Easter memories, good and bad

For the past week, I have been on a mission: To find the best Easter Brunch in OlyWa. After the first couple days on the case, I revised the mission a bit: To find an Easter Brunch in OlyWa.

Actually, they do exist here. I've gotten a couple leads, one of which we'll choose today. The problem, you see, stems from my aunt and uncle, who every year create an Easter Brunch that is simply unbeatable. They have made it impossible to find a passable brunch by setting the bar much too high.

So, this year, we'll be missing their annual culinary masterpiece: honey-glazed ham (for years, this was the only day I ate ham), cheesy potatoes, asparagus, spinach-and-feta quiche, raspberry(?)-and-cream-cheese jello mold, deviled eggs, rolls and pineapple muffins. Then, to finish the meal: Graeter's ice cream and Bonbonerie cookies. Then, after pure, shameless gluttony, everyone retires to the beautiful parlor (for conversation about 700WLW, the Archdiocese of Cincinnati and the latest funerals). Every year, my aunt offers me leftovers, and every year, I greedily accept. Not this year. I weep for our epicurean loss.

Easter evokes a string of childhood memories, the strongest of which are tied to my grandmother (my dad's mother). Why? First, my grandma died eleven years ago in April, right before Easter; this was the only time I have ever witnessed a person literally take their last breath, so it made an impact. Second, when we were kids, my grandparents always hosted an Easter Egg Hunt for all the grandchildren in their backyard. The coveted grand prize, hidden in a gold L'eggs egg, was a 50-cent piece. That amount of money blew our little minds. And third, my grandma always celebrated Easter by making an elaborate lamb cake.

This lamb cake was her magnum opus. It was a three-dimensional, lamb in-the-round, complete with white coconut for its white fleece. I can imagine the cake perfectly, sitting on my grandparents' buffet, right below the huge, creepy painting of the Last Supper (which was there for my careful study year-round, not just for the Easter season).

One might think that the memories of this lamb cake would be charming - the stuff of warm holiday sentiment. Unfortunately, the lamb-cake memories are a bit tainted.

I always felt a certain revulsion about my grandparents' food. I am not being mean-spirited when I say this. Aside from the fact that the snacks they fished out of the pantry were always stale, there are two experiences that spawned this revulsion:

1) One time, when I was about five years old, I witnessed my grandmother stuff a turkey. It was the most vile thing I had ever seen, and I remember self-consciously suppressing a gag. I couldn't believe she was sticking her hand in the turkey. And, worse, I couldn't believe the horrible, wet, squishing that sound this act seemed to generate. Today, I'll try almost anything in the kitchen, but you will never catch me stuffing a bird.

2) Another time, my sister and I snuck into a bag of chocolate at my grandma's house. All the adults were in the living room, probably watching Lawrence Welk, giving us the perfect opportunity to snoop around the office. We hit the jackpot: A brown paper bag filled with Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and Rolos. No sooner had we made the discovery than we began quietly tearing into the wrappers and biting into the chocolate. The moment that followed is seared into my memory forever. Before biting down, I was stopped short by the sight of little white worms poking through the chocolate. My sister was not so lucky. She had already bit into -- and ingested -- the worm-riddled Rolos. I can't even bring myself to write anymore about it.

Now, back to the lamb cake. I have a clear memory of eating the cake and thinking it tasted alarmingly like soap. I even thought to myself, Does Grandma scrape little bits of soap off the bar and think it will pass for coconut? (She was senile for most of the years I remember her.) But to this day, I am not sure if this is an actual memory or one that I conjured up in response to my previous experiences. If that's the case, that poor lamb cake has gotten a bad rap.

On this note, I'll turn my thoughts back to more pleasant Easter memories: Brunch at J+P's, jellybeans, Papas eggs and chocolate bunnies. Just no worms with my chocolate, thanks.