Sweeter Than Tea

by Deborah Grace Staley

  I also got out the bag of potatoes, selecting a few to put in the oven to bake for supper. Baked potatoes, with some frozen chicken strips, and maybe some canned green beans . . . that was my kind of cooking.

  Amy called from the top of the attic steps. “Mommmm—come look. This one, Mom?”

  “Yep, that’s it.” I answered, sticking my head around the corner to check. “Bring it to the kitchen table.”

  I got a damp paper towel and wiped a thick layer of dust off, suddenly blinking back tears as I saw my grandmother’s familiar handwriting on the box. How could I have not shared this part of my heritage with my daughter? I resolved right then and there to bring back the family tradition of the deviled egg platter. Slowly, I untied the string that held the box closed and lifted the lid.

  “Ewww, what’s that?” Ever fastidious, Amy backed up a step. The egg tray was nestled safely in tissue paper, but the years of neglect had tarnished the once gleaming silver.

  “That’s the tough part, my sock-footed friend,” I teased Amy. “This is a tray to hold twenty-four deviled eggs. It belonged to my mother, and before that, to her mother, your great grandmother, and someday, it will belong to you.”

  “We’re going to put the eggs in that? But it’s all black and nasty.”

  I got the plastic tub of silver polish and a soft cloth from under the sink, noticing, as I passed the stove, that the eggs had started boiling merrily. How long did it take eggs to hard boil, anyway? Three minutes? No, that was too short. Five? That was soft boiled, wasn’t it? Ten, maybe? Well, they weren’t done, yet, for sure. I moved back to the table.

  “Watch this.” Dabbing up a smear of the fragrant polish, I took a swipe and a couple of hard rubs in one tarnished egg-shaped hollow.

  “Ohhhhhh,” exclaimed Amy. “Underneath, it’s shiny, like your jewelry, the bracelet with the turquoise.”

  “Exactly.” I replied. “See, when you rub off the black, it’s real silver, shaped like a sunflower, with little ladybugs on the . . .”

  A loud cracking noise came from the boiling water on the stove behind us. We both turned to look. Another loud pop. Amy pulled the stepstool over to the stove so she could see.

  “Gross, some of the white stuff in the eggs is coming out in the water!” She curled her top lip. “I don’t think it’s supposed to do that. When Kim’s mom made HER eggs, it didn’t.”

  I resolved right then and there that I wouldn’t be calling Kim’s mom for advice. Another two eggs snapped loudly, one right after the other. I hurriedly turned the burner off under the pan, grabbed my hot mitts and removed it from the heat, then looked at Amy. “Maybe we’d better not plan deviled eggs for the picnic. It’ll take a long time to polish the egg tray up, first. You might not get done.”

  She settled down at the table with the silver polish, busily rubbing away. I looked at the mess in my saucepan. Well, some of them looked okay. But even if eight eggs were good, and I cut them in half, there’d only be sixteen out of the twenty-four egg spaces filled in the tray. I couldn’t take the platter with that many empty egg-shaped hollows. And I only had three more eggs in the fridge. Oh, well, I wouldn’t really take a silver egg tray to a kindergarten event anyway, right?

  Thinking furiously, I ran cold water in the pan. All these hard boiled eggs, but not enough. What could I make? Egg salad sandwiches? No, that sounded more like a luncheon, not something for a pack of kindergartners. Looking at the stuff sitting out for the eggs, I nibbled at the problem like a dog with a flea on his butt. Pickle relish. Mayo. Eggs. Potatoes. No, the potatoes were for supper. Ah, but that’s it. Potato salad. It looked like picnic food, and if I didn’t put onion and celery in it, five year olds would probably eat it. MY five year old would, anyway.

  That’s how it all started. Me and potato salad, I mean. Amy never did finish polishing the egg platter—like most kids, she had a short attention span when the work stopped being fun. But after both kids were in bed that night, I stayed up and shined every nook and cranny in the egg tray. I was bound and determined to learn how to make twenty-four perfect deviled eggs and bring back the family ritual of the silver egg platter. And I was going to do it before Amy got too old to think of it as a long-established family tradition.

  That was almost two months ago. I still haven’t been able to make a full set of twenty-four deviled eggs, though it’s not for lack of trying. Something always goes wrong.

  Now I keep trying to sidle up to the folks who’ve brought deviled eggs to various functions and unobtrusively ferret out some hints, but what they suggest never works for me.

  Of course, I went to the library first, for some research. Do you know there’s not a book on how to boil eggs? There are books with recipes for soups, breads, vegetables, pastries, and desserts, but nothing for a beginning cook on eggs. But while I was at the library, I bumped into Aunt Carol. I didn’t want all of the family to know that I can’t boil an egg, but I thought it’d be safe to ask her. She said she starts with a pan of cold water, adds an ice cube, then her eggs, and brings them to a slow boil, on medium heat, to avoid cracked eggs. But her nosy friend Laura overheard us talking eggs, and claims the long slow boil is what makes the greenish tint to the yolks. She says she puts a good sprinkle of salt in the water, and that keeps them from cracking.

  I went immediately to the grocery store after leaving the library, bought another dozen eggs, and went right home and tried it. Both of those hints, together. Cold water, ice cube, good sprinkle of salt. Slow to boil, instead of putting the burner on high. Ten were fine, two popped. I made tuna with lots of egg in it for my lunch, using the two that popped. When I tried to peel the rest of the eggs, four of them stuck to the shell so bad, they looked like a lunar landscape, pocked with craters. Those sad little nibbled-at eggs got chopped and made into potato salad. Luckily my husband Tom loves potato salad. I took the last six eggs, the ones that peeled nicely, and made twelve deviled eggs, just for practice, just for family.

  The next day, I gave the kids each two leftover deviled egg-halves in their school lunches, and that’s where I made my big mistake. And that’s what made me tell the lie that got me in trouble.

  It started because I ran into the school that afternoon to pick up the kids, instead of just driving around the loop, because I needed to chat with Ellen Keyes, who teaches sixth grade. She’s in charge of the silver anniversary supper, at the church we attend. Jimmy and Amy were dashing around, in their usual set-free-from-school exuberance, thrilled to be in the “big kids” room. Ellen pulled out her list of committees to show me where she needed last-minute volunteers. I was aiming for the decorations committee, but it was full. Ellen dug in her tote for more sign-up sheets.

  Jimmy was engrossed in watching the activity in the huge fish tank, but Amy brought her busybody, sociable little self over to lean on my shoulder. “What’cha doing, Mrs. Ellen?”

  “Your Sunday School class is planning a skit for the celebration Sunday at church, right?” answered Ellen. “Your mom is helping me plan the other stuff for that day. A silver anniversary is a big event.”

  “Silver?” asked Amy. “Silver, like my mom’s egg tray? Jimmy ’n’ I had two deviled egg halves in our lunches today, and I traded one to Britney for some of her barbeque chips. They were good. Mom, can we go home now?”

  “Go watch the fish tank with Jimmy,” I responded. “Mrs. Ellen and I will finish quicker if we don’t get interrupted, okay?” I turned her around and swatted her bottom to send her on her way faster.

  “Ah, I do remember that sunflower tray,” reminisced Ellen. “Your mom used to bring it to big functions at the church, and it was lovely. You know, that would make an attractive centerpiece for the appetizer table, and it fits right in with the silver theme the decoration committee’s trying to do. Let me put you down to bring some deviled eggs, is that okay? We’ve still got a space left on the food committee
. The eggs and maybe some cookies or brownies would be perfect, we need a few more desserts.”

  What else could I do but agree? I flat out lied and told her that I’d love to make some eggs and bring them in the silver tray. Now, I’m desperate. I’m on the food committee, they’re planning on my eggs as a centerpiece, and I can’t hard boil twenty-four pretty eggs to save my life! I had one place left to turn to. I knew it was the source for the best gossip, and the women who went there were like an extended family to me, but could I find the secret to deviled eggs there? Before Sunday’s Silver Anniversary Dinner?

  Friday morning, I called and made a totally unnecessary hair appointment at GoodCuts salon. Highlights and a trim might make me feel better about myself even if the eggs didn’t turn out right. Deftly and somewhat nonchalantly I thought, I turned the conversation to eggs while I was getting shampooed. Ann Carter claimed, while she was combing me out, that it’s all in the enamel pan she uses. Wendy Richards was listening as she rolled up Julia’s perm, and she said she uses a Teflon non-stick pan to boil her eggs, and they turned out just fine. Nary a one would crack

  Leaving the salon, I bumped into my Aunt Betty, who was coming in for her usual color touch-up, and asked her. She should know, she’d been cooking forever. She said I could use anything BUT an aluminum pan. But after twelve minutes at a simmer, she said, move them from the boiling water to ice water, to cool them quick, so they’d peel nicely . . . and not have that green tinge to the yolks.

  Then Jennifer Baxter approached me as I unlocked my minivan.

  “Old eggs.” She whispered in my ear. “Use old eggs, not fresh. They’ll peel better if the eggs aren’t straight from the hen, I’ve heard.” Then she nodded at me, got into her own car and drove off.

  How had Jennifer heard about my egg difficulties so quickly? Did the whole town know by now? Mentally, I made a list of the people I’d talked to. Aunt Carol and Laura, Ann Carter and Wendy, Julia and Aunt Betty. Yup, word was out, and now it was probably going to be in the help wanted section of the newspaper, too. I beat my head on the steering wheel.

  That afternoon, I picked up the kids at school, took them home, got them changed into their soccer uniforms, then dropped them off at practice. The assistant soccer coach, Valerie, slipped me a note as she passed me, jogging around the field with the kids:

  Add a cup of vinegar to the cold water. Bring the eggs to a boil, then turn off heat. Cover the pan, and let the eggs sit in the hot water for 15 minutes. Eggs will be perfectly cooked.

  On the way back home, I stopped at the grocery and picked up a bottle of vinegar and another dozen eggs, checking the expiration date carefully, getting the oldest ones available. The boy stocking the shelves gave me a funny look, but at this point, I didn’t care one whit. As I waited in the checkout line, my husband’s sister Rosemary drove her cart up behind me.

  “Shake the eggs,” she said, looking around to see if anyone was within earshot.

  “What?” I replied, looking around a bit surreptitiously myself. I felt like I had been cast in a bad spy movie. I wanted to cover up the carton of eggs in my hand.

  Rosemary moved closer and lowered her voice. “Before you put the eggs in the water to cook them, shake them real hard first, each egg. It’ll help the yolk cook in the middle of the white, instead of close to the side.”

  “Thanks, Rosemary, I’ll try that.” I checked out and hurried to my van before I was approached by anyone else with egg advice.

  When I got home, I shook all twelve eggs. I only dropped one. It shattered with such a satisfying sound on the tile floor that I was tempted to throw another one. And I absolutely hated to try to clean up slippery, slimy raw eggs on the tile. I ignored the splatter and stepped around it. Instead, I put four eggs in my little blue speckled enamel pan, and three more in the deep non-stick skillet I use when I make spaghetti. The last four, I put in my stainless steel soup pot. I put salt, cold water, and an ice cube in all three pans and started them to heating. On medium.

  I sighed gustily and started picking up the eggshell from the mess on the floor. Ohhh, the nasty slipperiness of egg whites. Then I had an awful idea. But hey, nobody was home but me, who’d know? I tiptoed to the back door, put my fingers to my lips and whistled. Before I could even get my fingers out of my mouth, Rowdy was there, so full of tail-wagging enthusiasm that his butt was wagging too. I let him in and pointed to the egg on the tile. But from behind me, I heard first one, then another egg crack in the boiling water.

  That’s where Tom found me when he came in with Amy and Jimmy, sweaty from soccer practice. One wife, about to crack, surrounded by three pans of water, each with good eggs and one cracked egg, now soaking in ice water. One dog with a guilty grin, still gleefully licking the tile floor where the egg had smashed. Like Humpty Dumpty, I’d hit bottom. Only the family dog was happy.

  Tom saw my red, tear-streaked face, and turned and herded the kids right back into the living room. I could hear him telling them to head upstairs, change out of their dirty uniforms, put the clothes in the hamper, take a shower, put their soccer gear away, start homework, feed the hamster—the same routine they followed every day. Then he joined me in the kitchen. I told him everything. The reason for all the egg salad sandwiches and bowl after bowl of potato salad he’d eaten the last month. The reasons he’d never seen the silver egg platter.

  Together we peeled the eight good eggs and the three broken ones. Tom ran out to get pizza for supper . . . and another dozen eggs. After we fed ourselves and the kids, we settled in for a night of family egg-cooking.

  I shook all of the eggs first, as Rosemary had suggested. This time, I hung on to them. The dog was disappointed. Tom showed me a trick that his mother had taught him . . . before he put the eggs in the water to boil, he took a pin and poked a small hole in the “fat” end of the egg. Amy filled the stainless steel pot at the sink, and Tom moved it to the stove. Jimmy added the ice cube to the water, after I told him Aunt Carol’s suggestion. I carefully added all twelve eggs. Amy measured out a cup of vinegar. Jimmy poured the vinegar into the cold water in the pot as Coach Valerie had suggested. I added a shake of salt. Tom turned on the heat.

  The eggs came to a boil. Amy set the timer, and we covered them and let the pan sit for fifteen minutes. Tom poured out the hot water and replaced it with cold. Jimmy was happy to add lots more ice cubes to cool the eggs down quickly.

  When they were cool, Jimmy rolled the eggs on the table to crack the shells, then we all peeled them. Every single egg came out perfectly. After that, it was simple to cut them in half, remove the yolk, and make the stuffing. Amy measured the pickle relish. Jimmy mashed the yolks. Tom stirred in a little mayo. I spooned the filling into a baggie, then clipped a corner open, and squeezed it back in the eggs.

  Together we packed the twenty-four prettiest egg halves you’ve ever seen into the silver egg tray. I guess it took a family, a village (and a darned good egg of a husband) to take the devil out of those eggs.

  Not through My Window

  Willis Baker

  In my youth, serious crime didn’t exist in the world as we knew it, at least not in our small, southern town. While bank robberies, rapes, and murders dominated the headlines of large cities, our small town paper focused on benign headlines such as, “Train Trestle Collapses,” “Mayor Walks out of Budget Meetings,” and “County Bank Celebrates 100th Anniversary.”

  Our most notorious criminals were a group of five to seven local drunks. While they couldn’t afford the price of their booze, neither did they turn to crime, but rather bummed their nickels here and there, which was the price of a can of Sterno, or “canned heat,” from which they strained the alcohol. Thus, they were known in the vernacular as “The Canned Heat Gang.” They kept their sin out of the eyes of the public, with one exception—the trail of empty cans strewn along the bank beneath the river bridge.

  The town
’s people went about their business, occupation, and personal lives feeling secure and safe. Therefore, whether it was early morning, afternoon, a balmy evening, or even late at night, Mother, a waitress at a downtown drugstore/restaurant, walked unescorted to our home located exactly one mile from the center of town.

  An incident the summer I transitioned from elementary school to high school almost changed that, and it involved one of the “Canned Heat Gang.” To use Mother’s words, “The way he looks at me, I feel like my clothes are being peeled away, leaving me naked and invaded.” The night the incident occurred was the first to challenge our family security.

  Mom ran the home, Dad scheduled and organized the chores and maintenance. Liza, my paternal grandmother, served as the spiritual elder. She assured that our lives were governed by Christian morals and benevolence.

  That particular summer included the mammoth chore of painting the exterior of the house. The west slope of the property added an additional four feet to the height of the wall, necessitating extension ladders to reach the soffit. Trepidation had already been introduced as a factor early in the project because Dad had determined that at age fourteen, I was old enough to do my part, including some moderately high ladder work. Mom disagreed, insisting that I had no business working on a twelve-foot ladder.

  This type of disagreement was not uncommon in the household since Mom and Dad had given up three children to death at early ages, one at birth. Naturally, being the only survivor of four children, anything they saw as prospective danger to me raised the level of anxiety. But given more to reason than emotion, Dad saw to it that my life maintained at least some semblance of normalcy compared to that of the average fourteen-year-old boy. This event was such an occasion.

  Dad and I had journeyed to the hardware store to purchase the several gallons of white, exterior house paint required for the job. As it was with small southern towns in those days, Main Street was busy with people tending to their daily lives, patronizing the local businesses that drove the town’s economy. Leaving the hardware, we ran into Police Chief Joe Wilson. Joe was a homegrown boy Dad had known all his life. The two had no more than started their conversation than out of the store came one of the “Canned Heat Gang.” Well known for what seemed to be the sole purpose of their lives, it was assumed the brown bag he carried bore the gang’s alcohol ‘fix’ for the day.