It’s funny, I can’t think of a single, specific food tradition in my family that relates to Easter. There was plenty of egg dying at the family table, and various celebratory and special foods made for the day, but nothing I can say is purely our own. What I do remember though, is the afternoon of dyeing eggs–in vinegar baths, or beet juice, or onion skins to reach that golden, straw color. There were the dozens of water glasses filled with food coloring laid out on newspaper, the stacks of wax crayons for marking, leaves for making patterns, and the pins for poking holes in raw eggs to make blown eggs. My cousins and I would spend a whole afternoon in my grandmother’s kitchen above the restaurant decorating our eggs–flats of them–to take to school or to an Easter party the following day.

And then there was Easter Sunday–usually a shared potluck at a mountaintop home, with all our friends and our parents friends. Hours of lazying in the tall grasses, the myriad games that consisted of chasing each other around the property; the oodles of chocolate and festive treats, a potluck table laden with salads and ham and homemade breads, bacon frying on the old gas stove and fresh eggs to eat; myriad colorful baskets tied with ribbons. And when the sun came out–swimming in the pool. Yes-a pool. Swimming stark naked in a hauntingly cold pool under the Big Sur sky–hard to beat.

Happy Easter everyone.