Day 270 - Honey cake

Kitchen duty today, and it's a lenten day (Elevation of the Cross) so I didn't have a clue what I was going to bake since I couldn't use eggs or dairy. Finally I settled for honey, cinnamon and nutmeg cake which is the easiest cake in the world to make, and quick too.

We made piroshki as always. Today's selection was rice and mushroom, cabbage and onion, and potato - both fried and baked, as well as the sweet ones with apple and dusted with sugar. These are the baked ones, a slightly healthier choice (although they all usually give me heartburn). You definitely couldn't live on these for very long, but they're quite good hot once in a while.

I took a picture of my son's god-daughter because I love her intensely focussed expression.

Day 263 - Youthraising

Today's photo captures one of the small team of happy fundraisers in our Youth Committee at church. This member got up at 3 am to start off the yeast-based dough so that it was ready for piroshki-making this morning. Along with a hearty soup nicknamed 'Bob' (I'm presuming it's derived from the Russian word for beans, bobi), and the aforementioned pirohki (meat, potato and apple - that's separate, not together), the offering also included various cakes and twisted bread loaves.

I know the photo is blurry, but I still wanted to include it.

Day 137 - Kitchen duty

My turn for kitchen duty at church today. I got up earlier than I would have wanted, but a few other people were up even earlier getting the dough ready so that it would rise before all the ladies got in and started to make the piroshki. If you haven't heard of piroshki before, they're made of yeasty dough with fillings. We had fried ones filled with meat and rice, mashed potato and onion, and fried onion and cabbage. There some baked versions of these. We also made sweet ones filled with apple puree and dusted with icing sugar, and these are pictured here.

What I enjoy about this experience (only once I'm there and have had my coffee, and not before that) is the social aspect. Our parish is currently enjoying an influx of Russian people who are new(ish) to the country. My own family emigrated from Russia in the 40s and 50s, so are old immigrants, so we're pretty much Australians who are lucky to remember the language. Today I was making piroshki and chatting to a woman who was Russian but had lived in Azerbaijan for a lot of her life. She was probably in her 70s, and was complaining about how difficult it was to learn English. I think it would be hard to adapt to major changes, including language, as you get older.