Pondering the Easter menu

“So, what are you doing for Easter?” my mom asked me today as we were catching up over the phone.

“Nothing. We’re going to church, and then after that, nothing,” I said. “And that’s just fine by me.”

“Us, too,” she said of my father and herself. “Maybe we’ll go out to eat.”

“Not me,” I said. “The crowds are more than I can take on Easter.”

“Oh. Well, I like the buffet at the Pine Cove,” she said.

“Yuck, I hate buffets,” I said. To be fair, the Pine Cove supper club is among the best options for dining out in my hometown (the reception for my first wedding was held there, among the deer-in-the-woods murals and gold lantern lighting), but then it’s competing with Hardee’s.

“Good buffet” is an oxymoron in my mind. Buffets are like casinos — the house always wins. So the promise of “all you can eat” is fulfilled with the cheapest volume possible, usually white in hue. Lots of salt, pasta, bread, potatoes, sugar and chicken fill the sloppy trays at a rousing buffet.

When you’re 16 and bottomless, a buffet is appealing. But when every calorie counts in perimenopause, you’re loathe to waste them on glop flavored with low-common-denominator spices.

I wouldn’t eat at an Old Country Buffet anymore if it were the last restaurant on earth. But you can bet there’d be a line!

So I won’t be enjoying a buffet on Easter Sunday, but I won’t be eating ham either (at least ham isn’t white). If my mother likes a good buffet, my mother-in-law could eat ham three times a day (ham-and-cheese omelet for breakfast, ham salad for lunch, ham sandwich or ham and scalloped potatoes for supper), but I don’t need ham for Easter any more than I need an Easter egg hunt.

So what’s it going to be on Easter? No buffet chicken? No ham? No hard-boiled eggs?

Reece’s Peanut Butter Eggs, anyone?

What’s on your Sunday menu this year?

Best abide the ‘no smoking’ sign

Here’s how we color Easter eggs at Minnesota Transplant’s house:

We smoke ‘em! Practically to dust! We have none of those namby-pamby pastel colors around here! We go for aged burnt brown!

OK, I am pulling your (chicken) leg here. We acquired a new smoker, and we experimented with smoking eggs in the shell. Smoked eggs, thought we. Wouldn’t those taste divine in potato salad? An egg salad sandwich perhaps?

The result was, shall we say, less than optimal.

Well, you said you wanted HARD boiled.

Those “whites” there were a bit chewy.

Like true scientists attempting to prove a theory, we tried again. This time, a little less heat and a lot less time. And appropriately, we smoked our eggs while smoking a chicken, grilled our favorite way: With a beer up its butt.

Which came first? The chicken or the egg?

The chicken turned out great. But the eggs? Well, the whites were still white and I was able to peel them normally. So I whipped up a batch of egg salad to see if we could taste the smoke.

The verdict?

Stick with boiling your eggs. If you want smoke flavor, add some barbecue sauce to your chicken salad.

To my readers who will celebrate this week, happy Easter!

A holiday for vacuous hypocrites

Well, it’s St. Patrick’s Day, and if you’re observing it properly in Chicagoland, you better be toasting with a foamy green beer and a plate of corned beef.

I myself am observing it by eating pad Thai.

Huh?

As with all secular observances of religious holidays, the celebration has almost no connection to the original purpose.

Beyond his first name, what do most people know of this patron saint?

Well, for one thing, he wasn’t Irish. He was born in England and brought by pirates to Ireland as a slave. He eventually escaped, found God and returned to Ireland as a missionary. We wear green and look up recipes on how to make soda bread on the anniversary of his death on March 17.

Most of us wouldn’t know even his first name without the green beer. Kwanzaa would be a more popular cultural holiday if we dyed the Chicago River the color of African fruit party punch, and we might all observe Chinese New Year if the Chinese Zodiac included corned beef instead of Rat and Monkey. All we Americans need to twist the meaning of a solemn holiday is liquor, a three-day weekend and fireworks (see: Independence Day).

When we should be remembering his courage and benevolence, we’re honoring St. Patrick by wearing dorky four-leaf-clover hats and complaining about how gassy cabbage makes us.

How dare I speak ill of a holiday so important to the Irish? I’m 12.5% Scotch-Irish, which I believe makes me 12.5% Irish and 0% Catholic. If I had that much Native American blood, I’d be living well on casino profits. If you’re observing a holy day of obligation in honor of St. Patrick, please forgive me.

We’re such lemmings. The Big Marketing Machine latches onto anything green (or lucky) to sell stuff in March because they can’t pin down Easter’s moving date. Because newspapers/magazines/bars/TV newscasters need a hook to get our attention, we start celebrating a holiday that means nothing to us because it’s an excuse to get drunk.

If you like corned beef, you can eat it any day of the year. And if you like green beer, you should examine your excuses for imbibing at 10 a.m. You may have a problem that can only be solved with a 12-step program.

As for me, I’m wearing sweatpants (gray), drinking the national beverage of Brazil (coffee) and eating leftovers (rhubarb crisp) today. Happy Irrelevant Secular Holiday to you, too.

[Note to St. Patrick: Thank you for inspiring today's blog post. Rest your eternal soul.]

Happy heart day

I ran across this nugget today in an old issue of AARP The Magazine (not my subscription, for the record!). Under the category “What’s New” (new? really?) appeared the headline “More Sex = Longer Life”:

So says Margaret Pressler, author of “Cheat the Clock: New Science to Help You Look and Feel Younger.” We asked for her top tip (and forbade her from saying “diet” or “exercise”). Why does sack time extend your lifetime? Emotional connections make us feel young — and sex helps forge those connections. Cuddling and holding hands work, too: They release hormones that made you happy.

My liquor bottles have always suggested “drink responsibly,” but I noticed today my salt container admonished, “Be informed. Salt responsibly.” So, responsibility being the theme, consider yourself informed by this news about a longer life and celebrate responsibly. Happy Valentine’s Day!

Happy Fat Tuesday!

King Cake

We were fortunate enough to be invited to celebrate Fat Tuesday at a new friend’s house, and she threw a traditional bash complete with muffaletta sandwiches and King Cake.

Traditionally, King Cake has a small plastic baby inside (some say it represents the baby Jesus), and the person who gets the piece of cake with the trinket has various privileges and obligations. According to the guests at the party we attended, whoever gets the baby hosts next year’s Fat Tuesday party.

Only we didn’t find any babies in this year’s cake. (I was grateful — the last thing I need right now is a baby!).

Here’s to this last day before Lent!

 

Resolutions I wish other people would make

The world would be a lot better place if only, well, if only beauty queens worked as hard for world peace as they profess to want it.

That’s the problem with resolutions. They require hard work. If only hard work were as easy as wishing.

If only.

As a perennial resolutions junkie who sometimes actually accomplishes what she resolves (how long did it take to “write a book”? five years? I accomplished that one this year), I’d like to see the rest of the world take up a few of my “if only” wishes.

While I ponder my own list of resolutions to lose weight, sleep more and work for world peace, here’s a list of resolutions I wish other people would make:

I resolve to stay out of the left lane. This one is for Wisconsin residents in particular. My Beloved hates it when slow drivers hog up the left lane driving 1 mile over the speed limit, and I hate listening to him nurse road rage.

I resolve to alert the authorities when I use the last of the toilet paper. Only a selfish cretin uses the last of the TP in the Kum & Go and then slips quietly away. Really?

I resolve to quit soaking Illinois taxpayers for outrageous public pensions. If you don’t live in Illinois and all you hear about is the federal fiscal cliff, you might not know how close to the edge of apocalypse the Illinois budget teeters. Here’s how it works: Public employees — especially those who work for certain municipalities and the state in Illinois — can retire after 20 years and then collect 80% of their salary in the form of a pension. People work until they’re, say, 48, retire to take not a vacation in the tropics but a new job, sometimes consulting for a service provider to the state, and Illinois taxpayers are stuck paying the bill. I’d have a lot fewer headaches at tax time if those perfectly healthy and capable former public employees between the ages of 40 and 65 simply donate their pensions back to the state until they really retire. I don’t care if you think you “earned it.” I earned a retirement once, too, and I lost the whole kit and caboodle when the company went bankrupt. It sucks but you’ll live to blog about it. I did.

I resolve to try topping my oatmeal with an egg, fried over easy. I think this must be the perfect marriage of breakfast foods, this concoction of high-fiber oatmeal with high-protein egg. I enjoy a runny yolk melting into my hash browns, but I just can’t stomach the egg-oatmeal combo. So someone else should.

I resolve to turn off the TV whenever I see Honey Boo Boo, the evening news or Matt Lauer mooing over the latest news of the royals jubileeing the queen, prancing around naked or toasting the next heir to the throne incubating in Kate’s innards. None of this information will make or break your day, and it only prevents the media from creating better programming to distract me from Facebook and O Magazine.

I resolve not to play games that bombard my friends to donate pounds of cheese to Chefville or piles of chips to Bonanza Poker. It’s irritating. It’s a ploy Facebook uses to dumb down my News Feed. Take your games elsewhere.

I resolve not to name my baby Xtina, Psy or Siri. That’s the best you can do? Your child is the once-in-the-world unique product of you and the mate with whom you chose to copulate, and you’re going to choose a pop culture reference as his or her lifetime brand? Jessica, Justin and Jennifer are acceptable, but only marginally. Now, if you’re thinking of naming your son Tiberius Napoleon, which I seriously considered when I never seriously considering procreating, you’re off the hook. That’s inspired.

I resolve never to clip my toenails or have sex in hotels. Ever. This will make my hotel experience after your stay infinitely better.

If only.

Christmas decorations

The Christmas cactus in bloom is better than any bedecked pine tree. And perfect timing, too.

‘Guilt Trip’ features a nice little story but not blockbuster laughs

The trailer for “The Guilt Trip” makes the movie look like a laugh riot along the lines of “Meet the Fockers” but it’s more like “Sideways” in that there’s a certain tenderness to it.

My Beloved, my Adored stepson and I took in “The Guilt Trip,” and I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who enjoyed it. It’s not written for 18-year-olds or for guys.

If you can get past the bait-and-switch trailer, you’ll find a little mystery wrapped in a Oedipal story. No Greek tragedy.here, but you’ll find a Texan who likes woman who like steak (surprise!) and an organic cleaner good enough to drink.

Though I can’t recommend spending two hours of your holiday with this movie even though it stars Seth Rogan and Barbra Streisand, I appreciated the storytelling and the symbolism. Streisand’s character, who is somewhat obnoxious but ultimately lovable, collects frog knick-knacks. Frogs symbolize taking a leap, which she learns to do over the course of a road trip with her son, played by Rogan.

Perhaps the best laughs come during the credits. They’re worth staying for.

Another bonus: I saw the trailer for “StarTrek: Into Darkness.” Far a “Star Trek” fan? Worth the price of admission.

Jolly ol’ elf brightens Christmas countdown

Part of the joy of Christmas is the waiting. It’s the time at night when a pile of wrapped gifts sits under a sparkly Christmas tree. It’s the stolen taste of cookie dough before the cookies are baked. And it’s the writing of the letter to Santa as much as it’s his momentous visit on Christmas Eve.

I got to relive one of those moments this morning when I arrived for breakfast at the hotel where we stayed last night to avoid driving through the snowstorm that hit Madison, Wis., yesterday. There, sitting at one of the breakfast tables was an old man with a white beard and a twinkle in his eye. He was wearing green knickers and red suspenders.

See, Santa has to fuel up for a long day of hearing Christmas wishes, and he chose our breakfast venue.

I felt like I did when I ran into Emeril Lagasse in the hotel hallway earlier this year — like I was in the presence of celebrity.

This time, I had the courage to ask for a photo (no, a woman who’s taller than Santa doesn’t ask to sit on his lap).

Getting a picture of Santa felt a little like getting a photo of Bigfoot. “See! Proof he exists!”

He laughed “ho, ho, ho” as he walked out of the dining room.

What a gift.

Angels among us

In church sanctuaries across the nation this afternoon, children gathered to retell the Christmas story. Their adorable recitations and merry music concluded, no doubt, with “Silent Night” or possibly “Go Tell It On the Mountain.”

It’s one of those traditions some parents might dread, but as a woman who never had a toddler of her own, I cherish those occasional shows I’m blessed to attend. I enjoyed seeing my 4-year-old nephew don the gear of a shepherd and my 9-year-old nephew wear an angel’s glittery halo as quiet and confident fifth-graders (it’s always the fifth graders) recite Luke’s version of Jesus’ birth story.

But I’m sure I wasn’t the only person in America whose heart filled her throat when the fidgety pre-schoolers sang “Away In A Manager”

Bless all the dear children in thy tender care,

And take them to heaven to live with you there.

I don’t know what sort of faith community Newtown, Conn., is, and I have no idea if those 6- and 7-year-olds who lost their lives on Friday would have had parts in a Christmas program today, but I thought of those children this afternoon as I watched my nephews perform, dressed in their Sunday best, and I said a little wordless prayer.

Let there by peace on earth

And let it begin with me.