Sunday Snippet: The Easter Memories Edition (Redux)

I’m doing a rerun today, although it will be new to Substack readers. Easter memories abound, and today we will make more as the family gathers here at our house today for food and fellowship. So if you remember this one from a couple of years ago, go ahead and read it again anyway and Happy Easter to you!

The night before Easter, we colored hardboiled eggs with the Paas Easter egg dye kits. Remember those? After we kids went to bed, Mom, who was probably already exhausted from working at the grocery store all day and studying whatever courses she was taking for her nursing degree, hid them around the house. Then,  she’d iron everyone’s Easter clothes–usually made by our Aunt Alice, who was a stellar seamstress–so we’d look spiffy the next morning at church. I loved my dress and hat and little umbrella purse the Easter I was seven. I felt so grown-up because I had a hat like Nana and Aunt Alice. And yeah, my brother does look like bit like a five-year-old smarmy Herb Tarlek (google him) in this picture. But it was the sixties, ya know?

After we’d found all the hidden eggs on Easter morning (there was one year when we didn’t find one and it made itself known several weeks later with a wretched stench emanating from the upright piano, but that’s a story for another day). we’d dress in our Easter finery and head to church. There, we greeted each other with He is risen and the expected response of He is risen indeed. We sang “Christ the Lord is Risen Today” with gusto, particularly on the “allelujahs,” and my brother would inevitably drop a jelly bean or two from the handful he’d stashed in his pocket before leaving home. Mom would scowl and we three girls would giggle and hold out our hands to make him share.

My grandparents would be at our house after church and Gacky (yeah, we called our beloved grandpa Gacky [pronouced gah-key], all thanks to my sister PJ, the first grandchild, who just couldn’t manage to get her toddler tongue around Grandpa). Anyway, Gacky would take over the kitchen and soon glorious smells would fill the house–ham and cheesy potatoes, green beans and parker house rolls. We’d feast and then would come the pièce de résistance: Nana’s orange coconut cake. Yum! I’ve never been able to recreate that gorgeous cake. She even topped it with little nests of tiny jelly beans, which just seemed so artistic to seven-year-old Nan.

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This year, Easter is a little bit bittersweet because I’m making sister Kate’s version of Boeuf Bourguignon, what she called Gone All Day Stew because it cooks low and slow in the oven for hours. It’s a giant pot of beef, fresh potatoes, carrots, mushrooms, and aromatic onions and celery, and a red wine sauce that can’t be beat. I think Julia Child will forgive me for forgoing her French recipe and using Kate’s instead. After all, it’s all beef stew, n’est pas?

Anyway, share your Easter memories with me–I’d love to hear them! Happy Easter and welcome to springtime, mes amis!

Gratitude for This Week: my eye is much better. The ferns in my office garden have suddenly started bursting forth, as have the lilies of the valley. Talked to my editor this week–she really loved the revisions to Forever Cowboy–YAY! Delighted to see all the protests across the nation, the world–we must make our voices heard! I’m editing a book that will be posthumously published because the author passed away on January 3. It’s been sweet to work with her again, and I feel her with me as I copy edit this last book of hers. Miss you, Kaz!

Stay well, take time to enjoy the spring beauty all around us, always choose kindness, and most of all, my dear ones, stay grateful!