Divine Liturgy

This is Hastings.
Magical, isn't it? By the time I made it to the beach I was so exhausted I could barely move, let alone look for something interesting to take a photo of. I didn't know what to expect from the weekend, but nothing prepared me for what happened...

We arrived late on Friday night, rushing home after work to pack a few things and then piling into the car for the 2 hour drive. I'd been there before for Easter, but since then they have built a new kitchen plus an open sided extension with another oven in it, I was show around and then slumped back to the B+B for a few hours sleep. We came back at 8 am on Saturday (I made loads of jokes about how I didn't realize that there was an 8 o'clock in the mornings as well hahaha) and after a little breakfast I was whisked away and put to work. For the next 13 hours I washed mountains of dishes - the hard core way, no gloves, no washing up liquid (an organic mix of mustard powder and baking soda, works quite well), I peeled and chopped 10 kilos of onions for the onion and barley soup we were to have for dinner that night. And then another 10kg for tomorrow night's soup, along with carrots, tomatoes, cabbage, peppers, celery and one of those giant bags of lentils. The knives weren't very sharp and I got a blister on my hand from all the force I had to use (very Anthony Bourdain on his first night as a chef). I got things stick under my nails, minor burns, cuts and scrapes. I lost all feeling in my feet, and I still can't get the smell of onions off my hands. But the feeling was incredible, I felt so useful, a vital part in a functioning machine. I took along my fancy camera to take pictures of everything I was doing, but of course there wasn't time. This is the only paparazziing I was able to do.
I finally sat down to have a bowl of soup for lunch at 4pm. The composition is horrendous. This is Katya, the incredible organiser, coming to ask if I wouldn't mind peeling a million tons of potatoes. Just behind her you can see the giant 30 liter vat for the soup, even empty I could barely lift it.
A word on Katya, I've never met anybody who compares to her, when I grow up I want to be just like her. She seemed to survive on no sleep and no food, and still had limitless energy. She lives in the diocese part time and also has a flat in London and works in the city. She's in charge of all the administrative duties and making sure the practical aspects of the property run smoothly. She had to answer to the nun who lives there full time and ministers to the spiritual mandates. At every minute of the day, somebody would come up to Katya and ask a stupid question, this is the scourge of modern religion - the church volunteer. Mostly older devout ladies, these people had very original interpretations of the concept of being useful, if I was in the same positions, I would be very tempted to lose my temper, empty my entire vocabulary of sarcasm on their heads and storm off. Katya obviously did none of these things and exhibited the most inhuman amount of patience I've ever seen. What is a stupid question? May I please have 11 olives to garnish the salad?
Yes garnishes aren't dead! Jump back!
Apart from the soups I also helped make some traditional Russian salads which are wheeled out for every special occasion and which everyone from the old country loves loves loves.

There's Olivie - often served in Spanish restaurants as Russian salad - a delicious amalgam of cooked, cubed potato, carrot, and egg, along with peas, gherkins, sometimes apple, and either ham or prawns, held together with lashings and lashing of mayonnaise.

Seledka Pod Shuboi - Salted herring layered with cooked potato, carrot and beetroot (held together with lashings of mayonnaise) which in my house arrives at the table as a glorious purple orb, but here was a canvas for an amateur Kandinsky to decorate with wild combinations of swirls, rectangles and circles, rendered lovingly in peas, strips of carrot and dill.

Korean carrot - the most delicious application for carrot in the world. Pickled lightly in cider vinegar with onions and cayenne. Not a native dish, but some kind of bastardization of kimchi, gleaned from all the North Korean immigrants in Russia. When I was making the lentil soup I put a few chillies in it and was immediately reprimanded by some old lady who told me that devout Orthodox Christians like plain food. If I had to, observing lent for 6 months of the year, eat vegetarian food and not be allowed to spice it up, I would kill myself. But then I'm not very devout.

One thing that really struck me over the weekend was the way members of the religious community talk to their underlings. As a very very occasional volunteer I was spared from most of this, but witnessed an incredible amount of criticism for the smallest infractions. For example, at one point there was no more counter space and Katya put a heavy cooking put on the floor instead. The nun walked in, had some kind of a fit, and basically tore her a new one. This was completely bizzare to me, but my stepmother eventually explained. She said that when she first started volunteering in her local church choir 20 years ago she had the same romantic view of the church, you know, all smiles and warm hand shakes, brandy with the vicar and teary eyed gratitude. Instead she was pretty much told that she wasn't really welcome, and who the hell did she think she was, anyway? After a few days of thinly veiled hostility she decided that this wasn't for her and was all but ready to quit when during a chat with the priest (something about Jesus) she realized that this was all a test. The Orthodox Church wasn't there to bow and scrape in front of her for a bit of singing here and there. A lot of people think these days that organised religion is on the ropes and will be glad of anything they can get, so subsequently whoever shows up often has an attitude and tends to think that they are 'it'. And the point of the mindless criticism and hostility is to force people into humility, and to try and improve themselves. If you walk around thinking that you're so great, there's no room or motivation to try and better yourself, and at the same time you have to realise that there are things and situations that are bigger than you and that you can't control. I love this, the approach really tickles my masochistic, servile streak, and I know I would be responsive to it. But it's not for everyone, I explained it to the boyfriend and he said it sounds like a brainwashing cult (is there any other kind?) which is pretty preposterous considering he's a Catholic!

Anyway, after an exhausting day I crawled back to the B+B, had a shower and passed out until 7am the next day.
Sunday was even more hard core. Gone was the gentle pace of chopping veggies and deflecting stereotypical female cattiness (yes, I know you have a family recipe for this, it's famous and you're amazing, but back off!!), the wasn't time to dawdle as everything had to be plated up whilst the Divine Liturgy service was going on, punctuated by mad dashes out of the kitchen to confess and receive sacrament. I stood by the giant pot of bubbling soup filling terrines with a giant ladle until I though my arm was going to fall off. Then rushed around the cramped dinning room collecting up the empty plates and depositing dishes of salad. What I wouldn't give for Nigella's asbestos hands!
Finally by around 2pm it was all over. I sat on some garden steps with a plate of potatoes, wild eyed and hungry for my first meal of the day, washed down with a glass of kvas. I never knew how tiring just standing up is.
I have no idea what my brother, dad and his wife were doing all of this time apart from choir practice. They could have been shoveling cement or catching butterflies, I'll never know and I don't want to know. We drove to the beach and I lay there reading Charlotte Roche's Wetlands as an antidote to all the spiritual work I'd done over the weekend. Everything was good. Amen.