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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Sunday Morning Open Thread: Happy Easter!

Sunday Morning Open Thread: Happy Easter!

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Sunday Morning Open Thread: Happy Easter!

On Monday, thousands of children in their springiest finery will descend on the lush green grass of the White House’s South Lawn for the annual Easter Egg Roll. A costumed Easter Bunny is one of the usual VIPs, along with the president and first lady (and typically a few celebrities, too). But the star of the show?…

This year, those eggs will have traveled a circuitous 493-mile route to the grassy expanse at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. from a family farm in North Carolina, which pulled off a massive effort to hard-boil, dye and deliver 30,000 eggs.

Washington will be awash in eggs — about 15,000 more will be used in the food served to the tens of thousands of attendees, and 36,000 more are being donated this week to the Capital Area Food Bank by Sauder’s Eggs, a Pennsylvania egg producer, as part of a nationwide donation campaign by the American Egg Board, which has long helped sponsor the White House event.

But getting the eggs to the big show took a crack operation.

“It’s like being in Santa’s workshop,” says Trey Braswell, whose Nashville, N.C.-based company, Braswell Family Farms, donated the eggs destined for the South Lawn. “It’s such an honor.” Braswell, who is in the fourth generation of his family to run the farm, says the business has provided eggs for the event several times in its 145-year history. But last year, the request came in with a not-so-insignificant asterisk: The eggs would need to be delivered hard-boiled and colored in vibrant Easter tones…

And they did, a days-long process that involved mixing dyes to get the five colors that match the commemorative wooden eggs that the White House Historical Association provides all attendees. He came up with an assembly-line process — eggs going into four pans boiling at once on two commercial stoves, then being cooled in an ice bath, dropped into a solution of vinegar and food-safe coloring, hand-dried, and finally tucked into cartons and refrigerated.

The different dyes are absorbed at varying rates, McMillan noted, so they had to be carefully monitored and timed to reach the exact shades of neon pink, green, orange, royal blue and aqua. Ten thousand were boiled but left undyed for children to decorate…

And after the last egg has been hunted, it still will not be over for the event’s yolk-centered dignitaries: The egg board has arranged for a company that specializes in food recycling to compost the eggs for use in parks and community gardens…

Reader Interactions

140Comments

  3. 3.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Blech.
    Bah! Humbug!
    Another pothole in the road of life.

    My STL DIL has the day off tomorrow and, believe it or not, has decided she is going to spend the day with her daughters. Ergo, we miss out on granddaughters day this week! WHO DOES SHE THINK SHE IS??? THEIR MOTHER???

    The nerve of some people.

  4. 4.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Brachiator: ​Wolverines however aren’t very cuddly. They are mean SOBs. I read a story once about a wolverine fighting off a grizzly over a caribou carcass.

  7. 7.

    prostratedragon

    And Happy Appomattox Surrender Day! Some day someone official will notice that there is no holiday or commemoration (not necessarily a party day!) associated with the Civil War, beyond an acknowledgement of Lincoln’s birthday. Maybe for the 200th anniversary two years from now.

  10. 10.

    NotMax

    Mundane personal note. Once in a while the gods deign to be kind.

    Mentioned in passing there was a sale at a market in town Friday only on boneless leg o’ lamb at $5 a pound. Friday was also a state holiday plus the beginning of a holiday weekend, so decided not to brave the extra traffic and crowds.

    Saturday was in town for the monthly grocery and errand run. What did I spy at Costco? A refrigerated bin piled high with boneless legs of lamb, all at $10 off the price label. Scored a six pound beauty for 18 smackeroos — three bucks per pound! Happy camper I now that it is nestled in the freezer.

  13. 13.

    JPL

    I’m going to the great Easter Egg hunt this morning.   My son hides the eggs in plain sight for the boys to find.  It’s sunny and 43 so it should be fun.

    Have a wonderful day, whatever your plans are.

  14. 14.

    SiubhanDuinne

    It’s also the 25th anniversary of the Dunwoody (GA) tornado, which missed my apartment unit but touched down and wrought destruction on half a dozen nearby buildings. The cat and I hunkered down in the bathtub as the tornado blew through. The storm did massive damage to the area. Took out 100,000 trees. Not a typo.

    Happy Easter to all who celebrate!

  15. 15.

    Baud

    @JPL:

    My son hides the eggs in plain sight for the boys to find.

     
    Might as well give them participation trophies.

  16. 16.

    Geminid

    There could be some good Easter news coming from Yemen. From Reuters reports on Friday:

    Saudi and Omani Delegates Head to Yemen For Peace Talks With Houthi Officials

    A Saudi-Omani Delegation is set to travel next week to Yemen for peace talks with Houthi officials, two anonymous sources told Reuters on Friday.

    The goal of the talks is to form a permanent ceasefire between Saudi Arabia and the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen, with Oman mediating.

    The talks come after Iran and Saudi Arabia- who have been on opposite sides for years in the Yemen conflict- recently agreed to renew their relationship with China facilitating the beginning of the restoration process.

    Last night someone tweeted a photo of the Saudi delegation arriving in Sanaa, the capital of Houthi-controlled Yemen.

    Last year the UN said the civil war in Yemen had caused the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. A series of temporary ceasefires allowed some relief; hopefully this stalemated war will finally end and Yemenis can start rebuilding their lives. It will be a divided country, but I don’t think many people there care that much.

  24. 24.

    prostratedragon

    Baud@9: So there is, forgot about that one. But that’s new, and even among Black folks no one made much of it before the last decade or so. The New Year’s Eve vigils in old-line Black churches originated with waiting for Proclamation Day.

  25. 25.

    Cacti

    Today’s the day where Jebus rose from the tomb, and if he saw his shadow, only 3 more weeks of winter, right?

  28. 28.

    prostratedragon

    Tell you what, I submit everything to you for editing today8)

    Though come to think of it we may need the extra 40 years (40 good to go, Baud?)

  31. 31.

    mali muso

    @NotMax: I do love a good deal! Going t be checking my Costco next week as well.

    kiddo successfully hunted her eggs this morning. I think this may be the last year that she believes in the magic bunny, but we are enjoying every minute of childlike wonder.

  32. 32.

    NotMax

    Also noticed while out and about was the signage above the doorway of a not yet open for business shop. Unusual typeface. From way across the other side of the parking lot it appeared to read “Raven Bones.”

    “Huh?” mused I. “What the hell could that be? Maybe some sort of Wiccans R Us establishment?”

    Upon driving closer realized it actually spelled out “Ramen Bones,” a coming soon new eatery, to judge by the posters portraying food now in view in the windows. Which is still a very strange name.

  33. 33.

    mrmoshpotato

    Happy Easter to all who celebrate Jesus hatching from the egg laid by the Easter bunny.

  34. 34.

    NotMax

    @Geminid

    It will be a divided country

    Wouldn’t be the first time. Split into two countries from the late 1960s until the early 90s.

  35. 35.

    p.a.

    I can’t watch the Sunday talking head political shows ’cause I’ll break things, but anyone with more even tempers: are they on this holiday?  If yes, any coverage of Clarence KOA Thomas?

    There may be little we can actually do besides make these lifers uncomfortable, but you see the way Scalito scuttles off to a safe forum and squeals like a stuck pig for even being questioned about his bullshit.  Let’s have some Senate queries, get some documentation; even if Clarence’s response is “fuck you”, that’s helpful too.  No one should be worried about delegitimizing the SCOTUS, that’s a done deal, and Dems in DC should trumpet that daily, pointing out who did it and why.

    Make him deal with daily shit so Thomas take that big fat pension and goes to rot in retirement.

  36. 36.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Florida teacher fired for asking students to pen obituaries for active shooter drill

    A Florida teacher who was fired from his school after asking his students to write their own obituaries in advance of an on-campus active shooter drill says he has no regrets about the assignment that cost him his job.

    “It wasn’t to scare them or make them feel like they were going to die, but just to help them understand what’s important in their lives and how they want to move forward with their lives and how they want to pursue things in their journey,” the dismissed psychology teacher, Jeffrey Keene, told NBC News.
    …………………………..
    According to NBC, Keene learned that his 11th- and 12th-grade students at Dr Phillips high school in the Orlando area would be rehearsing how to respond to a shooting attack at their campus during their first period on 4 April. That prompted him to ask his students to write their own biographical obituaries as classwork, reasoning that the assignment would cause them to reflect on their lives as they prepared to undergo the active shooter drill.

    “This isn’t a way to upset you or anything like that,” Keene recalled telling his class of 35 students. He added: “If you can’t talk real to them, then what’s happening in this environment?”

    Seeing the headline my first thought was, “Not the smartest move.” but finding it was a class of 11th and 12th graders, I’m a little more sympathetic. 16-18 year olds are already talking about it, but I guess school officials would prefer to pretend they aren’t.

  37. 37.

    delphinium

    @NotMax: Ha, apparently they missed Graphic Design 101 class-use a typeface your customers can easily read.

    That is a bit of an odd name-don’t usually associate bones with ramen. Sounds like a name that would be in a YT witchcraft/fantasy book.

  40. 40.

    Baud

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    He should have had them write about what they would say to Jesus when they got shot and died.  Then DeSantis would have promoted him to Secretary of Education.

  42. 42.

    delphinium

    @p.a.: I haven’t watched any of them for decades. But wouldn’t surprise me if one of them criticized Biden for doing an Easter egg hunt this year, given the current price of eggs and the media’s focus on that.

  45. 45.

    Matt McIrvin

    @delphinium: Ramen traditionally uses bone broth, so ramen bones are definitely a thing, though you won’t encounter them in the dish.

  46. 46.

    Mike E

    @delphinium: I’m not sure about the Pa. farm but the eggs provided by the NC farm were donated (which I learned thru the media). They consider it an honor to participate in the WH Easter egg hunt.

  49. 49.

    delphinium

    @Mike E: Yes, I read that. : ) Was making a joke that the media would focus on “will no one think of the price of eggs?” rather than the Clarence Thomas ethical issues, given our less than stellar MSM.

  51. 51.

    prostratedragon

    Geminid@29: Thanks, but I now have breakfast, which should help almost as much and is cheaper than your editor’s travel expenses, and might also facilitate a little sleep. [nom, nom]

  52. 52.

    mrmoshpotato

    @OzarkHillbilly: How long until there’s a school shooting there?  I hope the students have reflected on how they don’t have to live like this.  This gun-humping country.

  58. 58.

    WaterGirl

    @Betty Cracker: She is so lovely!  I think she deserves to be front paged for all the world to see.

    I could NEVER cut into her.  Okay, I might sneak a bit off the back end where no one could see it. :-)

  60. 60.

    Anyway

    @NotMax:

    Score! on the lamb. Will it get cooked in the Instant Pot?

    The size of the Costco meat portions scare me off…

  65. 65.

    hueyplong

    Let’s compromise and call it 160 years in 2025.

    I also celebrate April 2 (Richmond taken) and September 2 (Atlanta taken).

    Would be fun to take Tallahassee.

  66. 66.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Anyway:

    The size of the Costco meat portions scare me off… 

    Boo!

    Probably not having a big enough freezer scares me off. :(

  71. 71.

    NotMax

    @Anyway

    Could be but leaning to going with oven roasting. Will whip up some kind of honey mustard rosemary garlic whatever else rub.

  75. 75.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Betty Cracker:

    I’ll have to dig through my unorganised photo archives and find all of your previous butter lambs for comparison, but I do think this one may be the cutest ever! Fine job, Betty!

  77. 77.

    WaterGirl

    @MagdaInBlack: But we have not had the parade of lambs throughout the years!

    One year, I went into the Media library, tracked down all the butter lambs one by one and renamed the image title so one could easily type “butter lamb” in the search field and pull up all the photos.

    I am crossing my fingers that Betty will make a post of all of them.

  81. 81.

    WaterGirl

    @CaseyL: I thought it was a new presentation, too!   I did not remember that dish.

    But I went back and checked the media library, and sure enough, that same dish was the display case for the lamb.  Sometimes she was on a butter wrapper ON the dish, and one year it was a white dish.

  85. 85.

    Highway Rob

    Lurker & latecomer to this thread and I’m shocked and appalled by all this Orthodox-erasure. ;-)

     

    Buuuuut seriously folks, married into a Coptic family—my dad-in-law loved My Big Fat Greek Wedding UNTIL she brought me to visit for the first time—and one of my favorite parts of the year is reminding the kiddos that they get two Easters. It also gets me off the hook for egg hunts. Yay!

     

    Happy easter / palm Sunday to all who celebrate!  (And awesome lamb, Betty.)

  86. 86.

    lowtechcyclist

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Seeing the headline my first thought was, “Not the smartest move.” but finding it was a class of 11th and 12th graders, I’m a little more sympathetic. 16-18 year olds are already talking about it, but I guess school officials would prefer to pretend they aren’t.

    I was seriously contemplating suicide at 15.  Many teens do at one point or another.  I would expect such an assignment to be less than helpful.

  89. 89.

    oatler

    Having leftover pizza for Easter (shame on you  that want to call it passedover pizza). But my weekend can be described in a comment about SNL I just read:

    I turned off the closed captioning because it was blocking the view of Molly’s camel toe and immediately asked myself: “What are you doing with your life???”

  90. 90.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Betty Cracker:

    Very nice!

    I even recognized the (upside-down) map in the background.  That’s Anna Maria Island over the lamb’s head, and Egmont Key next to its ear.

  91. 91.

    Another Scott

    The crows (or the foxes?) around here seem to be enjoying Easter. I’ve found at least 3 plastic eggshells in the front and back yard this morning. I wonder if anything will be left for the kiddies at the hunt at the park later today.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  93. 93.

    Layer8Problem

    I spent too much time yesterday disassembling a large multisection Ikea bookshelf for reassembly elsewhere. Puting Ikea stuff together out of the box is a test of one’s spatial relationship skills. Taking Ikea stuff apart teaches one that Ikea stuff actively HATES being taken apart. I expect that at the end of the reassemble job I will have a pile of particle board sawdust with little bits of metal in it.

    Oh yeah, and Happy Easter. Must score a chocolate bunny somewhere. Solid, not hollow.

  96. 96.

    lowtechcyclist

    @hueyplong:

    Let’s compromise and call it 160 years in 2025.

    I also celebrate April 2 (Richmond taken) and September 2 (Atlanta taken).

    Works for me.  Yeah, WWII had V-E Day and V-J Day, WWI had Armistice Day, but the Civil War didn’t really have any V-Confederacy day.  After Appomattox, the war was all but over, but it still just kinda petered out from there.

    Would be fun to take Tallahassee.

    We may have to.

  99. 99.

    frosty

    @WaterGirl: ​
     Thank you for that! I was just wondering how many of the butter lambs I’d seen. IIRC she did a tutorial on how to make them one of those years.

  105. 105.

    narya

    Personally, I’m celebrating Peeps-on-sale Eve . . .

    Made a (thanksgiving) turkey last night, largely to get it out of the freezer, and am currently making stock with the bones. I’m patting myself on the back just a little, because more often than not I put the bones in the freezer and wait until they’re good and frostbit before I make the stock. No clue what I’m making for dinner today, though.

  107. 107.

    geg6

    @Betty Cracker:

    Great butter lamb!  The ears are my favorite part.

    Got to get moving on my honey butter roasted carrots, come to think of it.  Family gathering and they DEMAND honey butter carrots.

  110. 110.

    mali muso

    This year we tried something different for our egg dyeing activity.  We did not boil the eggs, just decorated and dyed raw eggs.  Put them back in the fridge after the artistic activity was completed and will just continue to use them for regular egg eating/cooking throughout the week.  No boiled eggs to figure out a use for!

  111. 111.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Highway Rob: Most years, my kid has gotten two Halloweens because my town does trick-or-treat on the last Saturday in October, and other towns stick to the 31st. She makes the most of that! (She’s fond of dressing up in costumes and I’m pretty sure Halloween is her favorite holiday of the year by a giant margin.)

    As for Easter, we did most of our celebrating with the in-laws yesterday, and today my main tasks are to get our taxes done and grill the big damn steak we got a couple days ago. It’s a handsome steak.

  114. 114.

    mrmoshpotato

    @MagdaInBlack: “works just as well with lamb, but with a deeper, funkier flavor that stand up to even more aggressive spicing.”

    The author is really getting into it.

  118. 118.

    Kristine

    Lamb loin chops marinating for grilling later today. At this point I’m planning to bake sweet potatoes and treat them like russets–split them open and top with butter & Greek yogurt–but I may change my mind and stick with russets. Roasted asparagus. Homemade Sicilian-style chocolate gelato for dessert.

  120. 120.

    Another Scott

    @prostratedragon:

    HeatherCoxRichardson:

    On April 8, 1865, General Ulysses S. Grant was having a hard night.

    His army had been harrying Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s for days, and Grant knew it was only a question of time before Lee had to surrender. The people in the Virginia countryside were starving, and Lee’s army was melting away. Just that morning a Confederate colonel had thrown himself on Grant’s mercy after realizing that he was the only man in his entire regiment who had not already abandoned the cause. But while Grant had twice asked Lee to surrender, Lee still insisted his men could fight on.

    So, on the night of April 8, Grant retired to bed in a Virginia farmhouse, dirty, tired, and miserable with a migraine. He spent the night “bathing my feet in hot water and mustard, and putting mustard plasters on my wrists and the back part of my neck, hoping to be cured by morning.” It didn’t work. When morning came, Grant pulled on his clothes from the day before and rode out to the head of his column with his head throbbing.

    […]

    Worth a click.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  122. 122.

    narya

    @mrmoshpotato: I get a heritage turkey from a local purveyor of hippie meat (Mint Creek Farms, since IIRC you’re in the vicinity), and it is sooooo good. All of their products are so tasty–they HAVE FLAVOR!–and they treat their animals well. I got the turkey in the fall, but didn’t get around to making it, and I finally got tired of having to move it around in the chest freezer to make room for stuff.

  124. 124.

    Kay

    Good article on corruption/loss of credibility re: federal courts:

    Take a look at this picture. It conveys much of why the Supreme Court’s decline in legitimacy is merited. In 2018, a Supreme Court Justice, Clarence Thomas, is swearing in a 5th Circuit Judge (and potential future SCOTUS pick) James Ho, with Senator Ted Cruz standing nearby.
    Unremarkable enough, so far. If you have heard of Ho, a former Thomas clerk, it may because he is one of two conservative justices who are boycotting hiring law students from schools he views as not being sufficiently friendly to conservatives. Their pledge is to fight viewpoint discrimination with…uh…hiring discrimination.
    So lets add some context to make the significance clearer.
    Where did the swearing in occur?
    At the private library of a GOP mega-donor Harlan Crow. Crow has donated $10 million in disclosed political contributions, plus an unknown amount in undisclosed donations, helped found and fund conservative organizations such as the Club for Growth. He is, by any measure, someone who has used his wealth and power to shape American politics and jurisprudence.
    If it seems remarkable that the swearing in of public officials are being held at the residences of partisan money men, it gets worse. It seems very likely that Thomas was flown down by the Crow from DC on his private jet. And did not report this gift, in conflict with federal law. And that this was merely one of the smaller incidents in a decades-long relationship where Thomas and his wife were gifted lavish vacations that he failed to report. One such gift, which involved a private jet to Indonesia, and an island hopping-vacation on a yacht was estimated to be worth $500,000.

    We could reform this by putting strong safeguards in to check the judges with real oversight, where what they report will actually be read, examined and acted upon if they violate and insist they behave like the public employees they are. I would prefer a blunt approach- a harsh check- something like term limits or a mandatory retirement age, but even moderate reforms would send a message that the public won’t put up with this abuse of power. Maybe moderate reforms would get their attention (I don’t believe this – I think they’re going to need strong reforms and rigorous oversight or the abuse will continue) but one could try moderate first, I suppose.

  127. 127.

    Matt McIrvin

    @NotMax: That movie is a gem. I need to show it to my daughter (who is a ramen aficionado and a stickler for presentation).

  129. 129.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Kay: ​
     

    I’d be all for a Constitutional amendment establishing term limits for SCOTUS.

    The problem with a mandatory retirement age is that they’ll just keep on putting fairly young people on SCOTUS, which is what they did with Thomas, who was 43 when he was confirmed for SCOTUS. ACB and Gorsuch were also in their 40s when they started serving on the Supreme Court.

  131. 131.

    Anyway

    @lowtechcyclist:

    I like the idea of 17-yr term limits. Longer than back-to-back 2-term presidents. Feels fair.

    There’ll be counter-arguments for every proposal– gotta get the idea into the mix and build support to move away from life-term appointments.

  133. 133.

    Kay

    @lowtechcyclist:

    You have to think a little longer term with age limits. It would shake things up in a way that would be very hard to game once the obvious play was done and priced in – appoint younger justices. They would all do that- appoint younger, but they’re doing it anyway.

    Ive mentioned this before but Ohio has a mandatory retirement age for judges. The judges tried to take it out with a referendum they backed and it went down in flames– 60% in favor of mandatory retirement age. I think people think it’s a reasonable ask in return for a very prestigious and sought after job.

  136. 136.

    narya

    @Kay: Might be a dead thread . . . but how about a MINIMUM age as well as a maximum age? 40 to . . . 75, maybe?

  138. 138.

    dww44

    @narya: I think term limits is what is needed plus a very strong and enforceable Code of Ethics. With that I don’t think we need age limits, except maybe at the lower end.   Since we’ve 35 for Presidents, 40 for a SC sounds about right.  For sure they need some judicial experience under their belts.

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