Saturday April 3,2021

Good morning friends and everyone aboard . Today is Saturday, April 3, 2021. It is a chilly start but reach into the fifties later on. Today is know as Holy Saturday it is a day of waiting. 2000 years ago they waited for Jesus to rise and become king of Israel. He did rise however but not as a physical king. He rose to show the world he was the son of god and give us everlasting life for all that followed him, or basically all humanity. We have been following him for over 2000 years now and will follow for ions to come. I wish I could be here that long unfortunately at some point I will join him in heaven and enjoy ever lasting life. A little maudlin there and today I want to be happy as I prepare for the Ressurection tomorrow.

Easter has always been very special to me, sometimes I believe even more so than Christmas. I think being Italian has something to do with it in my case, I know everyone has traditions and I love hearing about them and tasting them all but I grew up Italian so those traditions are very special to me. Now Easter is an eating holiday and the preparations take days. The sad part as I have mentioned before was you could not eat any of it til after 12 o’ clock today or tomorrow. My mother insisted on Easter, I am not that rigid because I can’t wait. We make pies not Apple or blueberry but sweet pie with ricotta cheese, and wheat pie and cookies and tarrallis , and lamb cakes ,sweet a cake not meat. But the mother of them all is Pizzagaina, this ias a pie filled with many cheeses and meats ( Italian cold cuts) salami, pepperoni , procutto, capiclole, supperisatta, eggs anthis is all baked in a special crust. This is usually made on Good Friday as a sign of sacrifice because you couldn’t eat the meat. The pie is made all over Italy so there is no one recipe to follow it follows wherever you came from. It is I believe from the area around Naples. Now I made this every year with my grandmother and my parents, yes my father even kicked in on this one. It was made in a special bowl big enough to hold all the filling, it was white with green trim and oddly had an Asian motif inside. I don’t know what happened to that bowl when my mother died. Marylou used to make it with her aunt who was like a grandmother to her every year. So we both had knowledge of how to make it. When everyone passed we said to each other now what? Of course we knew Justin and Amanda had to become familiar with this tradition and it was our job to do it. So we set out to make our own, so there is a little of her family and a little of mine and we created our own. Isn’t that what marriage is all about . So we have been making it for over 30 years, Easter would not be Easter without it. I’m sure many of you will agree with that. I will post a picture of our masterpiece later before it is cut. My favorite sweet pie is the Wheat Pie but that is another story. I have already taken a lot of your time today. Plus I have a lot to do.

Be happy today, just my preparations will bring me joy. If you don’t know what to do or don’t celebrate boil an egg and dye it believe it or not it is fun and brings some traditions with it. No dye boil an onion skin and then dip the egg , look at like a child and you will be happy for awhile. We will talk again Til Tomorrow!