Once a month, lunch at Our Daily Bread soup kitchen begins a day early and a world away, in the basement kitchen of St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church on South Ponca Street.

More Greek than English is spoken as five women bustle about, wearing aprons frayed by years and crosses polished to look new. They clean, dress and bake 160 pounds of chicken. Ninety minutes later, trays of golden-brown leg quarters are packed in foil, and two huge vats of rice are steamed with butter and broth.

For 14 years, the women of the St. Nicholas Philoptochos Society -- translated as "friends of the poor -- have gathered in this kitchen to make a home-cooked meal for hundreds of poor strangers.

"It's for the church," said Stephanie Tahinos, 73, who came here from Greece in 1955 and has been helping to prepare the chicken for more than 10 years. "I like to help people. I like to help my group."

The St. Nicholas group is one of many churches, synagogues and volunteer organizations that help fill the plates at Our Daily Bread, a Catholic Charities agency that has been feeding lunch to up to 900 people a day downtown for the last 21 years.

Most make casseroles, though Holy Trinity Church in Glen Burnie has been making chicken for the soup kitchen since Our Daily Bread opened.

"It's wonderful," Jacki Coyle, director of Our Daily Bread, said of the chicken. "It's a nice variety in terms of the menu."

At St. Nicholas, the chicken -- dipped in evaporated milk, covered in breadcrumbs and baked until golden -- infuses the gift with a taste of the givers' homeland. Most of the women came here from Greece in the last half-century, and see their work as a way to give back to their adopted country.

Members of the St. Nicholas congregation donate toward the meals in celebration or in memory of family members. The 80-member society makes up the difference.

The women are used to this kitchen. They cook here for funerals and festivals, putting together moussaka, baklava and pasticcio with practiced hands.

"The cooking is the essence of the church community," said Helen Johns, a St. Nicholas parishioner and Greektown activist. "It binds us together."

Here, over the years, the women have celebrated successes and mourned losses. Tahinos buried her mother about a week ago. On Tuesday, she was back at St. Nicholas, expertly trimming the fat from dozens of chicken legs at the appointed hour.

"I can't stay home and cry all day," she said.

Athina Neofitou, 69, who has helped cook for a decade, lost her husband a year ago, and her children have moved away. The short walk from her home to the church makes her feel connected.

"I don't have anybody at home," she said. "I want to work in here."

Some, like Tahinos, have never tasted their handiwork for the soup kitchen. They rely on others -- such as the Rev. Manuel Burdusi, the St. Nicholas priest who always gets a plate on preparation Tuesday -- to tell them how good it is.

At Our Daily Bread recently, regulars enjoyed the meal. "This is good," said Kim Wheeler, a 41-year-old self-employed TV and VCR repairman . "I can tell it's been cooked right. It's different from the other meals they have down here. I'm thankful for it."

Traina Davis, 33, brings her four children to the soup kitchen almost every day "All of it's the same to us, because it's all good to eat," she said.

Large as it is, the women's gift can't always feed all the hungry mouths at the soup kitchen.

The line at Our Daily Bread swells at the end of the month, as checks run out and cupboards go bare. Coyle had her staff break the pieces in half, but they would serve only about 600 of the day's 850 guests.

So Coyle served the chicken with large helpings of spaghetti, baked ziti and salad. She said she would save the steamed rice for another day.