In celebration of Orthodox Easter, a Greek feast

Bette Novicki's homemade spanakopita. (Globe Photo / Zara Tzanev)

DEDHAM - Bette Novicki wants to make one thing clear. The rich array of traditional dishes she prepares for Orthodox Easter, which falls on Sunday this year, does not represent the usual offerings on the Greek table. "Greeks don't eat this way every day," she says as she cuts into a sumptuous, butter-laden spanakopita, a spinach pie with a flaky fillo dough crust. Novicki, who, despite her name, is Greek through and through, does a lot of cooking and entertaining. When her three children were growing up, she made dinner every night. But that fare was simpler, leaner, and lighter, heavy on vegetables and Mediterranean staples.

Come the holiday, though, she pulls out all the stops. On a recent Saturday, in the kitchen of the home she's lived in since her late husband built it 48 years ago, Novicki and her friend Simone Dodge offer a preview of the feast that will be served on Sunday to Novicki's children, grandchildren, and friends. There's avgolemono, the famous egg-lemon soup that Novicki has updated by using orzo in place of rice, for a smoother texture; pastitsio, a layered casserole of long, tubular Greek macaroni, sauteed ground beef, and a rich bechamel sauce; the spanakopita, resplendent in its golden crust; a salad of cucumbers and tomatoes; and sweets, including galaktoboureko, a semolina custard; and kourambiethes, melt-in-your-mouth shortbread rounds dusted with confectioners' sugar.

Strange to say, Novicki, who will turn 70 next month, didn't learn to make these dishes from the women in her family. Her mother died when Novicki was five days old, and she was largely raised by an English nanny. Her father, born in a village near Sparta, ran a restaurant on Tremont Street; his mother, she says, had a reputation as a cook ("When my grandmother cooked, people came from miles around"), but Novicki never really knew her. From her father she learned independence and stoicism. "If you said you were cold, he'd say, 'Spartan women don't get cold!' " recalls Novicki. He could cook, she says, but it was family friend Tessie Davis who really taught the young Novicki her way around the kitchen.

On this day, Novicki and Dodge coordinate the pouring of the hot broth into the egg-and-lemon-juice mixture to make the tangy soup - "the key is to pour it slowly, delicately, so it doesn't curdle" - and carefully pull from the oven the handsome spinach pie and pastitsio.

For the pie, Novicki layers sheets of fillo dough in a large Pyrex baking dish; although some cooks are hesitant to use the notoriously finicky dough, Novicki says it really isn't tricky, as long as you work fast so the sheets don't dry out and become brittle. You can ignore small tears in the dough, she says; building up multiple layers can hide a multitude of little mistakes. The sheets of dough she uses are larger than the pan, but she just tucks in the excess to build a sort of reinforced edge to the pie, which keeps it all in place.

She uses fresh spinach, never frozen, and a critical factor is to make sure that the spinach is rinsed and thoroughly dry before it goes into the fillo. Any moisture might result in a soggy pie; she whirls the wet leaves in a salad spinner, then pats them with paper towels to remove any remaining dampness. The washed, torn greens are combined with beaten eggs, seasonings, and crumbled feta - usually Greek feta, but today she's used a French feta, slightly more delicate in flavor and texture.

In the dining room, where the feast is set out, a sideboard holds a bowl of the traditional red-dyed eggs and on the table there's a decorative Easter bread also studded with eggs. Dodge and Novicki recount the traditional holiday greeting: "Christos anesti" ("Christ is risen"), answered by "Alithos anesti" ("Truly, he is risen").

"I used to tell my children, 'You're so lucky you're Greek,' " says Novicki, cutting squares of spinach pie. Being Greek means cherished traditions, family dinners, and, come Easter, a feast to mark the joyous day.