Okay, maybe debacle is overstating it for a clickbaity alliterative headline. But.
So the church has been throwing more potlucks of late, which means a couple per year. And I’ve started to notice that some staples of potlucks have started to get a little thin. Not hotdish; we’re a little south for that, and I’ve not seen that much ever. Things like deviled eggs and creamy potato salad. I guess the old German and Polish Lutherans are passing away and taking these delicacies with them. So I guess I have to be the old German lady now.
Our church was having a potluck this spring, and a couple of weeks ahead of it, I bought two dozen eggs to try some recipes. I went to the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook, the one with the red gingham cover for the basics. I’ve hard-cooked eggs in the oven on various Whole 30 months in the past, and I’ve done it to have a quick peel-and-eat meal other times as well, so I loaded up a mini-muffin tray and cooked them. I had boughten several different types of mustards (yellow, Dijon, horseradish) to try out–the recipe size uses six eggs, so I could try three different types of mustard and an alternative recipe which uses creamy Italian dressing and Parmesan cheese.
So I mixed up four different sets of six eggs/12 halves with each formula and sampled them, inviting my family to do the same. I rather favored the Italian deviled eggs–maybe it’s the cheese.
But: I was taken ill that week. The eggs. I thought. I somehow made bad eggs. Maybe they were too old. Maybe I didn’t cook them long enough. Maybe I overloaded them with red pepper. But I could not subject the aging population of the church to this. I could kill someone. (Which is why I have a spoonful or slice of whatever I bring to the potluck–so if anyone gets ill from what I’ve made, I get ill too.)
But: My beautiful wife was also taken ill that week. And she does not like eggs. Or mayonnaise. Or mustard. I think the only parts of the deviled eggs she likes are the vinegar and red pepper (and the Italian dressing and Parmesan, although that’s odd–creamy Italian dressing is almost mustard, but a little thinner I guess). So maybe it wasn’t the eggs.
Church had another potluck last weekend, and I had almost three dozen eggs in the refrigerator (I’ve been rolling through them, hard cooking them mostly, because one day, someday, I swore I would make deviled eggs for the potluck). But I chickened out and went with the standby apple pie, and I cut up a couple of cantaloupes from the garden (which represents the bulk of the harvest at Nogglestead in 2026).
But earlier this week, I hard cooked the oldest of the eggs and deviled them. I was low on mayonnaise (the accursed squeeze bottles let you trade the convenience of the squeeze bottle at the cost of not being able to get the last couple of ounces from within it because the neck is not big enough for a knife), so I mixed in some ranch dressing, and…. they were all right.
So today, I’ve hard-cooked the other two dozen (jumbo, because I hope they’d prove sturdier throughout the bedeviling process). I’ll bedevil a dozen and probably just eat the other as-are.
But, someday, I’ll feel comfortable enough and get good enough to bring some to church. Or I will get really good at them and not want to share.
