Urban Garden Tour

A cashier at Meijers once told me that the Fourth of July is the “Wednesday of Summer.” I hold onto that thought, first because it is true, and second to remind myself that sages exist in undreamed of places. — Naked Latte: Conversations Overheard

Is it tacky to quote from your own novel? Hope not. But what’s really unforgivable is that it’s the 4th of July weekend and I haven’t said anything about my garden this year! So let’s get down to it:

Tomatoes – Let’s get this out of the way, okay? I thought I would be clever this year and scatter the spent grass clippings through the garden to keep the weeds down. Instead, I think I gave the tomatoes cucumber mosaic virus (CMV). They look horrible. MP’s roma tomato (for salsa) isn’t too bad — it’s got fruit that should be ready in the next two weeks — and the sungold is chugging along okay, but the Paul Robesons will be lucky to get any fruit at all. CMV is carried by about 800 different plants, so undoubtedly I brought it in with the spent grass clippings. MP pointed out, “If it’s carried in 800 plants, it’s not really a cucumber virus, is it?” He’s right, too — the cucumbers don’t have it at all. The tomato that looks best? A feral sungold that sprouted from last year’s seed in the compost pile.


Kale – I think I may have hit my kale stride. It looks pretty good and tastes great. Needs to be spread out more, though. That’s my fault for crowding them. Believe it or not, this weekend it’s time to replant the kale for the winter season. This stuff has been growing since February. Cabbage loopers provide an extra protein boost!

Lettuce – I’m so proud of my lettuce. It looks like lettuce! Pretty green bibb lettuce for nice salads. I’d love to tell you how fascinating it tastes but… It’s lettuce. Green. Leafy. And that’s about it. I’m actually growing some stuff in a container, but this horrible little hornworm devoured it, so it’s recuperating (the hornworm, however, will not recuperate.


Cucumber – a strange cucumber malaise made me think that I would have no cucumbers at all this year. They just wouldn’t grow. Only one out of six lived, so I planted two in pots and watched them carefully… and then one died. So I have a largish one and a smaller one, and this may actually be enough. Moderation is important when dealing with curcubits, as we shall see… The reason this image looks so green is that the light is green under all those leaves.

Plumgranny(Queen Anne’s Pocket-Melon) – I grow these for amusement, as they have no culinary value. They smell good. They remind my grandmother of her childhood in Appalachia, so I send her a few. On the plus side, with the tomatoes being so puny, the plumgrannies have room to spread out and they look great. Lots of flowers, but I’m not seeing any little green melons yet.


Butternut Squash – These would probably be doing better if they weren’t overrun by the other squashes. I have pruned back the zucchini and they are doing a little better, but ultimately, I don’t think I’d buy the Burpee’s Butterbush again; if it’s going to survive in the garden, it needs a lot of chutzpah. Still, we’ll probably get a few tiny ones for late-summer risotto. Their flavor is really good.

Pipan(Patty-Pan) Squash – Last year we really got into grilling these, so I planted some, and now they are fighting with the zucchini to see which will rule the garden. They look like alien artifacts, vegetal gifts from extra-terrestrial visitors. Actually, all the squashes are so fascinating I think they’re worthy of their own post. We had so many this past week I gave some away to a friend to who promised to take them to a party with him as a conversation piece to pick up women. Good Luck, kid!

Zucchini – We like zucchini. We like to grill it. This is good, because now we are up to our eyebrows in it. “Don’t plant too many!” MP warned me. “They say one is enough!” I planted three hills… with three plants each, but some died early… so I replanted them… They’re fine now. What’s your address? Do you like zucchini? Because MP shot down the “Let’s brew zucchini beer!” suggestion real quick and now I’m stuck for ideas.


Beans – Alas, the beans have disease issues, too, as evidenced by their quilted-looking leaves. It has not seemed to inhibit their will to produce, however; this year I’ve grown some of the longest beans ever. These are pole beans (as opposed to bush beans), which I like for their flavor and the fact that they take up less horizontal space.

Zinnias – I grew these from seed saved from last year. Need I say more?


Peaches – Yes, I know. You have been waiting for this information breathlessly. The good news: No signs of oriental fruit moths this year! I got on the spray schedule early and have stuck to it. At this point we are about 20 days from harvest. Some peaches have begun to blush, and I won’t be spraying them with bentonite clay again. The bad news: some peaches have also begun to split, probably due to uneven watering, though I don’t know. Alas, bacterial spot is a problem of Elberta peaches, and the leaf-drop can look quite alarming. Water conditions aren’t helping. All told I’ve lost ½ to ¾ of the crop from the freeze and the initial drop of peaches. The soil around here is terrible; I need to fertilize next year earlier and more heavily.


That said, I still will have some delicious peaches and enough to make a few cobblers and cakes with. Don’t know if I’ll be canning any PeachStuff this year. I have this completely unfounded fear that the neighborhood kids will come and steal my peaches, but MP pointed out that most kids don’t even know what a peach looks like. That and… well, my peaches are ugly and covered with weird white crap. Steal them? Probably not.

MP’s Pet Pepper (The Drama Queen) – Yes! This plant is dying! Right before our eyes! Every day! Why don’t we feed it? Why don’t we water it? Don’t we love it? And so on. Dramatic Vegetables can be highly entertaining. It doesn’t help that it’s up on the porch in the 100 degree heat, but really, peppers are sooo excitable. Lack of water is making these jalapenos hot as hell.


This is the season I like best, every morning going out with my knife (to fend off the zucchini) and my trug (to haul everything back to the house) and seeing what is new. The bees are extremely happy. I never worry that they will sting me, only that one might run me over. Sure enough, this morning I bent down at the wrong moment and got thwacked upside the head.

Summer is alive. 'Tis the season to get messy in it.

Anti-Hero by Villainess

Some women spend their 401K plans on designer handbags. Some want jewelry. Others have a particular weakness for shoes.

I go mad for soap.

But don’t think I’m easy. Clearly one can find soap anywhere; what I seek is much more subtle and difficult to define. Part of it is scent — I like perfume, too — but there is something about a bar of good-smelling soap lathering up like whipped cream that I seek out. Is it the sensuality? A psychological need to cleanse myself? The fact that I grew up in a house with water so hard all our towels were stained rust-red with iron?

One thing is certain — this is not the kind of obsession you can discuss freely. Still, there are those who have known me long enough to know which passions make me tick, and when they see interesting crossovers, they send word. The phrase “I saw this soap named ‘anti-hero’ and it made me think of you” dropped into a friend’s casual e-mail sounded too good to be true.


With my first glimpse of the Villainess home page I knew I was not in some pink girly candy-land of sickly scented personal products. For starters, the look and feel of the web page can only be described as 19th Century smoky boudoir — aged parchment and skulls over a burgundy tooled-leather background. In addition to selling soap, some of their products are Whipped! (body butter) and Smooch! (body scrub), and also perfume oils in ampoules. (“Historically, the ampoule has held the blood of martyrs, anointing oils, and medicinal solutions. We have misappropriated the delicate vials to hold our equally precious Extrait, and carefully accented each stoppered bottle with our hand-stamped monogram and a weathered copper skull.”)

Describing their scent catalog, the founders state “…we aim for that ultimately unique Villainess touch. A bizarre juxtaposition of scent that will create (or trigger) a vivid olfactory memory.” The scents have names like “Asphyxiate,” “Crushed,” and “Silk & Cyanide.”

Sometimes I wonder what my friends think of when they think of me…

The main page listing their soaps states: “Sometimes a girl needs a change of pace. Or maybe she's had a trying day at the office, juggling evil schemes. That's when you pull out the big guns and spoil yourself.” It seems the people at Villainess understood me.
This is how they describe their soap:

Full Name: Antihero
Weight / Height: 3.5oz (99g) / 3 in
Colour: Soft grey suede.
Distinguishing Features: Absolutely smooth, sheer, silken lather swirled with pitch black Australian clay.
Characteristic Scent: Well-worn sweaty leather, the acrid smoke of cigarettes, and a soft side of honey and vanilla.

Cigarette smoke and leather? In a soap? As an M.A. in English Lit with an emphasis on the portrayal of the hero throughout history, how could I say no?

“Anti-hero” is a sledgehammer to my limbic system. It smells like a woman, the kind of woman wears what she wants and smokes where she wants and doesn’t give a damn anymore what people think. And yet… there is also a softer note, something that reminds me of being utterly depressed and enveloped in a really good hug, smelling the smoke in her clothes with another perfume — a yin-yang animal, organically floral sweet scent like… Hope? Every time I smell it I have a vision of the café where I drank coffee and spent endless hours talking about my M.A. thesis while this woman smoked, nodded, and quietly listened to—

Oh my God. I just now realized I’m talking about Em. Somehow they captured how my best friend Em smelled in 1992.

Wow. Crap. Em… Now I’m totally thrown. Well then! “A vivid olfactory memory.” They weren’t lying. Be careful what you wish for.

In addition to the soap I also ordered some Whipped! in Paradise Misplaced (“Sweetly creamed coconut with touches of mango offset by crisp green tea”) and Smooch! in Krakatoa (“Flashes of exotic foliage… amidst slightly more domestic fruits…and an explosive burst of citrus). I’m pleased to say that all three items were really lush-feeling and wonderful, probably owing in large part to their use of high-end ingredients like palm oil, shea butter and cherry kernel oil.

The next scent I’d like to try? “Villainess” — “Sheer pearly grey shot with crimson…. Our signature scent — all ball gowns and combat boots. Raw, smokey [sic] leather and sweet vanilla musk engulfed in a sheer haze of exotic florals — ylang, neroli, jasmine, lilac and tuberose.”

And if you like that, check out the description for "Bathory.”

Having Cake and Not Eating it, Either

Can you believe that this is not a real cake? It is a miniature in polymer clay stolen from PetitPlat by sk's Flickr photostream.

Wheat is everywhere. I deal with it. It’s the people I want to backhand.

The other night someone brought some really lovely sandwiches and cake to class — beautifully packaged and artfully arranged, clearly handmade and very thoughtful. The sandwiches were wraps and small croissants, and the layer cake was chocolate with sliced strawberries pressed into the sides of the real buttercream icing. (none of that sugar-Crisco crap. I can tell.) I appreciate good food even when I can’t eat it.

My friend stood there, handing out sandwiches. “Why aren’t you eating any?”

“The wheat thing.”

“Well you can eat the insides. Just take the bread off.”

There are a few things wrong with this approach:
1) And do what with the insides? Eat chicken salad out of my hands?

2) You can take the meat out of the sandwich but you cannot get the bread off the meat. I tried that when I first when gluten-free and realized the next day just how badly that doesn’t work. (And for the record, if there’s pasta in a soup, you can’t “eat around it.”)

3) What an incredibly flippant, ignorant thing to say to someone when you KNOW she’s allergic to wheat. Nothing like being zinged by a friend.

“No, I can’t just take the insides out,” I replied, “Ask your son’s girlfriend, the one who’s so allergic to nuts, how she feels about eating something that’s touched peanuts.”

“Oh, yeah…” my friend said. Maybe it made her think about what she said, I don’t know. I left it at that.

This exchange is at the forefront of my mind because I have written a really pertinent article about this VERY SAME TOPIC, and I can’t find a publisher.

It seems our local newspaper (and I live in a metro area of 1.2 million people) no longer has the staff to accept reader submissions, even after I told the editor I would do the piece for free. And then three days after I called the paper laid off 75 people, so I know she wasn’t just trying to get rid of me.

So here you are — my article, for free! — and I hope that whether you’re the hostess or the guest, you find something useful.

Entertaining with Food Allergies

(All photos are from PetitPlat by sk's photostream on Flickr. Check out her wonderful blog and more of her stunning polymer clay creations.)

It seems like everyone has a food allergy these days, and that makes entertaining difficult. A good hostess instinctively knows that poisoning one’s guests is a no-no, but with so many different allergies to navigate, how can one plan an inclusive menu? And on the other side of the equation, if you’re a guest with a food allergy, how do you inform a hostess about your allergy without coming across as bossy?

It doesn’t help that the word “allergy” is thrown around a lot. The American Academy of Allergy Asthma &Immunology defines a “food allergy” as specifically involving immunoglobulin E (IgE) antibodies. Symptoms such as hives, swelling of the lips and tongue or vomiting often occur shortly after ingesting the offending food. Anaphylactic shock is when an immune response is so severe that blood pressure drops suddenly and airways narrow, blocking normal breathing. If someone in anaphylactic shock doesn’t immediately use an EpiPen (a one-shot dose of epinephrine) or go to an emergency room, they could die. The World Allergy Organization estimates that each year 150 Americans die from food-related anaphylaxis. Peanuts, tree nuts and shellfish are the most likely to trigger such a severe reaction.

If eating a certain food causes an immune response that does not involve IgE antibodies, it is not considered an “allergy,” but an “intolerance” — although when someone is experiencing several hours of “digestive distress” (nausea, vomiting, diarrhea), medical definitions of “allergy” seem rather quaint. Some food intolerances cause chronic health issues, such as the inability of the body to absorb certain nutrients (which is often the case when someone is allergic to wheat).

If the biology behind food allergies and intolerances hasn’t convinced you to hang up your apron, then take heart — the best advice for dealing with a food allergy is the simplest. Your Momma was right: everything comes down to good manners. Whether you’re a hostess or a guest, put yourself in the other’s shoes for a moment and consider how both your assumptions and requests might sound.

For a hostess, knowing what to do means understanding why you’re entertaining in the first place. It sounds strange and anthropological, but think about it — the purpose of having people over for a meal is about creating a group experience centered around sharing food. If someone can’t share the food, they can’t share the experience. The smaller the group, the more obvious it is that someone is not eating the same thing as everyone else. It changes to chemistry of the gathering by making the guest with the allergy feel left out and the hostess feel inadequate, and that’s not good.

So by all means, if you are hosting less than twelve people ask your guests if they have food allergies. If someone does, ask for menu suggestions or if there’s a dish they would like to bring. By getting input before the event you can be sure there are foods all your guests can share. And unless you have an allergy to something a guest brought, make a point to try it — it’s an inclusive gesture your guest will appreciate, and you might learn a new recipe.

If you are hosting a larger meal or a party with a buffet, assume you will have one or two guests who have food allergies and plan accordingly. The most common allergies are eggs, milk, nuts, peanuts, soy, tree nuts and wheat/gluten, but this is hardly a complete list! When planning the menu, remember that less-processed food is better than pre-packaged and simple is better. If the food is catered, talk to the provider and explain the need for options. If at all possible label the foods or be sure that the servers are aware of which dishes contain what and are prepared to answer questions.

You may not learn about a guest’s allergy until the event itself. Take a guest around and discreetly point out safe foods for their particular concern. Save containers and packaging for ingredient lists so if a guest asks a question you can read labels and be certain.

No matter what size the gathering is, do not telegraph to the entirety of the party that the reason Jane isn’t eating the green goddess salad dressing is because it will put her in the powder room for the next three hours if she has so much as a forkful. That’s Jane’s business, so let her tell if she chooses to. If other guests want to know why Jane is only eating vinegar and oil dressing, breezy, evasive answers are all you need give — and then offer to pass the vinegar and oil.

If a guest asks you to provide detailed explanations of ingredients, do not take it personally. Eating away from home with food allergies is difficult. If you’ve never dealt with a food allergy yourself, you may not realize the consequences of eating certain foods or the level of care required to ensure that a food is “safe.” When a guest asks you questions, remember that undoubtedly this is someone who has suffered “digestive distress” (or something worse) in the past and wants to avoid it in the future. If a guest’s behavior seems particularly dictatorial or unreasonable, remember: you have the option of not inviting them to the next function, but ignoring food allergies is not an option for them.

If you have a food allergy and are invited to dine at someone’s home, you need to say something. Your friends probably already know, but co-workers and casual acquaintances may not. Telling a host you have a food allergy isn’t being pushy; you’re helping him avoid potential embarrassment and giving yourself the opportunity to dine safely. It doesn’t matter how many times you say, “No really, I’m fine” — no host will feel good watching you consume only a glass of chardonnay and a lettuce leaf.

As soon as you receive an invitation, give the host a call or drop an email and explain the situation — simply. Unless anaphylactic shock is a serious possibility there’s no need to go into deep biological detail; just say that an allergy to a particular food is a concern and you wanted him to be aware of it. Some allergies are easier to work around than others; by speaking up you may assist in his decision to serve shrimp or chicken.

However, do consider that your host may already have very definite ideas about the menu and your food allergy may put an unexpected kink in those plans. So instead of just saying what you can’t have, offer to bring a dish you can have that fits in with what’s being served. You might even make the offer to arrive early and help prepare dishes with alternative ingredients so you can eat them, too.

If the gathering is at a restaurant, call ahead or check the Internet to find out what options you have and make arrangements with the kitchen staff ahead of time. More restaurants are becoming aware of allergy challenges and work hard to come up with suitable menu items that eliminate offending foods. If an event is catered find a member of the staff and ask questions, and although it may seem forward, be one of the first in line to avoid cross-contamination from misplaced serving utensils.

As a guest with a food allergy someone will certainly offer you something you cannot eat. Some people are comfortable being the ambassadors of their particular allergy and enjoy educating others, while some people wish they didn’t have to deal with food allergies and don’t want to talk about it. Decide beforehand how you want to respond, and learn to say a simple “No, Thank-You” gracefully. Even if you are asked specifically “So what happens when you do eat eggs?” keep in mind that while everyone is eating is probably not the time to discuss the biological details of your particular allergic reaction.

Accept that your host may not really understand the level of attention required to insure that foods are safe for you and do not push the issue is he seems reluctant to change plans or accept help. Some people don’t understand how limiting a food allergy can be and they just don’t want to. Unfortunately, there may be times when you have to bring your own snacks or eat before or after a function.

Sharing food with friends is a basic human pleasure that gives us a common experience; allergies make sharing that common experience challenging, but not impossible. By being willing to communicate thoughtfully and accommodate some changes, everyone can feel welcome and relaxed — which is why we share meals together in the first place.

And send your Momma a Thank-You note.

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For more information about food allergies, check out http://www.foodallergy.org The site contains resources and recipes for all ages.
The statistics for this article came from the following sources:
The American Academy of Allergy Asthma &Immunology web site
The World Allergy Organization web site

Halibut with Cucumber Salad and Soy-Mustard Dressing

I know that MP is the chef here, but this is what I ate for lunch yesterday:


Seriously. I made this. You may be suitably impressed now.

This recipe comes from Food and Wine magazine and can be found online here. Provided the soy sauce is gluten-free (Bragg Liquid Amino Acids, revolting as it sounds, is a good choice) it's a nice dish for the dietarily challenged.

The key is taking what you have and making the dish your own. The original recipe is for grouper, but I used halibut. I do not have a mandoline and there was no way I was "folding" cucumber slices. (Although you do need to prop the fish up out of the dressing; a short stack of cucumber works, too.) There's a lot of latitude for personal tastes in Dale Gartland's dish, and that's what makes it a good recipe.

Prep time may be the only thing that stops people from making this. The dressing comes together in a snap. Do not fear the specialized ingredients — mirin is a sweetened cooking wine and used in teriyaki sauces (make your own gluten-free version), rice vinegar is a lovely low-acid vinegar for summer dressings, and white vermouth can be substituted for sake. The fish prep was easy. It's the vegetables that are tough.

A food processor with the right blade can crank out the carrot and radish easily. But the shallots, the garlic, the chile... That's some knife work. And cucumbers are essential, but don't do so well in the food processor. Cucumbers are water trapped by sunshine, so you MUST remove the seeds if you do not use a seedless cucumber or you will end up with a soggy wad of pulp. Nope, the veggies will take up most of the prep time. It's worth it.

You may be tempted to skip the sesame seeds and frizzled shallots/garlic. Don't. Pace yourself. Besides, frizzling is fun. In one pan, you can toast the seeds, then frizzle the shallots and garlic, and then use the flavored oil to cook the fish (pat the fish off so it's dry; makes for a better crust).

What is rewarding about Gartland's dish is the contrast of flavors and textures: soft and cool, sweet and crunchy, salty and green. If you skip any of the ingredients, you will undoubtedly make a tasty entrée, but you will miss out on the fun of discovering new combinations with each bite.

There are so many wonderful things in this world to eat. Don't limit yourself.

Star of Bethlehem

According to the USDA I grew up in Zone 5. Not that they track me personally; I’ve just always been fascinated by their brightly banded map, and wherever I go I ultimately want to know if lemon trees are possible (not hardy below Zone 9-10) and daffodils work (doesn’t get cold enough above Zone 8).

In practical terms this means because I didn’t grow up here, there’s stuff out in my yard I’ve never seen before.


A few years back I was mowing and found flowers where I had never planted any. The leaves looked like garlic chives, but longer and fallen over, with small white flowers, a few to each cluster. It was quite pretty, actually, and I wondered who would randomly plant stuff in the middle of a yard out by the curb.

I mowed around it, went back, and dug it up. This was harder than I thought, because the bulbs it grew from (again, like garlic chives or spring onions) were easily 6-8 inches down, and I mangled several before I got enough to transplant into my flower bed. I had no idea what it was. I assumed it was some sort of wild allium (garlic/onion type plant) or bulb. It’s grown up very nicely, and this year I took some pictures.

Gardeners probably seem rather solid and boring (old people with stone figurines growing way too many zucchini), but the truth is, we’re risk-takers. Who do you think invented zucchini bread? Crazy stuff. Seeing only pictures in a catalog, we decode a few bits of information (like zone hardiness, shade tolerance, and mature height), calculate whether or not we have room (and if it’s something we want, we always do), and send away for little bare-rooted sticks or knobby tubers or packets of seeds that look like alien gallstones. We stick these things in the dirt. We wait. A risky business.

Sometimes it pays off. When MP first saw the peach tree, he looked at me and asked, “Which end is up?” Six years and 30 pounds of peaches later, I apparently guessed right. Then sometimes things don’t go well, and one must rectify the mistakes. This happens to both my mother and her mother — a lot.

Currently my mother is ripping up sweet woodruff (“They said it was a groundcover. No lie!”) while my grandmother has spent 20+ years going at the lily of the valley (“It grows up places I never put it!”). Neither one has made much headway. Interestingly enough, my mother cannot get lily of the valley to grow — and she lives in the woods. What both my mother and grandmother agree upon is that STAR OF BETHLEHEM MUST DIE.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because it grows everywhere! All the time!” my mother answered.

Grandma was more specific. “Because it gets yecchy.”

Okay… Over time they revealed that star of bethlehem, while pretty, is invasive, crowding out everything growing around it. After blooming, the grassy leaves get rather slimy and can’t be pulled out. It’s pretty for 2 weeks and annoying for 4 months.


I year or so ago I was at a plant sale hosted by a gardener friend of mine, and in her flower bed I saw the unknown little thing I’d rescued from my yard. “How cute!” I exclaimed, “Would you sell me some?”

“Oh God, that. No. You don’t want it.”

“But I already have some and I like it. What–?”

“Kill it.”

“But I like it! What is it?”

“Star of bethlehem.”

I had nursed a viper in my bosom! (Is that not one of the most wacked out sayings imaginable? No wonder it fell out of favor somewhere about 1910…) However, the truth is… I’ve never had a problem with it. It’s at the edge of the flowerbed, and though I occasionally mow over it in the summer, it always comes back in the spring. Look at it — isn’t it cheerful? Don’t the little while flowers look so happy to greet the springtime? Doesn’t its green center look like a Jell-O mold? I still don’t know how it got out in my yard. Maybe some disgusted person flung it there. Maybe a bird carried it off a compost pile. Nature’s mysteries abound.


“You watch it,” my mother warned me, “You’ll be sorry.” But she’s been saying that to me for decades now about this or that, and I’m still here. A lot depends on soil type and micro-climate, so maybe where I have it now it will remain in control. It marks a point in the springtime when the daffodils are gone but the azaleas aren’t quite ready to show. I’d hate to lose it.

Sometimes you have to take risks.

Searching for the Elusive Purple Easter Egg

Have you ever done something that went so terribly wrong you passed beyond dismay into the realm of “My God, I have to keep going to see how truly bad this can get”?

That happened to me this past weekend over a purple Easter egg. Well, I wanted it to be purple. For the better part of my life I have wondered why there were no purple Easter eggs — and yes, I was a strange kid. We would get the PAAS egg-coloring kit (sometimes the fancy ones, sometimes the basic 5-color) and go to town, but Purple never worked. Red worked… Okay, Pink worked, and Blue worked, but Purple was more like Pink strangled Blue and left Evidence of the Crime. Purple was never truly, you know, “purple,” like a grape or an amethyst. It was Pink vs. Blue on a boiled egg.

My sister tells me that PAAS has really branched out since we were tots and that they do in fact have Purple. I’m not so sure, and I submit as evidence a close up of her children dyeing eggs (I’d show you the kids but they’re so revoltingly cute you’d never notice the eggs).


I see many lovely shades of Blue. I do not see Purple.

This bothers me on a deep, philosophical level. Scientifically, it should work; In both additive and subtractive color spaces, Purple is the combination of Red and Blue. Surely a Red dye with a few drops of Blue, or a Blue dye with a few drops of Red, should be somewhere in the ball-park?

All right, look — here are two lovely eggs. Believe it or not, they’re brown eggs. I used your basic grocery store food dye and made a nice coral color and a spring green.


And look at this. I’m being honest here, no Photoshop tricks. Is this not a purple dye? Dare I say, violaceous, even purplescent?


So what is this? Two Easter eggs and an eight ball?


Here’s a lovely shot; you can really see the striping effect. Makes it look like a slightly ominous melon, lurking, while two sweet Easter eggs unsuspectingly frolic about. (Dare I say it also looks like a more colorful re-enactment of the “before” stage in a Zoloft commercial?)


I think the second the egg hit the water I knew it wasn’t going to work, and yet, I couldn’t stop the process. I think I hoped by sheer saturation of color that something might happen. Being a brown egg certainly didn’t help matters, but it doesn’t explain the disaster completely. Why doesn’t mixing red and blue dye work? What causes the inevitable streaking seen even in my PAAS days? The result looked like the black jellybean that nobody wants to eat.


Back in college I had some Greek friends who celebrated Easter according to the Orthodox calendar. In Greece they dye all their eggs red, to represent the drops of blood Christ shed on the Cross (it’s also the color that represents Life and Renewal, I think). When they got hold of the red dye from a PAAS kit, they were horrified, truly upset. “They’re pink!” they wailed, “We can’t use pink eggs!” I’m not sure what they eventually did, but I feel for them now.

I set the Fugly Egg it out on the coffee table to contemplate. The other two were eventually eaten, but this one remained, so maybe there is an up-side to being dyed an awful color. In better light it actually looked navy blue. Sort of. I have since found out that if you want blood-red eggs, you make a dye from yellow onion skins. I am contemplating possibilities for next year, and I am seeing purple onions and cabbages in my future.

I will succeed, or I will take Bad to a whole new level.