14 April, 2009

Kyriaki ton Vaion (Palm Sunday)

This Sunday (12 April 2009) was Κυριακή των Βαΐων, Greek Orthodox Palm Sunday.

Hubby and I have been lazy to go to church in the morning recently, but we thought we should at least on this important festivity (the day Jesus entered Jerusalem, or so claimed - it is a movable feast as is Easter and cannot be an exact historical date).

To be honest, we arrived late (I have an excuse to have waited for Hubby to wake up and to finish his coffee!) and the church was full. As you can imagine there are numbers of people receiving communion. We didn't and got only Antidoron (pieces of bread at the end of service).

On the Kyriaki ton Vaion, people usually get laurel branches at the church, but the one we wend did not have ones to 'take away'.



We got this branch from my Mom-in-Law who went to another church.

During the Lenten period, there are two days we are allowed to eat fish and Ton Vaion is one of them (the other being Annunciation day - 25 March). I bought this fish from Laiki Market on Saturday.


Not that I bought only one. They are very small fish, about 10-12 centimetre long (my internet image search suggests that they can grow larger). It is called Μπάλας - Μπαλάδες) and evidently belong to bream family. They are nice pink and really beautiful. It is cheap fish; only 4 euros a kilo.

As they were small, I fried them (here is about half a kilo of balades).

They were delicious. Meat was tasty with a flakey texture of bream family. Only downside was that small bones were rather hard and sharp; it might have been better, if I cooked them longer.

After lunch, we went out to meet to friends and relatives in Marina Zea. Ritual of 4 hour coffee time; Greeks love it, but honestly it is too long for me.

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