Non-denominational Easter

I know! What is a non-denominational Easter? Well, it's what you get when you're agnostic but went out of the parenthood gate with wild enthusiasm for celebrating every holiday even remotely part of your own past and then have trouble walking those festive days back.

I love an egg hunt as much as the next gal, but Easter has, over the years, started to feel increasingly, and only, material to me. I say that with no disrespect. Were we believers, I'd be all in on this big day, but since we are not, it feels like giving the kids more stuff for no good reason. Baskets brimming with Easter grass and candy-stuffed plastic eggs. Lovingly homemade cards and thoughtfully chosen books. Notes in unfamiliar, left-handed scribble from a giant bunny. On a day that resonates not a bit.

Our kids have enough. More than enough. And so today, for the second year in a row, I proposed to the boys that we politely tell the Bunny not to come. 

"Sweeties, we are so fortunate. In the past three months, we've celebrated Christmas, Valentine's, Oliver's birthday and spring break. We don't believe in what Easter celebrates so how about we ask the Bunny not to come and instead we'll do something special together as a family?"

"What, Mom, no!"

"Hmm, Mom, OK. How about two eggs full of a chocolate and a nice book?

"Well, I want my stuff." 

I'll let y'all decide who uttered those bits.

Me: "And as an aside, do y'all think the Bunny is a boy or a girl?"

We all sat in shared silence, ruminating on this important question, before agreeing that we had no idea and wasn't that interesting.

Not least because the freaking bunny is ME.

Anyway, back to forgoing Easter.

"But, guys, y'all are so lucky. How about we make a festive cake and hunt for eggs? I mean, I really feel like it's gifts for no reason."

J: "Well Mom, we celebrate Christmas and we don't believe in that."

That kid is smart and that one stopped me in my tracks. Shit.

"Jack, that is a fair and good point, but for me, Christmas is really about the time with family and the traditions."

"Well, I don't see how that's so different."

Touché.

And so the Easter bunny is coming back this Sunday. I best get my white poof tail on and hop off to find some chocolates. 

The ice cream man

The south Louisiana neighborhood in which I grew up was shaped like a horseshoe drooping long and oval under the pull of gravity. A street bisected the horseshoe crosswise, as if needing to keep the two sides together, lest they splay outward or implode. If the lowest point of the curved steel was south, my home was east-southeast, just below the intersection of the mainframe and crossbeam. 

To enter our neighborhood, Bayouwood, you had to go down one of two declines. As you drove deeper in, you approached Contraband Bayou, that winding waterway at the base of the shoe that called many neighbors' yards to an abrupt, beautiful stop. 

Because you couldn't go anywhere but back out once you were in Bayouwood, there wasn't much traffic, and, by and large, people drove cautiously in residential areas then, so my sister and I could play safely in our driveway and in the streets with the many other kids who lived nearby.

Around 4pm on any given afternoon, a distant tinkling would make us all pause. In that sudden stillness we'd realize how sweaty we were, how parched, how whooped in the way good outdoor play makes you. The happy jingle drew nearer, and we all scattered, racing for our mothers' wallets: "The ice cream man is coming, y'all!" flying in our wakes. 

Without fail, I got a Screwball -a plastic cone filled with pink "ice cream" and a gum ball at the bottom- or a Bomb Pop -that long, red, white and blue popsicle- or an orange Push-Up -the paper tube-wrapped orange sorbet that you'd push up with a plastic platform on a stick.

I loved each for different reasons. The Push-Up was like an Orange Julius in a handy, mess-free wrapper.What a pleasing color of orange! I always kept the clear plastic pusher after licking it clean. 

I was enamored with the cleanly delineated lines of the red, white and blue sections of the Bomb Pop. That white was so white, a wonderful counterpoint to the crimson red and wacky royal blue. I could never eat a whole Bomb Pop before it started melting and would then watch as red and blue rivers bled profusely down my hands, wrists and arms before dropping off my elbows, the white areas blurred out by the more assertive colors' quick trip.

And the Screwball came with a perfect wooden spoon nestled snugly in the cone's lid. I loved to gently dig it out, and run my fingers over its smooth, hourglass figure before scraping away my first bite of pink. I remember trying to eat the Screwball such that the surface remained flat the whole time. No tunneling or lackadaisical spooning for me, no! I kept things tidy, patient until the frozen gumball was mine. Inevitably, it crumbled, for gumballs really aren't made to live in a deep-freeze on wheels. It was the getting to it that was the fun.

This afternoon after school, I took the boys to a favorite playground. The sun was shining, and if we sat in just the right, unshaded place and waited until not a whisper of breeze blew, we felt warmth pervade our bodies. It was heavenly, and when the Good Humor truck rolled by, singing that old, familiar tinkle, I hoped the kids would plead breathlessly for some ice cream. Because I couldn't wait to get them some.

"Two chocolate chip cookie sandwiches, please!" Jack asked the man who was hidden deep and faceless in the van's dark interior.

"That'll be $6." he replied.

Money and ice cream were quickly exchanged, and my two little boys flew off yelling, "Mom, you're the best," as they ran back toward the monkey bars.

Spaghetti & Meatballs: ain't no better than these

Y'all, no lie. You cannot make or find better meatballs and sauce than these. This recipe takes hours. HOURS! You will roll and cook meatballs until you think you cannot go on. You will be covered in tomatoey splatters, your stovetop will be speckled with oil. Your floor will need a thorough mopping and your hair a thorough wash.

But when you close your teeth around your first forkful of spaghetti twirled around a chunk of unbelievably light meatball, every sweaty memory will melt away into a blissful, amnesiac blur. Rather like holding your baby for the first time and remembering nothing but perfection after just swearing you were breaking in half and to death during labor.

I know. I screamed both of those things. And then I held Jack. And Ol. And then I ate these meatballs. On different days. And all was right in the world.

In addition to tonight's vat o' dinner, I now have leftovers and enormous stores in the freezer. This will all make me happy in the near and distant future. 

Whilst supping, I told Tom how marvelous I find it that any recipe I didn't create but make often ultimately becomes my own. Or you, yours. I've made this dish countless times in the years since I found it in Gourmet during a train ride to NYC.

Ol approves

And now, the ratio of beef to pork, no veal thank you, is my own preference of 2:1. The quantity of tomatoes is less than originally called for, and I find parsley to be optional while lemon zest is mission critical. I use less milk when soaking my bread, and I dice my onions fine, fine, fine. I don't wait to add my garlic.

Like Nanny's spaghetti and roast when I was growing up, these spaghetti and meatballs will be the regular Sunday, comfort-food meal I serve to my family as we grow. As it became mine, it will become ours.

PS- How stunning was this BLT, our dinner on Friday night?!