Easter Plans

We’re having Easter potluck with our friends John and Laurie and their family. This has been a tradition for the last several years, and we all look forward to it. They’re an enormous part of the extended family we’ve acquired here in the Midwest. Our families are sort of entwined on many different levels, and anytime we get together it is the ultimate in low stress entertaining. There is often another family involved as well, but they always have other plans on Easter, so they just have to miss out on the fun. So there!

Like I said, it’s pretty low stress. I don’t feel like the house needs to be fabulous, or my kids well behaved or anything else unrealistic. I will take the thirty seven loads of clean laundry off the computer room couch and put it somewhere out of sight, but even then I don’t think I’ll actually fold it. No, it’s awfully low key. The only stress comes from the fact that John, much as we all love him, is a professional chef, and a really good one at that. Do you know how intimidating it is to cook for a professional chef?? Never mind that the man happily and uncritically eats anything you put in front of him. Add the fact that Surfer Dude, at the ripe old age of nine, is an aspiring gourmet and a devotee of cooking magazines, and I can have a problem.

Here’s our part of the menu – baked ham, a mashed potato casserole with cheddar, cream cheese and sour cream, jalapeño and pineapple cole slaw, marinated bean salad with fresh mint and devilled eggs with wasabi. This menu evolved in an odd way. The baked ham was a no brainer, although I absolutely loathe ham. My entire family is addicted to cheesy or garlic mashed potatoes, so they’re a given. We all love spicy foods, so when the Film Geek saw a recipe in the paper this morning for the wasabi eggs, we got straight to work. My kids will eat anything with pineapple or jalapeño in it and they all adore cole slaw and bean salad, so there you go. (Our half of the) Dinner is served.

Well, the rest of the family is running around picking stuff up, and my sweet husband has been in the kitchen for hours, so I’d better go. By my count I’ve been interrupted sixty four times since I’ve sat down to write this, so I admit defeat.

P.S. Happy Birthday, Susan! May your Easter Basket always be full!