Saturday 17 March 2018

All Greek for St Patrick

Today, I went to a St Patrick's Day bake sale to buy some yummy goodies, but there wasn't any Irish stew or Colcannon anywhere in sight..... the bake sale was held by the nuns of the Holy Theotokos Convent.
The Holy Theotokos Convent is a small community of Greek Orthodox nuns located in tiny Cedar Valley in the heart of Ontario countryside. The nuns produce 100% pure beeswax candles for both church use and for general sale. They also produce natural products such as soap, moisturizers and lip balms. You can find out more about the convent here.

The shop was bustling with people who had all driven out into the country to the Convent to buy the pastries and the candles. It was a strange mixture of aromas of both beeswax and baking, beautiful candles for sale, colourful secular Easter egg and Easter bunny decorations, shamrocks and leprechauns and Orthodox religious icons, all presided over by the friendly nuns dressed from head to toe in black robes.

But they bake the most wonderful Greek pastries.
I came home with a custard tart, a pecan butter tart, a Greek cookie covered in icing sugar but I can't remember the Greek name, and two spanakopita pastries. Happy (Greek) St Patrick's Day!

13 comments:

  1. That sounds like a great place to visit and shope!

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  2. I would find that a fun place and doubtless would spend more money on those goodies than I should! Hope you had a good St. Pat's Day!

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  3. Colcannon? Yum. I must think about making some.
    As others have commented, I would have trouble resisting the nun's wares.
    I hope St Patrick treats you and yours well.

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  4. HaHa...thanks Mom....
    Nope no dirty water for me...and I am the oldest one going ...
    So
    I may pull rank a few times....
    Its all good and will be a great adventure!
    Sue
    Mexicali, Mexico here we come...

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  5. Custard tarts are one of my favourites! I didn't realise it was St Patricks day yesterday.

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  6. In my ignorance, I didn't know that there were orthodox nuns.

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  7. Hello. I hope you enjoyed what you bought, even though it was not Irish, but Greek. * I am glad that you like Poland in my photos. The crooked house is by the sea and is a pretty place. I invite you to my country. Greetings.

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  8. What! No candles Shammi 😀 I'm just off to sleep, will have nice pastry dreams, merci beaucoup!

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  9. That looks tasty! I'll have to look up Cedar Valley.

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  10. They look very tasty.
    Hope you had a good St. Pat's Day!

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  11. We have a Greek Orthodox church near us (as well as two Armenian Orthodox) and we always enjoy going to their bake sales, rummage sale, etc. We always come home with something we didn't expect!

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  12. Hi Shammy! This is in re your question on Ocala as to where are all the people. In this case, people come and go. Some days the model home part is fairly busy, other times not so much. When people come to Trilogy, they are routed to the Tack House which is near the entrance. There they are given materials and information and hooked up with a salesperson if that's there desire.

    The salesperson takes them in a golf cart or mini-van to look over the property. He or she may stop at some of the house under construction or "spec" houses already built. Then at some point, they'll stop at the model home park so folks can see the various models and options.

    The house we bought had no "model" home but was a spec home meaning it had been completed and completely updated with all the upgrades available. As you probably know, the basis houses are very basic. The old joke is "What, you want a toilet, too?" So most people put in money above the basic price in order to get what they want.

    Whatever, they're doing, the houses are selling and some buyers are from Ontario!

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