in Dublin in April 1742. Though it is usually performed at Christmas it was originally intended more as an Easter piece. Interesting to note that Easter in the Christian calendar has always been the most important holiday since scripture centre on the promise of the Resurrection and after life. In the journal of Samuel Pepys he wrote that on Christmas day he went to divine service and then to work. No other celebrations and this was in 1661 under King Charles II. It is only much later around 1845 that Prince Albert who is married to Queen Victoria introduces German Christmas traditions with the evergreen tree and gifts, an unknown tradition in England at the time.  If you are interested in the story behind the King James Bible, there is a fascinating book entitled God’s Secretary by Adam Nicolson.  The book tells the story of how King James I commissioned the writing of the Bible in the English language to fit into his own political program for England.

In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

I Corinthians 15:52

Happy Easter!

Tags

crocus, dogs, Easter, Faith, flowers, Parsifal, Spring

Listening to passages of Richard Wagner’s Parsifal on this Good Friday. A beautiful sunny bright day, our little puppies are on the balcony taking the Sun, it is for mid-April a nice Spring day, the whole weekend is shaping up to be nice.

Tulips and crocuses are sprouting, birds are signing and people are moving their boats to the Marina, got to be Spring. I had my Summer tires put on this week and car is tuned up. The dealership even washed the car for me, I thought that was a nice gesture. The City has started street cleaning and the brushes our out.

Can’t wait to put the flower boxes out, this is a great spot in the morning for coffee and watching the boats on the Hillsborough river.

A few weeks ago, me at Maid Marian, the Diner in Charlottetown. Celebrating 30 years, a great place for breakfast and coffee, old fashion, clean, good service. This is the place to meet the snow plough operators in Winter, the farmers, the TV and Radio personalities, local personalities and politicians. I am wearing my ball cap because this is official wear if you are an Islander. This is how we can tell who is from away, like them tourists.

Crocuses around the house.

Happy Easter! 

 

 

Mercredi des Cendres

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Ash Wednesday, Carnaval, Easter, hedonist, Lent, society

Ash Wednesday derives its name from the practice of blessing ashes made from palm branches blessed on the previous year’s Palm Sunday, and placing them on the heads of participants to the accompaniment of the words “Repent, and believe in the Gospel” or “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return”. Something that is difficult to accept in our hedonistic society where pleasure is emphasize over everything else.

So Lent started today and will last until Easter Sunday. I do not know who observes Lent nowadays or if anyone, maybe a few remember it.

As children many years ago this Christian tradition was very much alive and was accompanied by many moral teachings on life.

Lent of course is a period of fasting, sort of a Christian ramadan so to speak, it use to be fairly strict with many things you could not eat, certainly no sweets and no meat. Stores did not advertise Easter candies before the last week of Lent and even then it was a more discreet advertising campaign so as not to offend people. Today in our secular society its a no holds bar type of thing and God forbid the little precious ones should be deprived of their sweets and everything else. I think something is lost here in a way, balance, reflection, abstinence in a society of plenty. Certainly life is poorer because of the commercialisation of everything around us.

The end of Carnaval by Carl Spitzberg, Aschermittwoch, Ash Wednesday.

 

Messiah in Ottawa!!

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Christmas, Dominion-Chalmers Church, Easter, Handel, Messiah, Ottawa, United Church of Canada

With the Christmas Season of course it is time for Messiah by Haendel. In Ottawa for I do not know how many years the Canadian Amateur Singers invite all to come and sing Messiah. The Dominion-Chalmers United Church which serves in Ottawa as a Symphony Hall welcomes such musical evenings. So for 3 Saturday mornings of repetitions you too can join the Choir of 600 + Amateurs and give a performance of this great work. This is what Will did tonight, I was in the audience. Ottawa is really a small town. I recognized quite a few people in the Choir, 2 to them former Ambassadors with whom I served in Jordan some 20 years ago.

The orchestra is a pick-up orchestra of violins, cellos, double bass, Oboes,Bassoon, trumpets, Harpsichord, Timpani, and an organ which in the original production Georg Frederick Haendel played.

The Maestro is Louis Lavigueur who has been conducting Messiah for the last 25 years with Alan Thomas, organist. They also organize this event in Montreal.

It is great fun and something memorable. We did not have Teddy to sing but it was just as much fun. Teddy has a great voice and here he sings my favorite part of Messiah.

Choir 600 singers and audience about 400 people.  A great fun evening in Ottawa, much better than shopping at the Mall.

Australian soprano Sara Macliver sings Rejoice Greatly from Handel’s Messiah with the Orchestra of the Antipodes and conductor Antony Walker.

 

 

Pasqua

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Easter

On this Easter Sunday 2015, Best Wishes to all!

Joyeuses Pâques!

  

Resurrection of Christ, Francesco Bassano, 1584.

Easter, Passover

Tags

Easter, Hebrew, passion, Passover, Seder

Like any other religious Holiday Easter has music we will like to listen to. Some choices Passion by Saint John by Fancesco Corteccia (1502-1571) with the famous Italian actor  Arnoldo Foà as the narrator voice of the evangelist. Sung in Latin and narration in Italian. Another one is the Easter Cantatas and Oratorio by J.S.Bach sung in German.

Another fact that comes to light when we think of events surrounding the Passion, Death and Resurrection is that the famous Last Supper with Jesus and the Apostles was a Passover Seder, we do not always think of it but it most probably was since they were all Jews.

“Pour the wine,
Drink and dine,
Passover is here,
Let’s spend a time fine.
Happy Passover!”

Chag Sameach!

Our Easter Lunch menu will be a cold Lemon and rice soup, Roast Lamb with rosemary and roasted potatoes and green vegetable, salad, the dessert a Pastiera, traditional Neapolitan cake made for Easter.

Roast Lamb with Rosemary

The sweet, Pastiera Napoletana

The first thing that strikes you about pastiera is its scent. It’s like smelling a bouquet of orange flowers. Indeed orange flower water and orange peel go into this pie, which has a crisp golden crust and a soft, creamy filling of ricotta, sugar, eggs and cooked wheat, flavoured with cinnamon and vanilla. It is so heavenly that legend wants it to be the creation of a siren, Partenope, protectress of Naples, who concocted it from the food offerings the populace brought her every spring. The cake, Neapolitans say, was the only thing that was sweeter than the siren’s voice.
Another story gives pastiera equally sacred but more modern origins—it is said that a nun of a Neapolitan convent first made it to celebrate Easter, and tried to capture in the recipe the scents of Spring blooming in the cloister garden. Indeed, pastiera was long the preserve of nunneries, which excelled at making the cake.
Today, it is made at home, usually on Maundy Thursday or Good Friday, so that the flavours have time to blend and steep before the Easter banquet.
I will be getting mine from a traditional Italian Pastry shop on Preston street in Ottawa.

Pastiera

Auguri di Pasqua! Joyeuses Pâques!

Tags

cuisine, Easter, Eggs, Italy, lamb, Pasqua, Rome, traditions

Auguri, Best Wishes for Easter the old Italian saying and the wonderful Easter we had in Rome for so many years. At this time of the year Rome is in flower and many neighbourhood streets have flowering trees, Wisteria is also abundant.

Shop windows have enormous decorated chocolate eggs. Many Enotecas, Wine shops also sell good quality artisan chocolates and other sweets for Easter, not to mention all the regional Easter pastries and cakes. Italy is still to this day a country of strong traditions.

Pasqua, the Italian word for Easter, dates back to 1342, when it referred to the “festa che commemora la liberazione dalla schiavitù d’Egito” (feast that commemorates the liberation from Egyptian slavery). Lamb or “paschal” blood had marked the doors of Hebrew families exiled in Egypt and spared their first-born sons. Somewhere in time Pasqua became synonymous with the Christian celebration of Easter.

“Natale con i tuoi, Pasqua con chi vuoi” (Christmas with your family, Easter with whomever you want), Italians say. An invitation to Easter dinner with friends in Italy is a special treat indeed. After forty days of fasting during Quaresima (Lent), Italians celebrate with foods that form a mouth-watering vocabulary of their own.

Throughout Italy the traditional main dish is agnellino al forno (roasted young lamb) or capretto (baby goat). Rome’s Easter specialty is abbacchio, a suckling lamb no more than a month or so old. Because it has ingested only its mother’s milk, its meat is especially tender.

The name comes from the Latin baculum, the cudgel used to kill lambs. Until a few decades ago, shepherds would lead their flocks into Rome every Spring so people could select one for the annual slaughter. The word abbacchiato became slang for someone beaten down, physically or mentally.

“Pasta matta” (crazy dough) encases torta Pasqualina (Easter cake), a savory pie from Piedmont and Liguria with whole eggs baked inside.

Italy’s traditional Easter dessert is Colomba cake, a sweet, eggy, yeasted bread topped with sugared and sliced almonds. Commercial bakers shape this confection into a colomba (dove), the symbol of peace and renewal, but home bakers usually do an oval approximation.

In Italy uova di Pasqua (Easter eggs) come only in chocolate. Festive displays decorate coffee bars, pastry shops, supermarkets, and confectioneries in the weeks before Easter, with some mammoth eggs weighing in at nearly 18 pounds.

Although most commercial eggs contain a child’s toy or trinket, Easter eggs aren’t just for the kids (bimbi) in Italy. In the time of the Renaissance nobles encased works of art and other extravagances in enormous chocolate eggs.

In Rome for example, prepare for days of asparagus, artichokes alla Romana, boiled eggs and frittata of all kinds, ricotta and other cheeses, torta pasquale, olives, lamb, and cold-cuts ad infinitum, of course wine.

The very best modern eggs are still handmade by a cioccolataio, an artisan of chocolate, who will insert a surprise supplied by the purchaser. Inside a customized egg a lucky recipient may find jewelry, a watch, car keys—or an engagement ring. This in itself may explain why “felice come una Pasqua” (literally happy as an Easter) translates into “happy as can be.”

Ottawa at the Tulip Festival with a view of Parliament