Red Friday of Easter

So it was Friday _ the Red Friday. I was to go to Kakheti, but till that I had to do some things. Those things were something like cleaning and doing the dishes and stuff. As I could not leave them like that for a couple of days, I mean, who does that?! So, until I did these things some time passed. And I really wanted to take some whipped cream with me in Kakheti and buy there mini tarts forms and make some mini tarts, as it is very easy and delicious at the same time. So I started preparing this cream. Well, I have written about making this cream in another blog, but this time I changed some things and so I will tell you how I made this cream, too.

Preparing whipped cream

Well, to be honest, I don't think it is a whipped cream that I make, but I don't really know what else it can be called, because I have not seen a recipe for this kind of cream in English. First of all, you should decide whether you want this cream to be prepared with milk or with water. I usually prepare it with water, because it is lighter and kind of soft or whatsoever. And when you prepare cream with milk it is really heavy somehow. At some point, everything depends on you, because you can make the cream just the way you want and it can even be lighter or heavier or whatever. You are the master here!

So, I poured 1 litre of water in a saucepan and let it boil. Until it boiled, I prepared some dry mixture with 9 tbs white granulated sugar and 6 tbs all-purpose flour. When the water boiled, I added this dry mixture to the boiling water while stirring and then I mixed them well in the saucepan, too. So I waited something like 30 or 40 minutes for the mixture to become like a porridge while stirring occasionally for the cream not to be burned on the saucepan. When it was in such consistency that I wanted, I turned the heat off and let it cool down. Until that, I had a margarine on a room temperature and I took something like 70 grams of it or 80 and mixed it well in my standing mixer until it was very white and soft. Then I slowly added this cooled down porridge to the margarine while the mixer mixing all the stuff and when it was all mixed I added some vanilla to it. I also added some alcohol, it is a vodka with grapefruit peels in it that I have and it gives the cream a great taste, if you ask me. I also added one small egg to the cream and mixed the whole thing.

Then I thought, whether or not I wanted my cream to be white, and I decided it would be better if it was with cocoa and so I put some cocoa in it too. Well, I put a lot of cocoa in it, if you want to know the truth. And so the cream was ready, I poured it in a container and set it aside for the journey.

On the road

That was pretty much it and I was ready to go to Kakheti. I had all the things packed, my backpack seemed a little heavy with the books and other stuff, but it was okay, so I went out and got going.

The microbuses to Kakheti have a kind of a taxi rank in Samgori and everyone knows that and that is the place where I was headed. So, Samgori is a place where you walk out of metro Samgori and there you are. There is a huge marketplace there, too, where all the products such as tomatoes, cucumbers, cheese, cookies and all the vegetables and fruit and other stuff are sold and there are always many people around.

The microbus to Sagarejo costs 3 Laris and that is not much, I guess, considering the road. It usually needs minimum 30 minutes or 40 minutes to get to your destination. It all depends on the passengers and the driver and the traffic and stuff.

As it was a holiday day and the Red Friday many people were going to their towns and regions and there were many of them wandering through the spaces between those microbuses.

Our microbus left right when I got in and so we were on our way to East Georgia!

The weather was not very hot or something, despite the act that it was the end of April. It was kind of cloudy and was going to rain. And then I remembered that I had some of my washed clothes left outside on ropes, but what could I do?! It would definitely rain some time during those days of me being in Kakheti and I was sorry for my clothes, really. If only I had not forgotten!

Well, the views from the window were amazing, everything was green and there were field flowers and most of them were these small yellow daisies or something like that I guess, because they were not close and all I could see were those green fields with yellow things on them. I even captured some of the landscapes on the road.

As it was rainy outside everything was very green and vivid. I wanted to capture every moment, but the driver just drove faster whenever a great landscape was seen from my window, and I couldn’t just take great pictures, but I took them alright.

Well, when I came there, I got out of the microbus nearby my street and went on walking while looking around. There was this one place where there used to be so many poppies and the whole field was used to be covered with them in spring, so I looked there and, well, there were not so many poppies then at that time that there used to be, but still there were some of them and the field was really pretty with all those red dots between the green grass and stuff like that. I did want to take a picture of it, but I couldn’t and that made me kind of sad, but that was alright. I would just remember it in my mind. So, then I came home. Everything was just fine and my grandparents were waiting for me, too. And my parents were there and, well, I had this holiday feeling all over me.

Painting eggs in red

You know, it was a Red Friday and usually people use to colour eggs in red on that day. They say that’s why they call it the Red Friday. There is some plant and we call it “Endro” in Georgian, people just grow them and then pick them and use them to colour eggs. They use to wash them, as their red stuff is in the ground, I guess, because everytime I have seen them until washing, they are covered with ground, so then they use to cut them into pieces in length and just put them in a saucepan and pour some water and let it boil for about 2 hours (or at least, that’s how my grandmother told my aunt to prepare this colouring mixture).

On average, it needs somewhere between about one and a half and two hours in total, I guess. Then you can have your eggs put in that mixture and boiled. Well, you know, eggs don’t need much time to get cooked, they usually take between 5 to 7 minutes to be boiled hard. And, I guess, that’s how much time they need to be ready. Maybe you will leave them in that saucepan filled with colouring mixture for about 10 minutes or so, I don’t know, but you should definitely not leave them for much time, as then they will just blow, you know what I mean. The shell will just crack and the filling will come out, mostly this white matter that is around the yolk and the egg won’t be nice to look at and no one would like it. And those red eggs should be beautiful, too, right?! So, one should consider that thing, too.

There are other ground stuff, which you can use to colour eggs and stuff like that. They are just easier to do that, of course, than preparing this Endro and all those boiling and stuff, you know. They are sold everywhere during the Easter season and people just buy them. Well, to be honest, I really don’t know whether they are good or not, but considering the amount of people buying them, they must be good. However, my grandmother likes this Endroand usually she has them for eggs colouring and that’s what we use, too. And all the other neughbours and my other grandmother and people that I know. You know, the habits of old people.

When I came home and rested and stuff like that, I saw that there was this Pascha on the table that I didn’t notice it at once when I came into that room. It looked really delicious and I wondered which Pascha it was and who had made it and things like that, you know. And my mother told me, it was my aunt’s prepared Pascha and I was really glad, because she usually prepares great dishes and Paschas, too, and people just die to taste them. And I was not wrong, you know, when I tasted it, it was so delicious, that you would want to eat it all day and that it wouldn’t be gone after eating it. It was soft and not very dry and just delicious. And it was really beautiful, too. However, I just took a small piece of it, as maybe someone in the family wanted to eat it, too. You know, you shouldn’t be that kind of human being who is so selfish that he eats all the dish or cake or whatsoever and don’t think about others and that’s what I don’t like about some people, that they can eat or drink or stuff like that the whole thing, when they can leave some pieces of them for other people, too. Maybe it will be just a small piece, but still, for someone it can mean a lot, because maybe that someone just wants to get a taste of that thing.

Then I went to hang around the house and see the yard and other places, because it had been kind of a long time since I had been there last. And it was spring and everything was blooming and it was just pleasure to hang around and see everything and enjoy that afternoon at home. Besides, my grandfather was working in the garden and so I went there to see what he was doing, and what was in the garden, because every year he seeds some plants and herbs and potatoes and beans and tomatoes and stuff like that and he would just show me around the garden and tell me what was where in case of I needed something in my dishes or whatsoever. Well, he did show me around. He had so many things planted and so many things were already come out of the ground and we could use them. For example, there were these herbs, which are really necessary for dishes and stuff. He also showed me where he had seeded other things and what he was planning to seed next and all the other things that he wanted to do there. Although he is not that young anymore, he just loves working in the garden and you can just not get him out of there and that’s why my grandmother always worries, because he works in the garden for so long, that probably he sometimes forgets, that it’s late or something and it’s time to rest a little. Well, he loves that garden, as I have already mentioned.

Well, the holiday days were not over and then there would be the Saturday, which I was looking forward to, as there would be coming more people and that would be cheerful and stuff and it was going to be great!

Photo gallery