«A Year of Parties» Series - Clean Monday Get-Together
Clean Monday (Καθαρά Δευτέρα) is the first day of Great Lent in Greek Orthodox countries. «Clean» signifies the cleansing of the body (from non-fasting foods) and spirit (from sinful attitude). It is a public holiday and traditionally celebrated with customs reserved just for this day. Some of these are an azyme bread with sesame seeds, named "lagana" (λαγάνα), the making of Kyra Sarakosti (Κυρά Σαρακοστή), the widespread custom of flying kites and of course the consumption of fasting food (dolmades, gigantes, taramosalata, calamari, octopus, olives, kolokythokeftedes, salads, etc.).
Our friends (a family of four) and we (also a family of four) decided that we’ll celebrate Clean Monday by getting together for a feast- and game day! Because flying kites is mostly enjoyable for little kids (let’s be honest here, not many grown-ups like to go through the trouble of getting a kite up in the air just to stand there and hold a string for whatever amount of time), our version of kite-flying was brought into the home in the form of decoration. I hung my paper kites with a tail from vellum paper (so they’re very light) on a fishing line across the living/dining room. They weren’t in the way and served their purpose of bringing the happy outdoorsy atmosphere inside! I also decorated the front door with a kite, just so everybody knew where the party is.
The kite theme continued to our table, too. While this gathering was simple and absolutely not formal I still wanted to “be in the spirit” of the day. Place mats with printed kites on an A3 paper and name tags crafted from the same papers as the hanging kites were to indicate the “sitting order” while silver- and glassware, napkins etc were kept basic and mostly neutral.
These were only a few of that day’s offerings: beetroot salad, gigantes (giant beans baked with tomatoes in the oven), marinated octopus, “politiki” salad (fermented carrots, cabbage, celery, garlic and green tomatoes) and the star of the day taramosalata - fish roe salad.
Kyra Sarakosti (Lady Lent) made her appearance as a topper for our dessert spread. She has 7 legs, one for each week of Lent, but doesn’t have a mouth so she doesn’t eat non-fast foods. Still, she could have had all these sweets, which are vegan:
«halvas» from semolina,
nut clusters with chocolate,
healthy truffles from dates, nuts and oats and bitter chocolate and
this special, walnut and dried fruits-filled, crescent-shaped pastry, «skaltsounia».
We honored Lady Lent properly by devouring these sweets with coffee and tea.
After all the food was gone, we played board games and cards, had all-around fun and closed the day with our feet up (after limited amount of cleaning needed) and the feeling of contentment from the time we spent with our friends.
Thank You for coming along for yet another party with me!
Below, you can read all the posts of this series, or go to the BLOG tab and browse among all published blog posts.
Your very own Fairy,
Tünde - Nefeli
