Epworth Methodist Church will show its support for war-torn Ukraine with a special feast on Sunday, May 21.
The church is selling tickets for the event – $30 for adults, $15 for children 12 and under – and all sales will go to Ukrainian relief efforts through the humanitarian arm of the worldwide United Methodist Church.
Epworth’s retired pastor, Jere Hopkins-Doerr, is planning the evening and personally cooking a significant portion of the meal. She said the idea came from a desire to support Ukraine locally, though she was initially unsure about how to do that.
“The desire was to kind of find ways to connect both culturally, which is often through food and decorations, as well as to be able to raise money for Ukrainian refugees,” Hopkins-Doerr explained.
The meal menu represents the tradition of a Ukrainian Easter basket filled with food and blessed by a priest. A typical basket contains ham, special sweet bread, decorated eggs, butter, cheese, horseradish and a root vegetable. It is then covered by a special cloth passed down through generations of different families.
The feast’s first course will feature homemade, sweet Ukrainian bread called paska for each table: Ukraine is considered the “breadbasket of Europe,” and bread is an important part of the country’s diet. The decorated eggs are known as pysanka and krashanky.
Attendees can select from a buffet of beet salad, coleslaw with apple and horseradish and cottage cheese with strawberries.
For the main course, there will be ham with horseradish cream; pierogies with a ricotta cheese filling; marinated mushrooms; and Holifh, a noodle and cabbage pudding similar to kugle. There will also be kielbasa, a type of meat sausage that comes from the Port Richmond neighborhood in Philadelphia and is prepared from an original Polish-Ukrainian recipe.
Desserts will include syrnyk, a sweet Easter cheese, and various creations like apple, carrot and whipped cream layer cake.
The meal’s setting in Epworth’s Gathering Place will be decorated with blue and yellow decor, including Ukrainian flags. Pastor Charlie Soper is preparing a Ukrainian-themed playlist, and he will join Hopkins-Doerr for a traditional Ukrainian Orthodox blessing for the year ahead. The ritual includes lighting a candle on the bread; Hopkins-Doerr said she and the pastor will attempt a blessing in English and Ukraine.
The feast will begin at 5 p.m., with attendance capped at 60 people. Tickets available in the church’s office or after worship, or by contacting Hopkins-Doerr at JereLHD@aol.com.
