Meat Pie

Of all my friends and family, this is everyone’s favorite part of Easter. This took awhile for me to love this, and it is a very heavy dish. This year my love for ham pie is in full force. Some people call it ham pie or pizza rustica. Because I only have it once a year, I have never made it myself. This year I did copy my grandma’s recipe, so I look forward to testing it out for next year’s Easter dinner.

Rice Pie

If any type of food reminds me of my Grandma, it’s rice pie. It’s a sweet pie made of rice, eggs and ricotta. This is an EXTREMELY dense and creamy pie. It is another core staple of Easter Sunday. Sadly, I think this is my least favorite of all our food traditions , and I don’t think I will ever develop the love for it. We’ll see next weekend! Something about rice and sweetness just don’t mix well with me. However, don’t let me sway you. Many people absolutely love this dish, my family for example. This is definitely a favorite among many people, so I’m not sure why this is only served on Easter. I have never seen it made for any other holiday!

Sweet Bread

This is my favorite Easter treat! It’s something I actually love and enjoy. I like it best when it’s warm and with a little bit of butter. It is also really delicious toasted with apple butter. I’m sad that I only see this bread once a year for Easter, so I think this Sunday I will finally get the recipe from my Grandma’s giant box(es) of recipe cards. Some people refer to this as Easter bread, too.

In addition to all these things, we sometimes have a whole honey-baked ham. I prefer the ham pie to an actual ham just because it has a little more flair to it. I can’t think of any other Easter traditions we have off the top of my head, but I will definitely carry on these traditions in the years to come. Even if not all of them are my favorite foods ever! If you’re bored with your usual Easter meals, this is a good way to spice things up a little and get creative in the kitchen! What do other cultures have for Easter dinner?

Why? Why, why, why?

Because of Easter.

When I was young, Easter had a lot more meaning than the candy and toy packed basket left by the Bunny. Growing up in CT, the start of the Easter season meant that you could almost touch spring. The grocery store (Finast?) would start having the little wooden shoes with crocus bulbs in them, poking their heads up and blooming yellow, purple, red. Grass started to come up and turn green. The tips of the trees would turn greenish yellow, blush red on the maples. I’d give up chocolate for Lent (OK, not exactly the meaning but for me it was a sacrifice!). We’d get new dresses for Easter Sunday (inevitable freezing, though the dresses were definitely for warmer weather), and the family would all get together for lamb or ham, at someone’s house after church. We’d dye eggs and make a terrible mess, wasting God knew how many perfectly good hard boiled eggs (I liked them, not everyone did) because how much can you really DO with the eggs? We’d started out with my parents hiding the hard boiled eggs, but then the dog would eat them, so it was nixed as a tradition. We simply wound up throwing away most of the eggs. 

Strangely, the part of Easter I miss most these days (aside from my family, which has been cast far and wide) are the baked goods dad used to bring home from the Italian bakery. The Sicilian egg bread. The rice and wheat pies. He and I were the only ones who would really eat them; my grandmother would bake other pies for the dinner (lemon meringue, a fruit pie, maybe; coconut custard). He and I were the ones who ate the hot cross buns, because we liked the candied fruit. And the movies! If we weren’t having some kind of Star Wars film fest it would be “Barabbas” with Anthony Quinn, “Ben Hur” or even “The Ten Commandments”. The guys would sit around, bs and drink in the kitchen. The women would hang in the dining room, talking. The kids would either watch TV or go to someone’s room for music or, in the  case of one year, it was so nice outside that we all went to the baseball field and played baseball. In our Easter outfits.

When I got older, we brought my stepdaughters. We’d put candy and money in plastic eggs around the house, locking the girls on the front porch so they wouldn’t peek. Amanda would mope around, saying how she never won at anything, her mom got her foot spray for her birthday, and inevitably someone would clue her in to the occasional egg. Her sister ripped the house apart looking for eggs, unaided. One year they missed an egg; my dad found it in a pocket of his winter vest and called to ask if he could keep the dollar. I think one Easter was the time I decided the girls would never again see me drunk; I’d forgotten much of the evening (my brother was ladling out the Tom Collinses unasked from a large bowl), though I’d managed to get them to bed in pajamas and with teeth brushed. But they regaled me (as I was hung over and having to drive to pick up my grandmother) with stories of me licking the empty glass of Godiva chocolate liqueur, talking to the pixies in my closet, asking repeatedly who had put the board game away. My mother even remarked “I don’t think I’ve ever see you that drunk.”

“Can’t say the same,” I snapped. Good times.

Lots of memories of Easters past…Steve Hall popping in uninvited before he had to go to work at the jail, bringing his own Tupperware and packing himself a nice lunch from the leg of lamb leftovers. Me hemorrhaging in the bathroom with company over and a leg of lamb in the oven and willing myself to stop because I didn’t have a good window in which to go to the hospital. Going to the Boulder Inn in CT and not telling my parents so they wouldn’t feel bad. Lots of singing in church.

This year? My mom is going to be away, and my youngest step can’t come home, so it will only be the three of us. I’d say I’d go somewhere, but I’m playing a benefit on Good Friday. Eddie won’t be shorted. We’ll go to several egg hunts, without a doubt, and the Easter Bunny will be good to him.

It’s me. I could make all the goodies I’d want at Easter but it would be a waste, both of time and food. I made two egg breads one year and gave one to the neighbor, but the people in my home seem to have no appreciation for good homemade bread. I could make French toast  from it, but nobody eats that, either. And making a leg of lamb for three is kind of the same. We might as well go somewhere but even that makes me feel a pit in my stomach. Sucks to know what you’re missing. Which was apparently why I ate the damned fool hot cross buns. To fill the hole.

So today, I’ll eat a lot of fruit and vegetables, not punish myself for bingeing, and try and figure out what will feed the longing. Preferably with no calories.