Category: spring

It’s The End Of The World: Sugar Snap Pea Spring Cocktail

Stay thirsty. Or don’t. We are all going to die anyway.

One way or another, it’s the apocalypse.

Whether it’s lava in Hawaii, nuclear war with Iran, or civil war here in the good ‘ol U.S.of A, it seems like the end is nigh.

But meanwhile, here in Baltimore, the city is spring blooming with new life that temporarily hides the trash and rats and decay and hopelessness that normally decorates Charm City. For this one week or even possibly this one month before the whispering gloom of humidity descends, Baltimore on the eve of the apocalypse is beautiful.

Either way – hopeful and blooming or despondent and withering under the heat of the certain destruction – you need a [seasonal] drink.

Enter the Sugar Snap Pea Spring Cocktail.

Leave me alone about the name. I’m bad at drink names and blog post titles. It’s about the drink.

Start with a sugar snap pea simple syrup and go from there. My particular friend and I tested it three ways; below are all of them. Seriously? You can’t go wrong with any of them.

Sugar Snap Pea Spring Cocktail

Start with the sugar snap pea simple syrup, then proceed to the variations below. 

Sugar Snap Pea Simple Syrup

1 cup sugar

1 cup water

1 cup rough chopped fresh sugar snap peas

Method

Bring water and sugar to a boil in a heavy saucepan over medium heat. Add snap peas and let boil for one minute. Turn off heat and let cool completely. Use a mesh strainer to remove the sugar snap pea bits.  Keeps in the ‘fridge for a week.

Variations

For all of these, fill a highball glass with ice (we used whole cubes but crushed would be fine). Add ingredients in order and use a barspoon to combine. Squeeze that fruit in the cocktail. It’s not just for decoration. Jeez.

Prettiest of All

1.5 oz. Empress Hotel PURPLE GIN*

1 oz. sugar snap pea simple syrup

Tonic of your choice (we used good old Seagram’s but you could surely get fancy AF with artisanal bullshit if you must. That makes it more about your tonic water than the syrup, but hey. That’s on you.)

Lemon wedge

Prettiest of All, Variation

1.5 oz Empress Hotel PURPLE GIN*

1 oz. sugar snap pea simple syrup

Lemon seltzer

Lemon wedge

Most Sugar Snap Pea Flavor (my personal favorite, even though it’s not the prettiest)

2 oz. Tito’s vodka

1.5 oz. sugar snap pea simple syrup

Lemon seltzer

*Be very, very jealous that you do not have a good artist friend in Vancouver, Corey Hardeman, who is not only incredibly talented but is also incredibly generous and thoughtful and who sends you beautiful paintings of grumpy owls and paint-thumbprinted bottles of purple gin that just are not available anywhere else so you can drink elegant and beautiful cocktails whenever you like.

Life Doesn’t Stand Up To Thinking: Roasted Beet Dip With Feta And Aleppo Pepper Crackers

“Life doesn’t stand up to thinking. Smell the air out there; there are wonders.”

Are You Here with Owen Wilson and Zach Galifianakis is an unexpectedly serious movie that tricked me into thinking it would be a light-hearted bromance when really it was a meditation on the uselessness of life.

Welcome to blog, first-time readers. #KeepComingBack

Galifianakis’s character is a bipolar paranoid schizophrenic who inherits everything after his father’s death but is too crazy to know what to do with it. When a troubled Amish boy who hears voices from God tells Galifianakis that God wants him to take his medicine, Galifianakis does. He realizes, quickly, that life is filled with no purpose and is pointless. His stepmother consoles him:

“Life doesn’t stand up to thinking. Smell the air out there; there are wonders.”

And that’s just how things go, right? There is really no point. Anyone who says they have figured out life isn’t thinking too hard. Mostly they are going along with what everyone else is doing and are reasonably satisfied with their life and just sort of sink into the idea that their life is what The Purpose of Life is.

Except that’s kind of bullshit.

There is no purpose. There are diversions, to be sure, and good things to get into, just like there are tragedies and overwhelming sadness and horrible people in the world.

There is no point. Life doesn’t just stand up to thinking.

If you can get from birth to death without hurting people on purpose while also voting every two years (and in special elections) and loving some people real good and maybe making something beautiful once or twice, then that’s pretty much it.

But still, this gives you no license to waste it. When the biology of schizophrenia begins to clear, Galifianakis says of his approach to life, “I wasted so much. I gobbled it all down without tasting it.”

It’s hard to know what “wasting” your life means, really. If you choose to not pursue money or status too lustily and to instead count the grains of sand on a beach or write or paint or work temp jobs or travel your whole life, many in the U.S. would call that “wasting your life.”

Add to the list of life-wasting things (at least in the culture of the U.S.):

  • Not going to college
  • Not having children
  • Not paying into retirement
  • Not buying a house
  • Not having a “career”
  • Not donating money or volunteering regularly

I am sure you can add some of your own. Anything that doesn’t fit the mold is often considered by someone as a “wasted” life. But consider, as one always should, Mary Oliver:

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean–
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down —
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?

~The Summer Day~’

Indeed. Everything dies at last, and too soon.

Everything, from the bees to the flowers to the humans, will wilt, wither, and die in the sunshine or the snow. We are all of us just passing through.

This is, to me, a horribly debilitating and incredibly liberating understanding, all at once. We only get the one life that we know of, so there’s a ton of pressure to NOT FUCK IT UP.

But what the hell does that mean? And truly, who is keeping score? Who is the person who gets to tell us we are fucking it all up?

So there’s this idea, the liberated side of the Pointlessness of Life: do what you like.

Seriously.

Of course, not to the exclusion of caring for the children you foolishly brought into the world or hurting other people or otherwise being a douche.

But otherwise, why the hell not? Why not do what you like? You can’t take anything with you – even the memory of you will fade.

Spoiler alert: NO ONE WILL REMEMBER YOU, EVENTUALLY. And really? That’s just fine. Whatever mark we think we make will be erased in the unrelenting pressure of geologic time.

Life doesn’t stand up to thinking or reason, so just get out into the world and see what there is to see. And actually spend some time paying attention. It’s not about ticking boxes off a bucket list. It’s more about being present wherever you happen to be, placing yourself in the way of beauty and discovering what it feels like to experience awe.

Give it a shot. What the hell. We are all on our way out anyway.

You will, of course, need snacks.

This summer I am committed to the idea of what Sicily refers to as a “French Nibbler.” (TM) I have no idea where this name came from but it’s hilarious so I am using it and since this blog is in no way monetized and I have just given her credit I think we are all okay.

French Nibblers consist of finger-foodish things for dinner, set out on an appropriately beautiful, bespoke, foraged wooden board with period-authentic utensils for spreads and such.

That’s the Instagram bullshit. I am thinking more along the lines of whatever comes in the CSA, some homemade crackers, a few dips, some cured meats for the carnivores, and a couple cheeses. Serve with canned wine from Old Westminster Winery and snack on dinner as the sun goes down. Nothing to clean up, really, and no need to turn on the stove. You could pack all of it up and take it on a picnic, too. Something simple that doesn’t really require a ton of thought and satisfies all different types of people.

As with life, don’t gobble this down without tasting it.

Roasted Beet Dip With Feta And Aleppo Pepper Crackers

This recipe is the first of a series of dips. Adding this luscious, earthy, subtle, and complex spread to any French Nibbler gets you a double-plus Life Bonus. #SpendYourPointsWisely

Beet Dip Ingredients

4 beets (about the size of baseballs)

Pickling liquid: 1 cup water, 2/3 cup sugar, 1/3 cup vinegar

Peppercorns, a smattering (that’s a measurement)

4-6 sprigs thyme

2 whole cloves garlic, smashed to peel and left that way

1/2 cup toasted pecans

Cracked black pepper

4 ounces Feta cheese (plus more for serving)

2 tsp. champagne vinegar

Olive oil, good quality (Don’t. Skimp.)

Salt

Aleppo Pepper Crackers Ingredients

Everyday Crackers

ADD-INS: 1 tsp Aleppo pepper, 2 tsp sumac

Method

Okay, I lied. You do need to turn the oven on and use the stove, but just once. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Place two beets (washed but unpeeled), two smashed garlic cloves, and one sprig of thyme in aluminum foil. Drizzle with olive oil. Loosely close foil and place on baking sheet. Roast in oven until a fork easily pierces the beets (about 60 minutes). Remove from oven and cool.

Toast pecans using the residual heat from the oven. Place pecans on a baking sheet and place in hot, turned off oven. Check periodically and remove when they taste delicious (this time will vary, but it’s not rocket science. If they taste good, they are done).

While beets are roasting, peel remaining two beets and cut into matchsticks.

For god’s sake, use gloves. #YouWereWarned

Pack beets, peppercorns, and one sprig of thyme into a Mason jar.

In a saucepan over medium heat, bring pickling liquid ingredients to a boil. Pour over beets and let beets cool on the counter. Refrigerate.

Once roasted beets are cool, use a paper towel to rub the skin off the beet. Give up after a while and use a paring knife to peel the rest of the skin off. Cut into large chunks and place into a food processor. Add one (or both) cloves of roasted garlic, roasted pecans, 1 teaspoon of fresh thyme, 4 ounces of feta, and champagne vinegar. Process until smooth-ish. Add some best-quality olive oil to help it along. It need not be baby-food smooth.

Add salt and fresh cracked black pepper to taste, and adjust to your taste. Beets are not all the same, so they may need more or less sweetness or acid, a pinch or two more or less salt.

Remember your quick-pickled beets? Grab a handful of those and chop them roughly. Stir into your beet dip and also serve on the side. Top with more feta and maybe some chopped pecans if you have any left.

Make a batch of Everyday Crackers, using the Aleppo pepper and sumac as add-ins, or just buy some damn crackers. It’s not a contest. You will be fine.

Recipe notes

  • Substitutions: yellow beets or carrots even would work here. Rough carrots may benefit from the addition of honey.
  • You will be able to taste the olive oil, so really, use the best you can find/afford/have in your cabinet.
  • Whip up a batch of Toasted Cashew Hummus and be done with it (and really, the hero to all of your friends or whoever is joining you for dinner).
  • Use your leftover pickled beets as part of the French Nibbler or drape over burgers with goat cheese or in salads with chickpeas.

Tell me: what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

 

Striding Into The World: Grilled Asparagus With Sweet Fire Pickle Gribiche

Flying the friendly skies. TL:DR – check out the recipe video all the way at the bottom of this post.

It is my thing, I suppose, that I find silver cutlery in Baltimore. I have found ridiculous amounts of silverware in this city, for no apparent reason. I have asked around, and it’s fairly uncommon to find dining utensils that aren’t plastic lying about, and yet here I am with a drawer full of spoons, forks, and knives, some monogrammed, some heavy and high quality, and some the type of utensils you bring when you brown bag your lunch and don’t really care if someone in the office steals your fork.

A day before we left Amsterdam to return to the States, I realized that I had not found a fork or spoon or knife while visiting and started keeping my eyes out. Mind, in Baltimore, I don’t really have to look. They just appear. But I thought it might be swell to have a Dutch fork or some such.

No such luck. The closest I got was a neon green plastic spork resting, forlorn, in the middle of the bike lane.

But on my first trip out of the house on Sunday back home in Baltimore, on a jet-lagged walk up the street for late lunch, I looked down and found a fork.

If I were the sort of person who believed in signs (spoiler alert: I am, at least a little bit), I would be wondering what the hell it means that I have only in my entire life found silverware in Baltimore, and lots of it.

That the cutlery comes without me even looking.

That no one else I know has found silverware on the street.

That when I am thinking unrelated thoughts, like whether or not I should start cooking for people or if maybe I should move to Amsterdam, a fork or spoon pops up in my path in my city.

Or maybe it’s just how I walk through the world. In Baltimore, for better or for worse, I keep my head down or fixed on a point a few feet in front of me. It makes sense that my gaze would sweep up whatever is in my path.

In Amsterdam, I rarely looked down. Not only was the city itself beautiful when you look around (unlike Baltimore, if I am being honest, which I always try to be) but it was also challenging to not get run over by a bicycle.  There is no room for a downcast gaze.

But it’s more than that, I think, this notion of how a body walks through the world. My particular friend and I have had recent conflict about taking up space. He feels, rightly so, that there are many, many pushy assholes (my words but his meaning) walking about, and he does not want to be numbered among their ranks. He feels especially keenly the white maleness of himself and would rather disappear or defer than add to the pain and suffering that those of his ilk (white males) have inflicted upon pretty much everyone in the world.

I hear this. It’s one of the reasons I love him.

But then there is this: everyone has a right to space in this world. There is a way to claim your own space without infringing on the rights and space of others. Hiding our light under a bushel makes the world just a little bit darker. Not claiming our own space doesn’t make it any easier for others to claim their own. Indeed, if we can just step into the light of our own selves it somehow makes it easier to help others find their own. How? I don’t know. By example? By knowing what it feels like to feel fully your own self, without making excuses and feeling completely worthy of whatever comes your way and thus showing by your very existence the limitless possibility of this one life that we can remember?

Something along those lines.

Maybe finding cutlery on the street has nothing to do with that, though. Maybe I look down in Baltimore because this is where I am grounded; knowing that ample forks, knives, and spoons are waiting in the street maybe makes it easier for me to look up and around in the rest of the world. Maybe these eating utensils represent the basic needs that this city meets for me: food and shelter, a home base.

In a way, this is a comfort and a burden. Baltimore is a heavy weight. I love so much about this city while at the same time really hating so much as well. It’s dirty and oppressive to people of color and women. It is hospitable to artists as long as they know their place, and just two miles from where I live the life expectancy is a full 12 years less. The distance between the haves and the don’t-even-dream-of-havings gets even greater weekly as housing becomes unaffordable and the city’s schools and infrastructure begin to crumble. Many describe the city as “gritty” or “scrappy,” but it is, at times, painfully desperate.

This city is also the Orioles and Old Bay and Edgar Allen Poe and 1919 and my good friend Luke and my oldest friend Kerry. It’s a place where a thousand non-profits are working every day to make life better. It’s where Sicily and I came when Marietta and the memory of Dane was so painful that we needed comfort and friends and a break somewhere that was not demanding.

Really, though, how do we claim space on this planet? It seems our footprints are larger than our shadows, but even as much as I try to convince my particular friend to stride out into the world it’s a daily struggle for me to feel like anything more than an insignificant speck (which truly, that’s all we really are – dust, less than a blip in geologic time). Maybe the forks and the spoons and the knives are just the way I try to make meaning, much the same as anyone who does anything with any regularity. Maybe your 40-hour-a-week career is my street-flattened spoon.

Regardless of the manner in which we step into ourselves (and the world) fully, the one thing that I would like to import back to Baltimore from our recent trip to Amsterdam is the multi-course meal. In the U.S., we tend to equate multiple courses with special occasions and required suit jackets, but it seems in Europe that is just how meals go (my child spent a year in France and can verify that even weekday breakfast has courses). When we met Khristian’s friends Carla and Axel for dinner, they served us three courses:

  1. Grilled vegetables with burrata, tomatoes, and sardines
  2. Seared salmon
  3. Penne with grilled beef

All accompanied by wines to match and finished with a rich chocolate brownie.

Even though this seems extravagant for an everyday meal, the preparations were all very simple and delicious. We reclined over dinner, drinks, and good conversation for several hours. Perhaps this was something of an occasion, as Khristian had not seen these friends since 2004, but meals were like this wherever we went: long and multi-coursed.

In this spirit, and to humor those of you who are really craving spring, I offer this as an easy first course to add to a plain old weekday meal: Grilled Asparagus With Sweet Fire Pickle Gribiche.

Gribiche is traditionally a creamy French dressing/sauce made in the same manner as mayonnaise except with cooked egg yolks instead of raw. It keeps popping up for spring vegetables because it’s a delicious way to dress anything that comes out of the oven or off the grill. I think it’s probably one of the few things that can improve the already-perfect asparagus. I have made it here with sweet fire pickles; you can substitute a more traditional cornichon is that’s your jam. Other herbs traditionally used here can include chervil and tarragon. I have kept it simple with just flat-leaf parsley.

You don’t even need to use a fork for this; it’s perfectly acceptable even in polite company to pick up asparagus with your fingers. If you need one, though, I have several.

Grilled Asparagus With Sweet Fire Pickle Gribiche 

(serves 4)

Ingredients

2 – 4 tablespoons chopped Sweet Fire pickles (see Recipe Notes)
⅓ cup grapeseed oil
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon chopped drained capers
1 tablespoon whole grain mustard
Kosher salt, freshly ground pepper
3 hard-boiled eggs, chopped
2 tablespoons chopped parsley

1 pound asparagus (preferably grilled, but roasted works, too)

Method

It could not be easier to make gribiche: combine all ingredients in a bowl and stir well. The end. Spoon over grilled asparagus (or anything else, really).

To make eating easier, you can cut your grilled asparagus into 1″ bites and mix the gribiche in, but you will need a fork.

Recipe Notes

  • Sweet Fire pickles come from Georgia, as far as I am concerned. They are cucumbers pickled with sugar and jalapeños and they are pretty much the best thing ever. I got my last jar at Huck’s General Store in Blue Ridge, GA, but they seem to be online as well.
  • Traditionally this recipe uses cornichons, which are not at all sweet. I like the balance of sweet, sour, and spicy in this, but you could use cornichons instead. If you don’t have those, chop up some dill pickles and you’re all set.
  • Gribiche keeps in the ‘fridge for a couple days. Bring to room temp before serving. Good on roasted veg, chicken, duck, and meaty fish.

A Recipe Video – Just For You

The Court’s Indulgence: White Bean, Sweet Pepper, And Arugula With Preserved Lemon Vinaigrette

Court’s indulgence. This picture is blurry. It was a long day.

It’s not often that things on TV are pretty much exactly the same in real life.

Last week I sat on a jury for a five-day trial. The defendant was accused of 24 counts of crime, including first-degree rape and possessing a weapon when he wasn’t allowed to possess a weapon.

(Fun fact: the defendant’s last crime was prosecuted by Ruth Bader Ginsberg in 1993. Federal drug charge.)

I have never sat on an actual jury; I have been called for jury duty three times in my life, and mostly it’s just lots of sitting around and watching movies like How To Lose a Guy In 10 Days and Avatar. This time was different, and I was quickly seated as Juror #4 by noon on my first day of reporting, then sent home until Monday when the trial would begin.

Everything about the trial was pretty much what it looks like on TV: the dramatic opening and closing statements, the cross examination, the witnesses getting testy with the defense attorney, and, finally, conflict (and resolution) in the deliberation room.

Time seemed strangely fluid as well; hours would pass in the courtroom in what seemed like minutes, but in the deliberation room, every minute was an agony of waiting. At the end of the day we would emerge from our windowless room, cram ourselves into the elevator, and then emerge at the corner of St. Paul and Lexington, blinking against the too-bright sunshine of the late afternoon, at the height of rush hour to crawl our way home.

Of all the things that stuck in my mind that week, one in particular stands out. Whenever the lawyers had to gather something or find something that meant the action had to pause briefly, they would say, “Court’s indulgence,” and the judge would nod, indicating that she was cool with the wait.

“Court’s indulgence.”

I don’t know why, but I love this saying. It’s a respectful request for permission to pause while you gather your thoughts, something we could all use every now and then.

One day when I came home it was stuck in my head like a mantra, playing over and over as I fed the dogs and made dinner. On that night, it was hot outside and the back door was open, letting in a feeble breeze (and lots of flies, which drives The Black Dog crazy, an admittedly short trip). It had been an especially long day, nine to five listening to a case about rape and gun violations, and I wasn’t particularly interested in making something complicated for dinner or turning on the stove.

Court’s indulgence: I remembered my preserved lemons, which were ready and waiting.

Court’s indulgence: There were some small, sweet yellow, red, and orange peppers in the crisper, along with half a red onion and some arugula that I wouldn’t even need to wash.

Court’s indulgence: A bomb shelter’s worth of canned beans in the coolness of the basement.

Et voila. Dinner, eaten with the court’s indulgence, on the balcony in the back of the house as the evening wore on and the sun sank low.

White Bean, Sweet Pepper, And Arugula Salad With Preserved Lemon Vinaigrette

Ingredients

2 tablespoons minced preserved lemon (rinse to remove salt and also strip away the squishy flesh)

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1/4 cup best-quality olive oil (it matters)

1 heaping teaspoon minced garlic

1/2 to 1 teaspoon black pepper (I like a lot of pepper)

1 15-ounce can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

One large red pepper, chopped, or five small multi-color pepper, chopped

1/2 large red onion, sliced

Handful of arugula per salad

Method

Make things easy on yourself and mix this all in the same bowl. I used a medium-sized round white Corningware bowl.

Place first five ingredients in bowl and mix together. Add beans, peppers, and onions and stir to combine.

To serve, place a large handful of arugula in a bowl, then top with beans. If you feel the need, you can drizzle with more olive oil and a squeeze of lemon, but mix it all around and taste before you do that.

Beans are even better the next day, chilled and then brought to room temp before serving.

 

 

Just In Time For Easter: Buffalo And Bleu Deviled Eggs

The holy trinity. A little raggedy. Don’t judge. Resurrection isn’t tidy.

Today is Easter, a time when I traditionally post about Zombie Jesus and tell a long, anti-climatic joke whose punchline is, “Peter! I can see your house from up here!” My dad, good Jew that he was and inveterate and unapologetic Teller of Terrible Jokes, thought my joke was excellent. Possibly he was the only one, unless you count seriously intoxicated patrons of the bar that I tended back when I first learned this joke. I always worked on major holidays because that’s where the money is, and my captive and inebriated audience rewarded me with drunken laughter and extra money.

But I digress.

I am non-religious to an almost atheistic degree, especially in that I find so much hypocrisy and contradiction in religion that it can really only be made up by humans. How can you preach one thing and act completely another?

This is not to say that I don’t have some certain thoughts. Feelings. Beliefs?

Let’s not get carried away.

I, like every single, solitary other person on this earth, have no idea about any of it – what’s true, what happens when we die, if there is a plan or a purpose or some kind of reason for being. So, like every other single, solitary person on this earth I make shit up.

It’s what we do.

I grew up in Maryland but moved huffily away back in 1995. Since moving back to Baltimore in 2014, one very strange thing has been happening, a very strange thing that has me making shit up sometimes.

I keep finding utensils on the ground. Forks and spoons mostly, with the occasional knife thrown in. I find them on walks in the woods, the random stroll to the store, and even embedded in a newly paved road (in East Baltimore by the Johns Hopkins campus where I teach yoga).

For some reason, I have been picking them up. There are a million things on the street in any major city, but I pick up silverware.

Initially I thought I might get arty and make a windchime or something, but I have not yet done that, and the stash of cutlery is growing.

Coincidentally, just before I really started writing about food, the pace of street cutlery acquisition increased exponentially. Everywhere I went, spoons and forks magically appeared. Plain, ornate, bent out of use, and perfect as if just out of the box from the bridal registry: eating utensils were everywhere.

It got a little ridiculous.

But now, as I continue to stockpile my growing stash of silver/not silver, I wonder.

Which is how all made-up human creations begin.

Is this The Universe telling me to start a food blog?

(pause here for that not-quite-serious question to sink in)

I just read an article on The Facebook about ten of the most overused phrases in yoga (this is not that article, but this is a good one, still with the same snarky bullshit, but the sting of truth is there. Get a Band-Aid and some tissues, hypersensitive yogis.), and while I disagreed completely with the snarky, my-yoga-is-better-than-yours tone of the article, one point struck me: the serious and continued calling upon of The Universe.

As in, “If I just tell The Universe what I want, then I can manifest it, ” or, “That’s The Universe telling me to____.”

I have shaken my fist at The Universe, it’s true. I have, in moments of weakness, wondered (there it is again), if certain things were just supposed to happen.

But come on.

We are tiny little specks in this overwhelmingly ginormous collection of dust, gas, and other material. To suggest that our tiny little lives merit even a moment of attention from any wisp of cloud or breath of wind is ludicrous and faintly ridiculous. The Universe frankly doesn’t give a rat’s ass about us and our tiny, insignificant human problems.

But still.

I have felt in my life that sometimes, if I could just make myself small enough (or, conversely, make myself open and big enough), I would be able to hear that little voice that is maybe me, deep down, or maybe something else outside of me. That whispered breath of something has been with me for a long time, and I don’t know if it’s on the wind or in my bones.

Whatever it is, it’s never wrong. Quite literally. I have tried to drown it with booze and outrun it by moving, but ultimately whatever is being said/whispered/transmitted/ WHATEVER gets through.

It sounds like a belief system, of sorts, but I promise you, it’s not.

But it’s something.

There really is no good segue into why this recipe made it into this post, except to say that I found the inspiration for it on The Facebook in the form of Jennifer, my cousin in Seattle. In truth, she is a cousin by marriage, related as she is to my deceased husband, but after Dane died we became (and stayed) close (like maybe The Universe thought we should. #Transitions)  She posted on The Facebook, asking a friend in Washington to make these for her, and they seemed just the thing for a not-quite-atheist to have for a dinner celebrating Zombie Jesus’s (re)birth.

Buffalo And Bleu Deviled Eggs

Note: Like all things religious and spiritual, there are no hard-and-fast answers. Amounts are really subject to you and what it looks like. The filling should be creamy, so taste and keep adding until it’s how you like it. The original recipe has many exclamation points! And ranch dressing powder! Neither of which made it into this recipe, as exclamation points are an anathema to me, and I didn’t feel like buying ranch dressing powder. But do as you like. This isn’t a cult, for Christ’s sake.

Ingredients

6 hardboiled eggs, cut in half with yolks removed to a bowl

3 tablespoons softened cream cheese

2 teaspoons mayonnaise

Frank’s hot sauce, to taste

Splash of milk

Garnish: bleu cheese crumbles and celery

Method

Place egg yolks, cream cheese, mayonnaise, hot sauce, and milk in a medium-sized bowl (or the bowl of a food processor) and beat with a hand mixer (or process on low) until ingredients are smooth a creamy. Taste, and add more hot sauce or milk as needed.

Spoon (or pipe if you’re fancy AF) into hardboiled egg white cases. Thinly slice celery and place artistically on top, then add bleu cheese crumbles (gorgonzola is also delicious here). Finish with some freshly cracked black pepper, and try not to eat them all in one sitting.