Granny's Easter Eggs

When I was a little girl, I was amazed at my grandma's Easter eggs.  Their colors were so rich and vibrant that they almost looked painted.  Deep red, yellow, blue, and green, they were so unlike the eggs my sisters and I dyed each year.  Ours were pale, mottled things with our names scribbled in wax crayon on the shells, experimental drips of colors bleeding into each other as we tried in vain to make rainbow and tye-dyed eggs.  Don't get me wrong.  We had a lot of fun, each of us with our own dozen to do with as we pleased, but they never ended up looking like we imagined.

One year when I was a bit older, I asked Granny how she got her eggs to look so pretty.  She used plain old food coloring, she said, and let the eggs sit in the dye for 10 or 15 minutes at a time.  Ten or fifteen minutes?  My young brain couldn't imagine waiting that long!  Plus, with 36 eggs to dye, my sisters and I would be at it all day.  It would never happen.

When my own kids came along, they created the same eggs I did when I was little.  Who can wait 10 or 15 minutes for color when you are 6 years old and anxious to create the next beautiful egg?  Even when they got to be teenagers, they still enjoyed writing their names on the shells in that wax crayon and making two-toned eggs or double-dipped eggs.  We tried all of the Paas options over the years:  traditional, jewel tone, tye dye, sparkle, stickers.  Occasionally, we'd let the last 6 eggs sit in the dye for longer while we cleaned up the mess, and sometimes we got that deep color, but the Paas dye was not the same shade as Granny's food color eggs.

Last night, it was time to color our eggs.  Kyle and Claire are not around to help, and Emily was going out on a date and said for me to go ahead and do it.  It was a lonesome feeling dying eggs by myself.  I don't even eat them, but I felt like we had to at least have a dozen in the spirit of Easter.  I had not purchased a box of Paas dye yet, so I decided to do it my grandma's way with food coloring.  I also decided to let the eggs soak.

I thought about her working alone in her kitchen, getting ready to have the family over for Easter Sunday, while the eggs took on color in coffee mugs on her formica table.  I imagined her taking them out of the dye, wiping them down, and putting them back in the egg carton until Easter dinner.  I could see  them sitting in the bowl on the table amidst the ham sandwiches, potato salad, macaroni salad, deviled eggs, potato chips, and those green coconut topped cupcakes with the three little jelly beans in the center like colored eggs in grass. I thought about my aunts and uncles and cousins crowding in that tiny house enjoying a meal and each other.  It made me smile to remember all of us together.

So while my kids weren't with me to dye eggs for the first time in 23 years, I was still with family in my heart, and I made Granny's eggs just like she used to.

Recipes That Feed the Soul

When I moved away to Texas nearly 30 years ago, I asked my mom to write down her recipes for my favorite foods.  I wanted to be able to make her apple pie and lasagne and summer salad and potato soup and so many other dishes that she so effortlessly put on our table.  Mom was an excellent cook, and I aspired to be like her one day.  I made a list of recipes I wanted, and at some point, Mom copied them down for me.  I can imagine her sitting at the kitchen table, surrounded by her cookbooks and recipe cards, carefully writing down the ingredients for her best meals. She made sure to put the name of the recipe, her name, how many it served and often put a smiley face at the end or wrote "Good luck!" after.  She enclosed each card in a plastic sleeve to keep the recipe free from splashes.  When she was finished, I had about 20 of my favorite recipes in a small plastic box ready for my trip to adulthood.

I referred to those recipes often.  We didn't have the internet to look up new ways of preparing pasta or chicken, so it was either those little note cards or one of the two cookbooks she got me: Where's Mom Now That I Need Her? or the tried and true Betty Crocker's Cookbook.

As I ventured out into life, I would come across delicious dishes at company cookouts or officers' wives' potlucks.  I'd often ask for the recipe for those foods and added the cards to my box.

While stationed in Texas, the parting gift when a woman left 1/8 CAV with her husband was a wooden recipe box with Texas bluebonnets painted on the front, and each officer's wife would add her favorite recipe to the box.  By the time I left, the commanding officer was single, and the tradition had floundered.  I did get the bluebonnet recipe box but no recipes from the other women.  Didn't matter.  I had my favorites ready to go inside when I got it home.  I have added to that box over the years, and it now contains all of my favorite foods written by hand by the women I've loved.

Of course, there are Mom's recipes, added to over the years, when I called her for how to make party mix or spaghetti sauce or a particular cheese ball.  She'd write down the ingredients and the steps and put it in the mail the next day.  I have Aunt Jeri's butter mints recipe.  (How many showers did I help roll those out for?  I can still remember pressing them down with a fork and hoping they didn't break in the process...)  Amy McDonald's sugar cookie recipe.  Hands down,  The.  Best.  Ever.  Julie Dalton's Swiss Pie that became Jack Pie by accident and a family favorite.  Cheryl Hahn's banana bread that I always use when my bananas get over ripe.  Betty Weber's sweet potato casserole, a staple at Thanksgiving...The best of so many women is in this little box.

With today's technology, it's so easy to pop open the laptop and google how to make anything.  There are always pictures, videos, and reviews for each amazing option.  I even have a folder on my computer with my favorite recipes, and I add to it all the time, but it's not the same.

Some of the recipes in my box were written nearly 30 years ago.  Mom's been gone almost 14 years, and I haven't seen Julie or Cheryl or Amy in 25 years, but  I can put a face with the handwriting on the card and remember when those dishes fed me body and soul.  Sure I can find anything I want to cook on the internet, but there's nothing like opening up my bluebonnet recipe box and thumbing through all of the cards inside, seeing the handwriting of the women who've filled my life with good food and good friendship and making those dishes and thinking of them.