smitten kitchen's egg salad

I always wanted to belong to a community, a group of people larger than my family. Being half Jewish and half Protestant cancelled each other out and I received no religious training growing up and therefore no religious tradition. While I don't miss the religion, I do miss the tradition.

So with all this talk about the perfect Easter brunch and what to make for Passover dinner, I am at a loss. How do I fit in?

Now that I have my own family I feel the impulse to create traditions. But it is harder than you'd imagine. Particularly, since I do not have any memories to fall back on, and because I am already over extended and a bit disorganized.

Here is one I'd like to keep up. Let's call it a celebration of spring... with naturally dyed eggs.

They were so promising as an idea. I'd seen a number of sites where the colors were amazingly brilliant like here, here, and here, so I had high expectations for this craft.

Unfortunately, my purple cabbage only made a very faint sky blue after 5 hours steeping so I put those eggs into a blueberry dye. Those came out super dark purple. The turmeric was super successful, creating a vivid yellow. My total failure was the red onion skins and red chard stems. They only made a soft brown, not unlike a brown egg's natural color. I left them in the dye over night which made the shells of the blueberry a bit soft, but didn't effect the others adversely.

Maybe I'll try this variation next year.

Only problem now is what do I do with all those hard boiled eggs.

Leave it to Deb from Smitten Kitchen for that. I made her lovely egg salad without the mayo or yogurt,  and fell in love with her quick pickled celery, just as she promised.