In my regular ‘From my kitchen to yours’ newsletter this week I’ve been sharing my thoughts and memories about my Easter holidays.
Pasqua, or Easter-time in Italy is in many ways my favourite holiday time of the year. It is much calmer than Christmas, and in some ways more spiritual.
Normally it coincides with the first wave of warm spring weather (… so no chance this year!) and of course, another opportunity for the family to spend time together eating and talking and eating and talking… !
Easter Monday itself is normally the classical day per fare una gita – to go on a trip together. Maybe a picnic in the countryside, or even the first trip to the seaside of the year.
Perhaps my favourite memory though is that every year our local priest would come to bless our house, bringing with him an olive branch as a symbol of peace.
Not only would the priest bless our house, however, he would also bless a basket of hard-boiled eggs we had prepared, so we could then colour and paint them afterwards.
This was perhaps my favourite Easter activity, well, perhaps a close second after eating our uova di cioccolato themselves!
Lovely blog and great to see your mother alongside. My own, Italian mother, mother worked in our shop well after she had supposedly retired. Italian mothers don’t move aside. They continue to cook for all of their lives and love every moment, You brought back happy memories.