Easter recollection
In my childhood I recall Easter Saturday dedicated to coloring Easter eggs, using those dye kits produced by PAAS since … since forever. My mother would have a series of empty jam jars lined up on the kitchen table, one jar for each of the color tablets supplied with the kit. She also taught me to place a flatware knife blade under each jar as the boiling water was poured in - to keep the glass from cracking.
I’m not sure I was particularly good at making pretty colored eggs, though I’ve always liked the pristine dimensional oval shape in combination with appealing pastel colors. It’s been a couple decades since last I tried to dye Easter eggs. Maybe these days I’d be more interested in taking a class in Pysanky - the remarkable and intricate holiday eggs produced traditionally by the people of the Ukraine. I understand the tradition of resist-dying eggs predates the introduction of Christianity in that part of the world. Originally the eggs were made as tribute to a pagan sun god - and the eggs themselves, traditionally given away to family and friends, were a means of keeping evil at bay in the world.
In recent years I’ve fallen under the spell of another, more contemporary Easter tradition: Peeps! - those marshmallow confections resembling chicks or bunnies. Being drawn to them is ridiculous …but a siren-call in my modern experience. Furthermore, what I do with them is something I learned from no less an authoritative source than National Public Radio. Here’s the deal: place a Peep on a plate; put plate in the microwave; hit the ON button for 15 to 25 seconds; watch the thing inflate …then pull it out and devour the sweet gooey mess. Delicious! (…with taste like that it’s a wonder they allow me into decent restaurants).
Happy Bunny Day, everyone !
p.s. ….we don’t have much in the way of flowers outdoors yet, though buds are beginning to show on trees. But birds are singing; rabbits, squirrels and chipmunks are cavorting … and this evening’s calm is punctuated by the happy horny clatter of “spring peepers”, the minute amphibians in the local drainage ditches eager to get it on with their nearest truelove.
I’m not sure I was particularly good at making pretty colored eggs, though I’ve always liked the pristine dimensional oval shape in combination with appealing pastel colors. It’s been a couple decades since last I tried to dye Easter eggs. Maybe these days I’d be more interested in taking a class in Pysanky - the remarkable and intricate holiday eggs produced traditionally by the people of the Ukraine. I understand the tradition of resist-dying eggs predates the introduction of Christianity in that part of the world. Originally the eggs were made as tribute to a pagan sun god - and the eggs themselves, traditionally given away to family and friends, were a means of keeping evil at bay in the world.
In recent years I’ve fallen under the spell of another, more contemporary Easter tradition: Peeps! - those marshmallow confections resembling chicks or bunnies. Being drawn to them is ridiculous …but a siren-call in my modern experience. Furthermore, what I do with them is something I learned from no less an authoritative source than National Public Radio. Here’s the deal: place a Peep on a plate; put plate in the microwave; hit the ON button for 15 to 25 seconds; watch the thing inflate …then pull it out and devour the sweet gooey mess. Delicious! (…with taste like that it’s a wonder they allow me into decent restaurants).
Happy Bunny Day, everyone !
p.s. ….we don’t have much in the way of flowers outdoors yet, though buds are beginning to show on trees. But birds are singing; rabbits, squirrels and chipmunks are cavorting … and this evening’s calm is punctuated by the happy horny clatter of “spring peepers”, the minute amphibians in the local drainage ditches eager to get it on with their nearest truelove.