Preparing for Easter Dinner

So, after the orchestral rehearsal at the National Shrine this morning (for tonight's Vigil and tomorrow's Solemn Easter Mass), I went shopping for crucial alcohol and cheese provisions for tomorrow's dinner. Ever since one Easter Sunday that Mrs. Ionarts and I spent with her mother in Venice in 1997, Venetian prosecco has been a family tradition with the first course of Easter dinner. One of the reasons we have to live in a city like Washington is that here we are able to buy bottles of prosecco once a year for Easter. (Thank you, Schneider's!) While I was buying alcohol, a half-bottle of Sauternes leapt into my basket, too, to have with dessert. We will have some wine we brought back from a trip to Saint-Emilion for the main course, too. It's not Easter with our family unless you (well, mostly I) get completely toasted.

Then it was down to the best place in Washington for good food, Eastern Market, which was a madhouse. I love to see people buying food, fresh food not supermarket food. It's one of the reasons I love France, and Eastern Market is pretty close to that. There is a good place for meat, another for fish, another for fruit and vegetables. Of course, francophile that I am, I was heading to Bowers Dairy and their cheese counter. Wahoo! Happy Easter, everybody!