Back in the saddle,

or at least the office chair. It's a beautiful day outside, and I'm stuck at work for the whole weekend. Ah, well. Though the weather wasn't exactly accomodating for Easter last week, we had a very good time nonetheless. It was one of those marathon journeys - from Boston to Poughkeepsie on Saturday, Poughkeepsie to Bethlehem on Sunday, and then from Bethlehem straight back home on Monday - but fortunately the baby was a good sport until the very last leg, and by then who could blame her? Andriana got to see a whole mess of relatives that she either hasn't seen in months or (in the case of the Bethlehem crew) at all. Now that she's increasingly sociable, she had great fun playing with her cousins. She also got to see her first Easter lamb, although owing to her metabolic condition it's unlikely she'll ever get a chance to eat one, though the Greek Easter table is chock full of goodies such as olives and dandelion greens and spinach pie and roasted potatoes that she will be able to gorge herself on along with the rest of us.

Since the household was dividing its time between different families this year, my wife's cousin Iraklis had only one lamb on the spit when we got there, but Christ Almighty, it was the best Easter lamb I've ever tasted! There's something about when the meat comes right off the spit - it's juicy and steaming and just melts in your mouth - that you just can't replicate with a leg of lamb in the oven, however expertly prepared. And then of course there's the skin, which the men poke at and peel off the rotating beast as soon as it's crisp, salty and chewy and inexplicably addictive. To wash it down there were no super-sized vodka and tonics this time, I'm sad to report, but there was a homebrewed Cretan "wine" that flowed freely at the other family homestead we visited later in the afternoon.

Another highlight of the Easter spread was the traditional tripe soup called mageritsa, which Iraklis' wife made in a novel way (well novel to me at least!), in a tomatoey ragu that was spiced exactly like the Greek meat sauce for spaghetti, which differs from an Italian "gravy" in that it uses cloves, cinnamon, and allspice. This seasoning was perfect for the diced lamb entrails, the taste of which is often overwhelming, so the result was a bowl of soupy stew that you could actually eat without having to make a conscious effort not to dwell upon exactly what it is you were eating, which however much I find it tasty is what always happens when I eat mageritsa.

We had a surreal moment or two on the trip itself. Sunday morning while tooling down I-84 towards Eastern Pennsylvania, my wife and I stumbled upon a radio station that was broadcasting Easter services - in Greek - which made up for the fact that none of us had had the energy to go to the midnight vigil the night before. Shortly thereafter this discovery however we found ourselves stopped dead on the highway, as a fairly horrific accident a mile or two ahead of us had completely shut down the road. As we were stuck there for the better part on an hour, we naturally ended up getting out of the car and wandering, wondering when the jam would unstick itself and marvelling at the sight of hundreds of cars going nowhere and people milling about in their Easter finery.

All in all, though, it was a good weekend. Easter in Bethlehem is always worth the slog, though one of these years my brother-in-law and I have sworn to begin a new tradition up here in Boston, with our own lamb and our own spit. When that will happen exactly is anyone's guess, but it's something to look forward to!