Belonging (Deviled eggs)

Mixing and merging from a firm foundation

“How long do you boil the eggs?” I asked my sister Tara, who keeps chickens and knows her eggs. “Twelve to 14 minutes,” she replied. “And you add them to already boiling water?” I asked. “Yes, and I add the large ones before the small as they vary a lot in size,” speaking of the eggs she’d brought from home, some with feathers and muck still clinging to them.

We were in Bar Harbor, Maine, for a week with our extended family, parents and siblings and spouses and kids, 14 of us in all. We rented a house on an outcrop of land the Wabenaki have belonged to for centuries, on a street bearing a name with Acadian roots. Tara and I were in charge of coordinating the food we’d cook. She and I have a special relationship. We are sisters, but we share no birth parents. We were born a month apart, and we’ve known each other since then – our pregnant mothers were friends in law school. When my mom died and Tara’s parents divorced, our 5-year-old selves obsessively watched The Parent Trap, scheming like Hayley Mills how to get our parents together. (They didn’t need our help.) When my dad married her mother Susan and we moved in together, one thing I remember clearly is that we merged Barbie collections. It was thrilling to play with them all together, 17 Barbies and one Ken. I always wanted to pretend that my Barbie was the wicked queen.

The eggs came out perfectly. I had pierced each one before cooking with a German tool called an eierprikker, which allows a small amount of water to seep between the shell and the white so that they boil evenly and are easier to peel. Now I spooned the eggs into a bowl of ice water to stop them cooking. The light fell through the kitchen window as I methodically peeled each one. I sliced them lengthwise and scooped the yellow yolk into a bowl, putting everything into the refrigerator to finish later.

There’s something about deviled eggs that’s so comforting. Each white maintains its own shape. Mixing all the insides together, then returning the enhanced filling to each shell, is like going on a trip and coming home again. We offered our mother Susan the first egg to try. “It’s good,” she said. Victory. In an act of rental house serendipity, Tara found an actual deviled egg platter buried in a cabinet. The filled eggs cozy in their divots were gobbled up for dinner and snack the next day.

Home again, I recreated the recipe for our annual neighborhood block party. Tara had mixed the family batch with our mother’s recipe, just mayonnaise and sweet pickle relish (or in this case, chopped pickles and pickle juice since we didn’t have relish). For my neighbors, I started with my family recipe as a base, and added my own flavor. I surveyed the possibilities of my refrigerator. Preserved lemon? Chili crisp? I chose za’atar from my pantry, and some rough mustard from our farmers market, to add some texture and savory bite to the creamy filling.

The block party is the easiest party to prepare for from an individual perspective. It’s a potluck. No one hosts, though I’m part of a committee that organizes the date and invitations, setting up and cleaning up. Lucky for me, everyone congregates right in front of my house, since it’s the flattest part of our hilly neighborhood. I spent the day leisurely alternating between steps of slicing, mixing, and filling eggs, plus squeezing limes for watermelon margaritas made with fermented lime simple syrup. Marion, my neighbor who turned 92 in March, said in her usual forthright style: “These eggs are to die for.” (Thankfully, she did not mean it literally.)

What does it mean to belong to a place, to a people? A family? A neighborhood? It isn’t always a tribe in the sense we’re related by blood. Sometimes it’s circumstance, sometimes choice. Choosing to take care of each other and the place we occupy, even for a short while. Each individual a distinct shell, with the ability to mix from time to time. My family taught me the recipe, and from there I’ve built my own belonging. 

Recipe as feeling: Belonging (Deviled eggs)

Gently pierce your shell.

Cook until your insides are firm.

Scoop out what can be shared.

Mix and add your own flavor.

Actual recipe

Deviled eggs with za’atar

Makes 48 egg-halves (minus breakage)

INGREDIENTS:

2 dozen eggs
7 tbs. mayonnaise
5 tbs. chopped pickles (sweet, sour, or a mix)
2 tbs. pickle juice
2 tsp. za’atar plus extra to sprinkle on top
1 tsp. smoked paprika
1 tsp. rough mustard
Ground pepper and flaky salt to taste

(Instructions are for a gas stove. Electric or induction stoves may have different cooking times.)

Bring a large pot of water to boil. Depending on the size of your pot, you may need to boil the eggs in batches. Prepare a large bowl of ice water and set aside. If you’re using an egg-piercer, gently pierce each egg and drop by spoon into the boiling water (if you’re not piercing the eggs, just drop them gently by spoon into the water). Set a timer for 12 minutes (by the time you get all the eggs out, it will be more like 14, which is the range you want). At 12 minutes, use a slotted spoon to transfer the eggs to the ice water bowl. Let the eggs cool completely.

Line a rimmed baking sheet with paper towels. Gently crack and peel each egg, laying the whole peeled eggs on the paper towels to absorb any excess moisture. Slice each egg lengthwise and scoop the yolk into a bowl. When all the egg yolks are in the bowl, add the remaining ingredients, adjusting based on your taste and the consistency of the eggs (if the eggs are larger, you may have more yolk, and may need more mayonnaise and other seasoning). When the filling is creamy and tasty enough that you want to lick the spoon, use two spoons to transfer filling to each egg white. Dust the tops with za’atar or smoked paprika and transfer to a clean platter. Chill until ready to serve.