As Per Your Request: The Deviled Eggs Recipe

Assemble ingredients:

6 large eggs
2T white vinegar
salt
pepper
1/4 c mayonnaise
2T yellow mustard
sweet Hungarian paprika
1 OPK (Target brand)
1 small dog

Place eggs in pot; add water to cover. Add vinegar and a pinch salt. Bring to a boil; set timer for 15 minutes.

Read on message board that OPK will double as pregnancy test. Reason with self that it is better to be safe than sorry, ignoring birth control pills and call from helpful nurse who provides assurance that yes, this cramping is totally normal. Remove OPK from packaging.

Hold OPK in stream of urine for 5 seconds. Realize more than urination is called for at this time. Proceed.

Notice dog has become so agitated by farty odor of eggs and pending walk that she has begun to paw at your knee and hands.

Observe OPK falling into the toilet. Note that timer is now beeping.

Consider attempting a flush, counting on the buoyancy of the plastic housing of the test. Envision nightmarish overflow situation; discard idea. Reach into toilet bowl, grateful for said buoyancy as compared to evident density of other contents of bowl. Discard OPK.

Scrub hands. Continue scrubbing for approximately three minutes, despite incessant beeping of timer.

Return to kitchen; remove eggs from heat and run cold water into pot. Burn hand on pot. Say, "Fuck."

Once eggs are cool enough to handle, peel and slice in half lengthwise. Remove yolks and place in bowl. Arrange whites cut side up on a platter.

Mash yolks with mustard, mayonnaise, and salt and pepper to taste. Ruminate on Grandma and Kansas cooking; note similarity between deviled eggs recipe (eggs, mustard, mayo) and potato salad recipe (potatoes, eggs, mustard, mayo). Wish for recipe for green slime dessert; recall that lime Jell-O, pineapple, and cream cheese are somehow involved. Remember the jade-green Tupperware used to hold a head of iceberg lettuce. Desire same out of nostalgia, despite fact that iceberg lettuce has never entered this particular kitchen.

Spoon yolk mixture into egg white halves; sprinkle with paprika. Devour in front of the episode of The Golden Girls in which Blanche learns that one of her ancestors is not only a Yankee, but Jewish as well.

Comments

[Mollie]

Oh, Jo, Thank you thank you thank you. That's the best goddamned recipe I've ever read.

Love forever,

[Julia]

I knew I was doing something wrong. Thanks for offering me a better recipe. ;)

[Christina]

I've heard the OPK-as-HPT thing as well, but then I learned that it's not accurate if you you have PCOS because then your LH will be wacky anyway.

Other than that, it sounds like you have a wonderful recipe there.

[Jo]

You're right, Christina -- but I happen to know, through extensive testing, that for me a negative OPK is a definite negative.

I'd like to thank my good friend Glucophage XR for that.

[jilbur]

I'll definitely have to remember that 'insert-hands-into-full-toilet-bowl-then-scrub-thoroughly' step next time I make the eggs ... was wondering why they were missing that je ne sais quoi, but now that I sais quoi manque, I am confident that this year I will finally get my rightful due as Queen of the Block Party. Fuckin' bee-otch last year with her macaroni-tuna-pimento salad.

[beth]

Is there anything better in this world than parking oneself in front of the Golden Girls? I think not? I'll try my hand at these deviled eggs this weekend!

[runnerwoman]

My grandma (also from Kansas) made the same slimy Jello salad. Lime jello, pears, Cool Whip, and cream cheese. Nirvana.

[Christina]

Ohhh, that sounds like a good firend you have there. Must pester my dr. until she prescribes an equally good friend--I'm thinking tylenol3, but does anyone have a better suggestion?

[Sonetka]

I can testify that for this PCOS female, OPK as HPT is useless. The idea is that if you get the as-dark-or-darker line, you're pregnant. I got the faintest of lines on the OPK the day before I got the (faint) second line on the HPT. Unfortunately that pregnancy miscarried, but the point is that the OPK wasn't even CLOSE to positive, and I refuse to believe that it was peering three weeks into the future and foreseeing the end. I think it just wasn't right.

[Kendra]

You know, I may actually *have* the lime jello recipe from my grandmother. Do you really want it, or is it just a passing fancy? :)

[Jo]

Sonetka, I'm really sorry for your loss. Re: the OPK: that's intriguing. Hmm. Although, can you imagine the market for a future-predicting Miss Cleo pregnancy test?

Kendra, many thanks, but I'm getting it from my own grandmother -- I have a recipe box she gave me at my wedding, and it contains recipes written in the hands of my grandma and a few great-aunts, and I'm going to add this one to it. Totally priceless.

Unfortunately, many of the recipes are Lileks-esque, but what can you do. It is the cuisine of my people -- Jell-o, Philly cheese (as they call it), canned fruit.