Good Friday

It's been a busy week. The weather has totally surprised a lot of people as temperatures have set record highs. I never remember Easter Weekend being this warm! But wait - I'm not complaining! I definitely prefer this type of weather to any other. I finally shed my 'ugly green sweater' [which I would die without during the winter] and put on a T-shirt on Friday and headed out to Mom's house for Good Friday Dinner.

Like Christmas Eve, we do not eat meat on Good Friday so the menu consisted of Breaded Shrimp, Calamari, Crab Legs, Bacala [dried codfish soaked in water for several days to remove any extra saltiness, then cooked as desired]. For the kids we made two pizza's - both vegetarian and a plate of pasta with spaghetti sauce, eggs and mozzarella cheese.

Taralli

For dessert we had sugared Taralli which look something like the cookies on the left and espresso.

Braided Easter Egg Cookie

Of course, no Easter would be complete without Easter Eggs, right? But we do things a bit differently. Mom has always made each family their own 'Easter Egg' Cookie which contains a hard boiled egg for each member in the family. The Easter Eggs are braided and baked dough and sometimes topped with icing sugar or sprinkles. Here is a picture of what one might look like.

We ended the evening off with a huge ice cream cake to celebrate my son's 16th birthday and then watched an episode of Who Do You Think You Are starring Brooke Shields while the men played poker. It was definitely one of the nicest dinners the family has spent together and we are going to do it all again today -but at my house. I'll let you know how it goes on the next post.

Meanwhile, have a safe and Happy Easter!