Slim Curried Deviled Eggs

Easter weekend. The base chapel was packed. Caleb had baseball practice Tuesday and Thursday. I drove.

Caleb, 8, wants to be a firefighter still. Has not deviated. Hazel, 4, chaos incarnate. Put a peanut butter sandwich in the DVD player Wednesday. Showed zero remorse.

Pasta salad for the cookout. Italian dressing. Olives. The standard.

Megan called from D.C.. We talked twenty minutes. The relationship is better now than it was.

Donna would say: dinner at 1800, no exceptions. We did 1800.

I went to the commissary Saturday morning. Got the grocery haul under sixty bucks for the week, which is a small victory. The cashier knows me. We talked about her grandkids while she scanned the chicken thighs and the family-size box of pasta. Small-town energy on a Marine base in California.

Ryan went to his counselor Wednesday. He always comes home calmer. I am calm too, just from him being calm. The man Torres was killed with — Ryan calls his wife twice a year on Torres's birthday and the anniversary. The military widows are their own community.

I read the blog comments at the kitchen table with my coffee. A young spouse in Lejeune emailed me about deployment cooking. I wrote her back at length. I told her about the freezer. I told her about Donna. I told her she would survive. I sent her three of Donna's recipes.

Caleb watched the firefighters at a school visit Wednesday and came home buzzing. He is going to be one. I have known this since he was four. Some kids tell you who they are early.

Wednesday morning meal prep — Sunday afternoon, hours of containers. The freezer is full. The future-me thanks present-me. Donna taught me this routine. Donna's freezer was always full. Donna saved her sanity with quart bags labeled in Sharpie.

The Friday before-school morning was chaos. Three kids, two backpacks, one missing shoe. We all made it to the bus. I drank cold coffee at nine AM because that's when I sat down. Standard.

Donna sent a recipe card in the mail this week. She has been doing this for years. The recipes go in the binder. The binder is full. The newest one is for a green bean casserole that uses fresh green beans and fried shallots and which I will absolutely make for the next holiday.

Caleb's school had a fundraiser this week. I baked cookies because I always bake cookies. The cookies were the standard chocolate chip. They sold out in twenty minutes. I am the cookie mom of this PTO and I have stopped fighting it.

I made a casserole for a neighbor whose husband is deployed. I dropped it off. She cried. I told her, eat the casserole, baby. The food is the saying. The casserole was a mostly-frozen tater-tot situation that took fifteen minutes of effort and six months of practice to perfect.

Reading another military memoir at night. They make Ryan tense. They steady me. We negotiate. He doesn't ask what I'm reading. I don't tell him. The arrangement works.

I sat at the kitchen table Tuesday night writing in the journal. Volume 11 now. The handwriting has not gotten neater. The journals are a record of the life I am living, in the moment, in tiny script that I will look back on someday and not be able to read. That is okay. The writing was the thing.

I unpacked another box from storage Tuesday afternoon. Three years on this base and I am still finding things I packed in Twentynine Palms. Military-wife archeology — every box is a layer of geological history. I found a ceramic dish from Lejeune still wrapped in newspaper from 2020.

The pasta salad was already done when I thought to make these—they’re the thing I bring alongside it every time because they disappear faster and require almost nothing from me. Donna was the one who told me to add curry powder, years ago on a base in North Carolina, and I have not made plain deviled eggs since. For an Easter cookout that starts at 1800 and involves three kids who have already had too much sugar, you want food that takes fifteen minutes and looks like you tried.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 12 min | Total Time: 30 min | Servings: 12 (2 halves per serving)

Ingredients

6 large eggs
2 tablespoons light mayonnaise
1 teaspoon yellow mustard
3/4 teaspoon curry powder
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
Salt and black pepper, to taste
Paprika, for garnish
Fresh chives, thinly sliced, for garnish (optional)

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 boil over medium-high heat, then cover, remove from heat, and let sit 10–12 minutes. Transfer eggs to an ice bath and let cool completely, about 5 minutes.
Peel and halve. Gently peel the cooled eggs and slice each in half lengthwise. Pop the yolks into a small mixing bowl and arrange the whites on a serving platter.
Make the filling. Mash the yolks with a fork until no large lumps remain. Add the mayonnaise, mustard, curry powder, turmeric, and garlic powder. Stir until smooth and creamy. Season with salt and black pepper to taste.
Fill the whites. Spoon or pipe the yolk mixture back into each egg white half, mounding it slightly. A zip-top bag with the corner snipped works fine if you don’t have a piping bag.
Garnish and serve. Dust lightly with paprika and scatter chives over the top if using. Serve immediately or refrigerate covered for up to 24 hours before the cookout.

Nutrition (per serving)

Slim Curried Deviled Eggs — The Cookout Tray That Disappears Before the Pasta Salad