Classic Egg Salad

Fourth of July. The first without Earl, which I keep saying about everything — the first Easter, the first Mother's Day, the first Father's Day, the first Fourth — and I wonder when the firsts will stop. A year. After a year, every holiday will have been faced once without him, and then they become seconds, which are supposed to be easier, though I suspect "easier" is a lie people tell the grieving to give them something to aim for.

No cookout at the Thunderbolt house this year. I didn't have it in me. Instead, Denise and Robert hosted, and I went there, and I brought potato salad — my potato salad, with egg and mustard and relish, the recipe that Earl said was the best in Georgia and which I have no reason to doubt because the man ate it for forty-three summers.

Kayla brought Devon. This is now officially serious — not because she says so, but because he's at family events and nobody questions it. He fits. He holds the door, he helps with the grill, he talks to Miss Corrine like she's the most interesting person in the room, and he looks at Kayla the way I want every man to look at my granddaughter: like she invented oxygen. I still haven't formally approved him. I'm making him wait. It builds character.

We watched the fireworks from Denise's backyard — you can see the ones over downtown from there, small and distant but still bright. I sat in a lawn chair and Kayla sat on the ground beside me and put her head on my knee, and we watched the sky light up and I thought about all the Fourth of Julys — the ones with Michael in the yard and Earl at the grill and the kids running with sparklers and the whole family together, whole and loud and alive. We are smaller now. But we are still here. The fireworks don't know the difference.

Made watermelon agua fresca — something new. Kayla found the recipe: just watermelon, lime, sugar, water. Simple, cold, perfect for this heat. Earl would have said, "What happened to sweet tea?" I would have said, "It's still in the pitcher. Drink both." He would have. He always would have.

Now go on and feed somebody.

The potato salad I brought to Denise and Robert’s is really built on the same bones as a good egg salad — hard-boiled eggs, yellow mustard, sweet relish, a little something to hold it all together — and that’s the recipe I want to leave you with, because it’s the one Earl loved and the one I made with shaking hands this year and the one that still came out right even when nothing else did. If you make it cold and let it sit before you serve it, it tastes like every summer you’ve ever had.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 12 minutes | Total Time: 27 minutes (plus chilling) | Servings: 6

Ingredients

8 large eggs
1/3 cup mayonnaise
1 tablespoon yellow mustard
2 tablespoons sweet pickle relish
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
Salt and black pepper to taste
1 tablespoon fresh chives or green onion, finely chopped (optional)
Paprika for garnish

Instructions

Hard-boil the eggs. Place eggs in a single layer in a saucepan and cover with cold water by one inch. Bring to a full boil over medium-high heat, then cover, remove from heat, and let sit for 12 minutes.
Cool and peel. Transfer eggs to an ice bath and let sit for 5 minutes. Peel carefully under cool running water and pat dry.
Chop the eggs. Roughly chop the peeled eggs into small pieces — some chunks are fine, this isn’t meant to be perfectly smooth.
Mix the dressing. In a medium bowl, stir together mayonnaise, mustard, relish, garlic powder, and onion powder until combined.
Combine. Fold the chopped eggs into the dressing until everything is evenly coated. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Chill before serving. Cover and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes — an hour is better. The flavor deepens as it sits. Garnish with chives and a dusting of paprika before serving.

Nutrition (per serving)

Classic Egg Salad — The Recipe That Carried Forty-Three Summers