Green Garlic!

I know that Easter approaches when beautiful green garlic shows up at the farmers' market. Melanie picked up some Italian green garlic, which looks like leeks. When I make out my Easter menu, I always have green garlic soup on it, so I have to start keeping an eye on my favorite farmers. Fortunately this year it looks better than ever. For the recipe, I use the one from the Chez Panisse cookbook. It is a great start to a good meal. I am still up in the air as to which lamb recipe to use. When it gets firmed up, I will post the menu with recipes.

In other exciting news, the friar in charge of decorating the church decided to cover the statues instead of removing them altogether. What makes this exciting is that I have spent the last five Holy Saturday mornings hauling the statues back out to the niches. This year I will be mercifully relieved of this duty. All we will have to do is pull off the cloth. Yipee! It is amazing how heavy plaster can be when you are on the tenth statue.

I love the tradition of draping the statues, though, not just because of laziness. It definitely conveys the gravity of the Passiontide, probably better than removing them altogether, which just gives the church a vaguely Calvinist feeling to it, like some stripped and desecrated Dutch church (or the work of Richard Vosko, except that we don't rip out the tabernacle, turn the church sideways, surround the altar with chairs, give pride of place to the organ pipes and then ignore the instrument for the tinkling of a piano and the strumming of guitars).