There is no good reason to ever pick up an in-flight magazine. In almost two million miles of business flying I have yet to find a single interesting article in one of those publications. Instead I find articles like, “Rochester, City Reborn!” or “Consider Detroit For Your Next Honeymoon.”
But on a recent flight from Seattle I found a recipe for “gourmet deviled eggs” that were served in the shell and eaten with tiny, little demitasse spoons. The recipe was phenomenally complex and the estimated time to make 6 deviled eggs was well over an hour. This did not include the time it took to sprinkle trout roe on top.
After my trip I pulled the recipe out of the magazine, scanned it and emailed it to my older sister because, against her will, she has become the designated deviled-egg maven for family functions. This is an important position because my family takes deviled eggs very seriously and they are present for every family party. This past Easter she made 96 deviled eggs. They lasted barely 20 minutes.
For years Auntie June made the deviled eggs. June prided herself on being a good time gal, a designation that went back to her days as a USO hostess in Cleveland when the hostesses were encouraged to entertain the GIs and show them a good time; June took her responsibilities rather more seriously than most of the other hostesses, if you get my drift, and she was quite popular. Decades after the war June still loved to entertain and devoted her energies to making fun food, like her famous “kitty litter cake” served in a litter box and complete with Tootsie Rolls shaped like turds. Her deviled eggs were equally whimsical, each one decorated with capers or olives so that they looked like eyeballs or, on one notable occasion, nipples. One time she dyed the yolks green and served them with honey baked ham, for a “Green Eggs and Ham” party.
After June passed away, my sister-in-law took on the deviled egg responsibilities. I think her eggs were better than June’s because, since she was always running late, she would make the eggs right before any family party so they were always served warm which really brought out the flavors. We don’t discuss the unfortunate event when they were warm because she forgot them in the trunk of her car for several hours. That was the year we served Imodium for dessert.
After my sister-in-law, tragically, died way too young, we spent several years in the wilderness, deviled-egg wise. Assorted nieces tried to make them with varying degrees of success. One niece made them with Miracle Whip, which makes me gag, and another got carried away with the Tabasco sauce. One year I made them with hard boiled eggs purchased at the grocery store but the whites were like rubber and the yolks were like sponges and the finished product was so vile that I mashed everything up and served egg salad and crackers. And then the baton was passed to my unwilling older sister who makes the eggs but then spends the day bitching about how long it takes her to make them.
That’s why, in a moment of pure malice, I e-mailed her the recipe for the deviled eggs I found in the in-flight magazine. “You think your deviled eggs are time consuming?” I wrote, unwisely suggesting that she give the attached recipe a try. I mentioned that, by my calculations, it would only require 2 or 3 days to make the requisite number of eggs. “What else do you have to do with your time? LOL” I e-mailed, noting that I would supply the tiny, little demitasse spoons.
She responded instantly, a terse little message that told me exactly where I could go to get my deviled eggs and what I could do with my tiny, little demitasse spoons. Stung, I decided to take the high road so I refrained from suggesting that June would have thought it was a great recipe.