Today is Bright Thursday and is proving to be another interesting and meaningful day here at the monastery.
To begin with the weather, it is a bit flexible and keeps changing; in
the morning it was cloudy, overcast and raining and then the sun came
out, it was fairly warm and then once again it became cloudy and cooler.
Today the culinary adventure has proved to be what might be called “Home made fudge”. Let me explain. Someone had given to me, at
Nativity, a large square of dark chocolate, it seems that it is 70%.
For me, this is much too bitter but I know it is healthy and I wanted to
find some way that it might be made more palatable. I went onto the
internet to check out the subject of “chocolate” and how to manipulate
it in the kitchen. The tricky part was melting it in order to make it
soft enough to add other ingredients. It also has to be perfectly dry in
order not to cause it to granulate. Any way, after all of this, it was
melted to a very soft, doughy texture. Next I stirred in tonnes of
peanut butter and peanut powder. It sounds easy but don’t be fooled. All
of this took several hours to achieve. After letting it cool for an
hour, then it was tested to see if it was actually soft enough to eat
(it was and is). It still tastes like dark chocolate but also has a
strong flavour of peanut butter, a bit like a health food “Reeses
Chocolate”.
The second culinary delight was not of my making but a
gift that someone had brought. This was a tasty and healthy soup, which
seems to be made of pumpkin and other vegetables, ground to a pulp in
the blender and then heated on the stove. It was soooo tasty. I added
rolled oatmeal and black pepper to it and washed it down with a large
glass of Inka. Dessert was a nice and crunchy apple and a bright, orange
tangerine, in honour of this Bright Thursday. Once again, Christ is
Risen!6