Two Days of Greeks and a Chinese Recipe

Kathleen and I went to the Greek Festival in Oakland on Saturday. It was okay. We were there too early in the day (11 a.m.) so there were no singing or dancing acts. But I don't really like street fairs, church festivals, art and wine festivals, and things like that, anyway. The best parts of the trip were talking about the cathedral architecture with with a young priest and praying with some nuns from Calistoga. They were there selling books and honey. The nuns and I prayed for my son, Basil, who is still not recovered from Covid. I spent way too much money on food (Kathleen is always surprised when she likes lamb. She thinks she doesn't like it.), more than I would have paid in a resturaunt but I thought of it as an offering more than paying for lunch: Church festivals are fundraisers. Kathleen bought wedding rings and a prayerbook.

On Sunday morning we went to the Divine Liturgy. We left after the sermon since neither of us could go to Communion; Kathleen because she isn't an Orthodox Christian yet (her Baptism is not for five more days.), I because I wasn't prepared. (Kathleen: "But you went to confession just last week. You haven't done any sins since then." Me: "I can't walk across the living room without sinning.")

The sermon was about St. Photini (AKA the Woman at the Well). In the car afterwards, Kathleen asked me how many sermons I've heard on that text. When I said many she asked if they were all different and if I could remember any of my Dad's sermons on the text. They were all different and I do remember two of my Dad's. In one of them, I remember he was talking about how ignorant the disciples were, how they never understood what God was doing, and that we are all like that because God is infinite and we are not, because his ways are not our ways, and God is always going to know things we do not know and do things we do not understand. The other sermon I remember him preaching on that text was about how we don't get to decide who is in the Church. God chooses whom to include and we have to accept them. The main point of Fr. Basil's sermon yesterday was that Jesus always did the will of his Father, and that it was the Father who wanted him to go through Samaria and meet the woman at the well. If we desire to know the Father we must look at Jesus.

After Church we drove over to Santa Cruz on Hwy 9. We wound trough the hills, hills I've been winding through since the early 1990s, where all my sons and I had many adventures. In Boulder Creek we stopped at my favorite grocery store and got roast beef sandwiches. At the antique store across the street Kathleen found a sealable porcelain jar with a mallard painted on it. We ate the sandwiches at the covered bridge park in Felton. Then we drove on to Santa Cruz.

In Santa Cruz we saw a play, "An Iliad" at the Jewel Theater. (I've known the story, or parts of it for most of my life. As an adult I've read several different translations, in prose and verse, and have even atempted to read it in Homeric Greek but my knowledge of Koine Greek was not up to the task.) I was sobbing at the end of the performance. It was very moving.

We got home and Kathleen took a nap while I did some work, listening to reruns of A Praire Home Companion at the same time. When she woke about 8:30 p.m. I made supper: My Mother's twice cooked pork. She used to make this for the anual dinner for my Dad's colleagues on the board of the Florida District of the PCG. It was such a good dish but she only ever made it for that one event. She, really, did not like cooking.

Recipe
-cooked pork roast. My mom always used boiled loin. I like a mixture of left over oven roasted shoulder and boiled loin. About 1 pound in total, cut into 1 inch cubes.
-one shallot, peeled and minced
-one head of garlic, peeled and minced
- fresh ginger root, about as big as your hand, peeled and minced
-sesame oil, about 3 table spoons
- a head of green cabbage, chopped into long ribbons
- soy sauce, 2 tablespoons is enough for me, but I don't like too much salt. Most people, I've noticed, like to add more soy sauce at the table.
(sometime my Mom would use a yellow onion istead of shallot. Also, she would sometimes shread green bellpepper and add it to the wok at the same time as the cabbage.)
- 1 tablespood sesame seeds.

heat the oil in a wok until crazy hot, but not smoking. Add the the garlic and ginger stir constantly when the garlic turns brown, add the shallots and pork and keep stiring until the pork browns and gets crispy edges. add the cabbage and soy sauce. Keep stiring until the cabbage is soft. Toss in the sesame seeds. Serve.