HAPPY EASTER!!!

I hope everyone has a wonderful day gathering Easter Eggs with their grandkids.  Did you know that decorated eggs have been found to be over 60,000 years old?  Later on, during a spring ritual of rebirth in Egypt and Mesopotamia, the eggs were dyed red to represent the blood of Christ.  Of course there is lots of speculation and many different sides of the story.

In our house, the eggs were always colored the night before and kept on the table (??).  They were hidden by my grandfather around our ranch house while we went to church.  Always in our Sunday best, my dress being handmade by my mother, we searched until we found them all.  I vaguely remember some weird colored deviled eggs.  There was no such thing as  PLASTIC eggs filled with candy or money, although there WAS a chocolate bunny for me.

What I DO remember is finding a couple of eggs days later and crying because I couldn't eat them.  From that time on, someone always kept count of the number put out and collected!!

There was no egg coloring here, but I did want to try one of my mom's old Easter specialities, Egg Nog Torte.  Did I mention she was the original Chef who cooked on live television?  Too bad some of that didn't rub off on me.  In the early 1950's, once a month, we would travel to the big city of Modesto, where she would prepare meals live on TV for the Cattleman's Association Eat Beef campaign.

I was in heaven, because MY favorite show was Looney Toons, with Biffo the Clown, shown right before the cooking show.  Does anyone remember the spinning spiral you looked in to so the cartoon would play?  If you were a good little girl and sat quiet, you MIGHT be picked to win the prize of the day ..... wait for it ....... a BIFFO BALL!!  You know, the one attached to the string that broke the first time you played with it?  I think I mentioned all this before.

Anyway, I tried making the meringue first.  What a disaster THAT was!!  I searched through all my old cookbooks from 1947, 1950, 1963 and 1979, to no avail.  I couldn't find her recipe, so I pulled one off the internet.  I guess I didn't beat the egg whites enough, although it looked real pretty when it went in the oven.

This is a slow cooker ..... 1-1/2 hours.  Turn the oven off and leave it for another hour.  Once out of the oven, I noticed it weeping around the edges.  THAT is a no-no I definitely remember.  The entire thing should have been hard on the outside, not soft and gooey.   I said a nice blessing over it as I filled in the hole in the back yard.

Onward and upward ..... I've had this pork shoulder in the freezer, so I figured it was time for some smoking.  It's all seasoned, waiting for the 9:00 pm hour so I could start the smoker on it's twelve hour mission.  

For some reason I couldn't quite get the briquette device going, but after several attempts, they began to move.  I forgot all about putting the pan of water in the bottom to catch the burned ones.  Luckily, I remembered just in time, but couldn't find the pan.  I vaguely remembered throwing something away that looked like an old dog food dish.  UH OH!!!  That was IT!!!!  

I frantically ran around the house trying to find a metal alternative.  A large bird feeding bowl might work .... it HAD to work, since there wasn't anything else to use.  I filled it with water and threw it in the smoker just in time to catch the first burned up wood biscuit.  With everything set, I went to bed.

So far nothing bad has happened.  I got up just in time to reset the nine hour clock for another three hours.  The dead biscuit bowl was out of water and overflowing with black pieces of wood.  I definitely have to order another pan today!!  

In two more hours I should have a beautiful piece of pork that I can pull apart for my Easter dinner.  There won't be any colored eggs, since they all went into the meringue, but I'm stealing a couple I boiled up for the dogs and making deviled eggs.  An Easter Feast in the making!!!

By the way, Cooper is almost back to normal.  It has been a blissful two days since he barked, I'm guessing because of a sore throat.  He and Jessie are definitely looking forward to Easter dinner!!