by Carol Dunn

Created on: July 24, 2011

Deviled Eggs for the Potluck -

I had been working in the accounting department for about six months when we had our first company-wide potluck dinner.  When you’re a new employee, you want to make a good impression in a situation like that, but we were tight on money at home.  So I’d have to make something with ingredients we already had on hand.  Since we raised chickens, we had plenty of fresh eggs.  So I settled on deviled eggs.  Most everyone loves them, and I had a good recipe that I had tried several times before.  Deviled eggs take up space, and I knew refrigerator space at work would be at a premium because of casseroles and salads.  So, since the potluck was at the end of the day, I decided to take the hard boiled eggs to work and do the final preparation in the kitchen, just before the meal.  After all, how long could it take to cut eggs in half and whip up the yolks with the other ingredients for the filling?

The trouble started right away when I cracked the first hard-boiled egg.  It wasn’t peeling well.  Matter of fact, the shell was stuck tight to the white.  As I pulled the shell off, about half the white came off with it.  It looked utterly hideous.  I thought maybe it was just a cantankerous egg.  So I tried another one.  Same thing.  No matter how I pried with my fingernails, this shell wasn’t coming off well either.  I had boiled a dozen eggs, so there would be plenty, and now I realized this wasn’t going to turn out well.  At this rate, it would take me an hour just to peel them, and they were going to be ugly, too!  I started to sweat. 

Just then, a nice lady walked up and commented about the difficulty I was having peeling the eggs.  She asked, “How old were your eggs?”  I answered, “Pretty fresh.”  She solved the mystery when she said, “Oh they have to be at least two weeks old before you hard boil them if you want them to peel well.”  I could have slapped my forehead.  I never knew that.  Then she asked, “Did you rinse them in ice water after you boiled them?”  Who does that?  Not me.  Now I would have 24 deformed and hideous deviled egg halves because I was a hard-boiled idiot.  Introducing herself as Donna, she offered to help me finish peeling eggs, and I gladly accepted her offer.  Otherwise I’d still be in the kitchen peeling eggs while everyone else was eating. 

When we finished, she told me she would always remember this experience.  And I knew I would be remembered as that silly girl who didn’t know much about hard-boiled eggs.  I didn’t make much of a good impression with this potluck dish.   I finished my preparation and slid the plate of eggs onto the potluck table along with the salads.  They looked ridiculous, but I had done my part for the meal.

As I took my seat for the meal, I glanced up at the head table.  Surprisingly, there was Donna, my egg-peeling helper.  And she was seated beside none other than her husband, the president of the company. 

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