Red eggs at Pascha.
If you’re not Orthodox (or don’t have any Ukrainian or Russian relatives), you might not be familiar with the tradition of Pascha baskets. I’ve been talking about them a lot on here, so I thought I may as well explain a little more about them!
During the 40 days of Lent, and the 7 days of Holy Week, Orthodox Christians are to fast from meat, eggs, dairy, oil, alcohol, and fish. We don’t fast simply to make a sacrifice (so, it’s not like other churches where you pick, say, chocolate, to give up just because it’s your favorite food); we fast to discipline ourselves and put ourselves in a spiritual state of mind by giving up decadent food. We also are to try to abstain from all unnecessary food (though I have to say I think I failed miserably at that this year, as I’ve had many steriod-fuelled binges).
On Pascha, the service begins at 11:30 PM on Holy Saturday. We celebrate Christ’s resurrection and defeat of death, usually with the church crammed to the brim with people. The service is beautiful and joyous, which is quite a change after the somberness of Holy Friday and Holy Saturday. After the service ends (at about 2 AM), everybody heads downstairs for the Paschal feast.
Traditional cheese pascha.
Each family brings with them a Pascha basket- usually an actual woven basket, as Kyle and I were a little embarrased to discover after bringing a fully-packed cooler of food for our first Pascha- stuffed with all their favorite foods that they have been fasting from during Lent. There are some cultural traditions with regards to food as well. Red hard-boiled eggs that have been blessed are passed out at the end of the service and brought down to the feast; everyone plays a game with them where you knock your egg on other people’s eggs and see whose lasts the longest before cracking. Eggs are a symbol of birth and resurrection, and the red color is to remind us of Christ’s blood which was shed for us. Many families bake Pascha breads (such as kulich), as we did this year, which is usually placed on top of the basket with a candle lit in the middle of it. Other people make cheese pascha, which is sort of like a sweet cheese spread formed in a mold into a pyramid with symbols of Christ on it. Usually the pascha breads are eaten with cheese pascha… this is where things can get confusing, as both can also be simply referred to as “pascha”. So, theoretically, you could hear a sentence tonight at our church like this: “I’m eating pascha with pascha at Pascha”.
The baskets are all placed downstairs at our church before the service, and afterwards, Fr. Larry will bless all of the baskets with holy water and special prayers. My favorite line would have to be where he blesses all the “fleshmeat and curdled milk”… mmm! Tasty! 
Then everyone sits down and shares their baskets with each other in fellowship until people start falling asleep sitting up, usually around 4 am.
So, as you can see, this is one of the neatest things about Pascha traditions! There’s just something fun about eating all these yummy foods at 3 am with your dear friends and family.
So what’s in our basket this year??
The Parrotts' Pascha Basket!
Let’s see… we’ve got:
- Lindor chocolate eggs
- Cadbury mini eggs
- A bottle of wine
- A Dr. Pepper for me
- Ham sausage
- Tiramisu for me
- Single-serving cheesecakes for Kyle and Richard
- Babybel cheeses
- Kyle’s spirally Pascha cookies
I’ve also got sweet and sour meatballs going in the slow-cooker that look pretty good to me so far; a little container of those will be added to the basket when they’re done.
Mmmeatballs!
And the crowning glory of our basket this year? Kyle’s kulich! Remember the little sad blob of dough I showed you the other day? Well…
…it rose! This was much more promising than any of Kyle’s previous attempts, which stayed kinda flat and ended up creating a big doughy brick. Forgive him for looking a little crazy- it was quite late and after a very long service. 
After some finicking and lots of baking, Kyle’s kulich came out of the oven looking pretty good! Obviously, we haven’t tasted it yet, so the jury is still out on whether or not it was a success this year. But at least it looks pretty:
Ta-da! A beautiful kulich!
The icing is rum-flavored, and since we found lots of pictures of kulich decorated with eggs or egg-shaped candy, I thought I’d make a pretty little Mini Egg border on it. The XB on the top, made out of chocolate chips, stands for Христос воскресе- Slavonic for “Christ is Risen”, which is the traditional Paschal greeting.
I’m super excited for tonight; Kyle is sponsor to our friend Richard (so, yes, eventually he will have a godson who is the same age as him), and this is Richard’s first Pascha, so that makes it even more fun.
The smell of meatballs coming from my kitchen is driving me insane….
Red eggs at Pascha.
If you’re not Orthodox (or don’t have any Ukrainian or Russian relatives), you might not be familiar with the tradition of Pascha baskets. I’ve been talking about them a lot on here, so I thought I may as well explain a little more about them!
During the 40 days of Lent, and the 7 days of Holy Week, Orthodox Christians are to fast from meat, eggs, dairy, oil, alcohol, and fish. We don’t fast simply to make a sacrifice (so, it’s not like other churches where you pick, say, chocolate, to give up just because it’s your favorite food); we fast to discipline ourselves and put ourselves in a spiritual state of mind by giving up decadent food. We also are to try to abstain from all unnecessary food (though I have to say I think I failed miserably at that this year, as I’ve had many steriod-fuelled binges).
On Pascha, the service begins at 11:30 PM on Holy Saturday. We celebrate Christ’s resurrection and defeat of death, usually with the church crammed to the brim with people. The service is beautiful and joyous, which is quite a change after the somberness of Holy Friday and Holy Saturday. After the service ends (at about 2 AM), everybody heads downstairs for the Paschal feast.
Traditional cheese pascha.
Each family brings with them a Pascha basket- usually an actual woven basket, as Kyle and I were a little embarrased to discover after bringing a fully-packed cooler of food for our first Pascha- stuffed with all their favorite foods that they have been fasting from during Lent. There are some cultural traditions with regards to food as well. Red hard-boiled eggs that have been blessed are passed out at the end of the service and brought down to the feast; everyone plays a game with them where you knock your egg on other people’s eggs and see whose lasts the longest before cracking. Eggs are a symbol of birth and resurrection, and the red color is to remind us of Christ’s blood which was shed for us. Many families bake Pascha breads (such as kulich), as we did this year, which is usually placed on top of the basket with a candle lit in the middle of it. Other people make cheese pascha, which is sort of like a sweet cheese spread formed in a mold into a pyramid with symbols of Christ on it. Usually the pascha breads are eaten with cheese pascha… this is where things can get confusing, as both can also be simply referred to as “pascha”. So, theoretically, you could hear a sentence tonight at our church like this: “I’m eating pascha with pascha at Pascha”.
The baskets are all placed downstairs at our church before the service, and afterwards, Fr. Larry will bless all of the baskets with holy water and special prayers. My favorite line would have to be where he blesses all the “fleshmeat and curdled milk”… mmm! Tasty!
Then everyone sits down and shares their baskets with each other in fellowship until people start falling asleep sitting up, usually around 4 am. 
So, as you can see, this is one of the neatest things about Pascha traditions! There’s just something fun about eating all these yummy foods at 3 am with your dear friends and family.
So what’s in our basket this year??
The Parrotts' Pascha Basket!
Let’s see… we’ve got:
I’ve also got sweet and sour meatballs going in the slow-cooker that look pretty good to me so far; a little container of those will be added to the basket when they’re done.
Mmmeatballs!
And the crowning glory of our basket this year? Kyle’s kulich! Remember the little sad blob of dough I showed you the other day? Well…
…it rose! This was much more promising than any of Kyle’s previous attempts, which stayed kinda flat and ended up creating a big doughy brick. Forgive him for looking a little crazy- it was quite late and after a very long service.
After some finicking and lots of baking, Kyle’s kulich came out of the oven looking pretty good! Obviously, we haven’t tasted it yet, so the jury is still out on whether or not it was a success this year. But at least it looks pretty:
Ta-da! A beautiful kulich!
The icing is rum-flavored, and since we found lots of pictures of kulich decorated with eggs or egg-shaped candy, I thought I’d make a pretty little Mini Egg border on it. The XB on the top, made out of chocolate chips, stands for Христос воскресе- Slavonic for “Christ is Risen”, which is the traditional Paschal greeting.
I’m super excited for tonight; Kyle is sponsor to our friend Richard (so, yes, eventually he will have a godson who is the same age as him), and this is Richard’s first Pascha, so that makes it even more fun.
The smell of meatballs coming from my kitchen is driving me insane….
Red eggs at Pascha.
If you’re not Orthodox (or don’t have any Ukrainian or Russian relatives), you might not be familiar with the tradition of Pascha baskets. I’ve been talking about them a lot on here, so I thought I may as well explain a little more about them!
During the 40 days of Lent, and the 7 days of Holy Week, Orthodox Christians are to fast from meat, eggs, dairy, oil, alcohol, and fish. We don’t fast simply to make a sacrifice (so, it’s not like other churches where you pick, say, chocolate, to give up just because it’s your favorite food); we fast to discipline ourselves and put ourselves in a spiritual state of mind by giving up decadent food. We also are to try to abstain from all unnecessary food (though I have to say I think I failed miserably at that this year, as I’ve had many steriod-fuelled binges).
On Pascha, the service begins at 11:30 PM on Holy Saturday. We celebrate Christ’s resurrection and defeat of death, usually with the church crammed to the brim with people. The service is beautiful and joyous, which is quite a change after the somberness of Holy Friday and Holy Saturday. After the service ends (at about 2 AM), everybody heads downstairs for the Paschal feast.
Traditional cheese pascha.
Each family brings with them a Pascha basket- usually an actual woven basket, as Kyle and I were a little embarrased to discover after bringing a fully-packed cooler of food for our first Pascha- stuffed with all their favorite foods that they have been fasting from during Lent. There are some cultural traditions with regards to food as well. Red hard-boiled eggs that have been blessed are passed out at the end of the service and brought down to the feast; everyone plays a game with them where you knock your egg on other people’s eggs and see whose lasts the longest before cracking. Eggs are a symbol of birth and resurrection, and the red color is to remind us of Christ’s blood which was shed for us. Many families bake Pascha breads (such as kulich), as we did this year, which is usually placed on top of the basket with a candle lit in the middle of it. Other people make cheese pascha, which is sort of like a sweet cheese spread formed in a mold into a pyramid with symbols of Christ on it. Usually the pascha breads are eaten with cheese pascha… this is where things can get confusing, as both can also be simply referred to as “pascha”. So, theoretically, you could hear a sentence tonight at our church like this: “I’m eating pascha with pascha at Pascha”.
The baskets are all placed downstairs at our church before the service, and afterwards, Fr. Larry will bless all of the baskets with holy water and special prayers. My favorite line would have to be where he blesses all the “fleshmeat and curdled milk”… mmm! Tasty!
Then everyone sits down and shares their baskets with each other in fellowship until people start falling asleep sitting up, usually around 4 am. 
So, as you can see, this is one of the neatest things about Pascha traditions! There’s just something fun about eating all these yummy foods at 3 am with your dear friends and family.
So what’s in our basket this year??
The Parrotts' Pascha Basket!
Let’s see… we’ve got:
I’ve also got sweet and sour meatballs going in the slow-cooker that look pretty good to me so far; a little container of those will be added to the basket when they’re done.
Mmmeatballs!
And the crowning glory of our basket this year? Kyle’s kulich! Remember the little sad blob of dough I showed you the other day? Well…
…it rose! This was much more promising than any of Kyle’s previous attempts, which stayed kinda flat and ended up creating a big doughy brick. Forgive him for looking a little crazy- it was quite late and after a very long service.
After some finicking and lots of baking, Kyle’s kulich came out of the oven looking pretty good! Obviously, we haven’t tasted it yet, so the jury is still out on whether or not it was a success this year. But at least it looks pretty:
Ta-da! A beautiful kulich!
The icing is rum-flavored, and since we found lots of pictures of kulich decorated with eggs or egg-shaped candy, I thought I’d make a pretty little Mini Egg border on it. The XB on the top, made out of chocolate chips, stands for Христос воскресе- Slavonic for “Christ is Risen”, which is the traditional Paschal greeting.
I’m super excited for tonight; Kyle is sponsor to our friend Richard (so, yes, eventually he will have a godson who is the same age as him), and this is Richard’s first Pascha, so that makes it even more fun.
The smell of meatballs coming from my kitchen is driving me insane….