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Easter Traditions: New, Copied, Old

Last year I was in Santiago, Chile for several months and spent Easter with an eclectic group of people from all over the globe. Can I tell you that those who did not grow up in the U.S. think Easter traditions are BONKERS. Faith and religion aside, the Easter bunny, dying eggs, hiding eggs – really, what were we thinking? But whatever, that’s the great thing about culture and tradition – in them there is an excuse for ridiculous things to be made fun and celebratory!

A year ago Easter, I forced a friend to dye eggs with me and then we hid them in our Santiago apartment, invited all our international friends over for brunch, and made them hunt for eggs in our apartment. Yes, they thought we were completely BONKERS, but OH YES did they ever have fun. Plus, they certainly enjoyed the deviled eggs we made for them(I hadn’t realized what a very Americana thing deviled eggs are until then).

This year Easter(and I know I’m a little late to be posting about Easter) I again forced adult friends to dye eggs with me(OH YES, I dare say they enjoyed themselves in the end). Then, I played Easter bunny the next day and both kids and adults hunted for eggs in our yard. And OH YES!, to my great pleasure all parties involved enjoyed the egg hunting immensely.

Now to the photos above and my traditions:

NEW! I actually made this one up! While hiding real eggs on Easter is built into my DNA, plastic ones with candy is not – we never had these growing up, but I added them to our hunt this year and filled them with hershey kisses. After the egg hunt the kids opened up their eggs and unwrapped their kisses. I had peanut butter cookie dough ready to go so we smashed our kisses into balls of dough and made peanut butter kiss cookies – great activity and a fun treat all in one. I think I shall continue this for years to come!

COPIED! Another blog I read (and am high fiving) suggested these little paper carrots. I made them and placed them in each of the kid’s Easter baskets. I’m a dork, but I love this kind of thing.

OLD! My grandma’s cheesy potatoes and ham – my family’s Easter dinner staples, shared with my Seattle family.

RAMEKINS

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Do you read blogs? I mean, other than this one of course.  I only read a few on a regular basis, but one thing I’ve noticed about “the good” bloggers is that they link to other blogs regularly. I think it’s the equivalent of giving someone a high five or indirectly letting them know you’d like to be friends.

That said, I am about to make my first two blog high fives…

There are 2 food blogs that I read on a regular basis (as in for fun, and not just because I’m frantically scouring the interweb to figure out how to make salad dressing or cook lentils in a new and exciting way). One is this oh so popular blog that probably gets tons of high fives and the other is this one. One thing about food bloggers is that even though they honestly think they are “normal” people with “normal kitchen things” who use “normal ingredients” – they are not. They are FANCY. They nonchalantly reference putting to use things that I generally do not have – things like spring form pans, remnants of expensive cheeses “just lying around in the fridge”, spices I have to google in order to figure out what they are and where to buy them, AND they use things like RAMEKINS.

OH RAMEKINS. One of my housemates (and if you know him you will think this is funny) signed up to receive free issues of Real Simple magazine (he says he is going to cancel it, but I really hope he doesn’t because I love reading that magazine and I really love having it delivered to my house for free on a regular basis).

Back to the RAMEKINS. In one of these free issues of Real Simple, I happened upon this recipe and knew that I must not only try the recipe, but that in order to do so properly would have to buy myself some ramekins. Now, buying ramekins is kind of a big deal for me—I don’t splurge on kitchen things often, so it would be torture to end up with ramekins that I don’t like. Thus, I consulted several websites and my mom, but ultimately I took some advice (okay I copied) the favorite ramekins (scroll down to #5 when you get to the page) of one of my two favorite food bloggers.  Yes, that’s 3 high fives in one post, 4 if you count my real simple recipe.

THE RAMEKINS have not disappointed. I love them and can’t even begin to tell you how happy they are making me. In fact, due to my recent commitment to post weekly – if I run out of things to write about I may resort to posting about things I make in my new ramekins…because I am so excited to make things in ramekins.

In the meantime, I am going to try and convince at least one of my pregnant friends to name their child Ramekin.

And now, that I should really stop writing, I am wondering this: What is the likelihood that someone googling “ramekin” is going to happen upon this post?

Resolution

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For the 5 of you on planet earth that know about this blog and have ever enjoyed(or atleast read) its contents – Now hear this: I resolve to post something weekly from now until July 1st (we’ll reassess at that point in time).

How’s that for a goal – specific, measurable, and publicly stated.

p.s. Isn’t the pregnant cat billboard below the best way ever to re-ignite Not Quite Dhaka’s glory?

“From there to here, from here to there, funny things are everywhere.”

-From One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish by Dr. Seuss

February Tulips:: These beauties were purchased at Pike’s Place Market. Buying flowers in general is always a fun thing, but I think buying flowers at Pike’s Place(or some similarly amazing market) might just make my list of top 5 favorite things to do. It’s the little things with me. These were bought in a hurry on a super rainy gray cold Seattle Saturday to adorn the table at a baby shower for a dear friend. Here are a few of the leftovers – February Tulips, what hopeful, happy little things.

Christmas Quotes & Conversations From Family Time

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In response to the sunny 75 degree weather we experienced on Christmas Day while drinking margaritas…

“Maybe we should do Christmas Luau style… I bet people would eat a lot less if they were wearing bathing suits at the dinner table.” – My Sister

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ME: “Emily, you sure smell nice."   EMILY: "Thanks, it’s my new Justin Bieber perfume!” – My 13 year old cousin ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“Another volunteer recently started calling us all Japanese Cowboys.  Imagine if, 70 years ago, some Japanese guy had moved straight from the heart of Japan into the Midwest.  Once he gets there, he decides to start wearing jeans and a hat and decides to become a cowboy.  He even starts throwin out some yeehaws.  Sure he’s a fine cowboy, but no one will ever really take him seriously because he’s still Japanese.”

– My Brother (currently in the Peace Corps in Panama). An excerpt from his most recent email.

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We gave my aunt 4 live chickens and a giant coup for Christmas(another story for another day). As we chatted with and purchased the chickens from the “Chicken Lady”:

“I actually have a house chicken. She’s really sweet. She sleeps with me every night perched by my head…”

– The Chicken Lady

“There are moments in our lives when we summon the courage to make choices that go against reason, against common sense and the wise counsel of people we trust. But we lean forward nonetheless because, despite all risks and rational argument, we BELIEVE that the path we are choosing is the right and best thing to do. We refuse to be bystanders, even if we do not know exactly where our actions will lead.

This is the kind of passionate conviction that sparks romances, wins battles, and drives people to pursue dreams others wouldn’t dare. Belief in ourselves and in what is right catapults us over hurdles, and our lives unfold.

–From Onward by Howard Schultz