An Alternative Yet Casual Easter Lunch Menu
Preparation in advance is the key to success. What I am making for the Bring A Pie Party/Darts Bonanza gathering this Good Friday, plus how free childcare upped my bible knowledge.
Easter is traditionally a family time but as my children get older, they seem to be more into My Protein orders than they are into Creme Eggs. Sigh. It’s not the same. Years ago, when they were very little, we introduced my Kerman family tradition of mini egg hunting in the garden early on Easter Sunday morning. When I say early, I'm talking about when they woke up, which could be anywhere between 4.30 am and 7.00 am if they fancied a lie in. I've always felt sorry for our neighbours back in those days who were awoken before dawn to shouts of 'it's mine, get off it!' before they'd even had a cup of tea. What this tradition meant was that the Easter Bunny had to hide the eggs in unexpected and inspiring places in the garden the night before, ready for the egg hunt. From the very first year of commencing this custom, we realised that we'd made a terrible error.
The night before is, of course, a Saturday. The times that I've forced Joe into the garden in rain and hail to delicately place mini eggs on fence posts whilst under the influence of five gin and tonics and a bottle of Vina Sol are countless. This also meant that his egg hiding locations were slightly skewed and it wasn't uncommon to find Creme Eggs in the borders as late as six months after the egg hunt date. As the children got older, we made an executive decision that the Easter Bunny possessed powers that enabled him to enter the house and hide the eggs in the living room. This was much more acceptable from a Saturday night point of view and involved far less thought. This was all fine until the kids decided that they were scared of the Easter Bunny and refused to go to sleep for fear of a ten foot rabbit resembling Frank from Donny Darko teleporting himself into the lounge.
In our family, the concept of Easter is far more chocolate than Church. This isn't because I didn't have any religious input into my upbringing. We lived directly opposite the St Andrews United Reform Church and every Sunday morning, my parents would hoist us out of bed and send us yawning across the road for Sunday School so that they could have an extra two hours in bed. Before I knew it, I was attending Concorse (the equivalent of Senior Sunday School) and Ichthus (this involved A LOT of Bible reading). I had no idea how this had happened. From my parents utilising a free and easy childcare option to my siblings to myself being versed in high evangelism, by the time I reached my early teens I realised that my faith lay mostly in The Case Is Altered on Eastcote High Street and I waved goodbye to Ichthus with not a backward glance.
But back to the food, and this year, due to logistics, we are staying in York for the Easter weekend instead of hitting Reading and as a result, we are having our biggest Easter celebration on Good Friday, when we have planned a Bring A Pie event with our friends and their children. This is a self explanatory gathering, obvs - everyone is bringing a homemade pie and we are planning a darts tournament to rival any that Luke Littler may deign to play in. Yes, yes, it is NOT the traditional Easter roast but I quite like that. The older I get, the less I am inclined to stick to tradition. In addition, some of our best friends are vegan so will arrive complete with vegan pie which covers that off, but I like to do other dishes that will work for them too as well as the excessive amount of meat eaters.
So this is what I’ll be making - the camembert and sausages are old classics I’ve been making for years but they are super simple and a little bit more exciting as a pre dinner snack then a packet of Walkers.